Earliest four?

Ok, but that's a mere technicality :]

that'll teach me to read the post properly, wont it?

 

Take two aspirins and masturbate. You might get *some* satisfaction
that way... ;-)

 

Who needs the Aspirin?

J.

 

If I said, "piss off", would you get the point?

HTH

 

LOL

 

Indeed. Mind you, the correct stuff is usually wrapped up in hundreds,
if not thousands, of words of irrelevant waffle.

Question from a poster: "I'm trying to undo my bike's spark plug, but it
seems very stiff. Am I doing something wrong?"

Answer from most posters: "They all do that, sir. Just apply a bit more
force, carefully. Clean the threads on the plug up before replacing it."

Answer from B12:

"First you have to say what sort of spark plug it is. Remember that
spark plug is not the correct term anyway. The spark plug does not
generate the spark, because that is handled by radio and gravitational
waves beamed down from Planet Zarg. Nor is it a plug because (and anyone
can try this), if you put it in the hole in your bath, the water will
still leak out.

Nor is it an electrical plug, because it does not have any wires
connected to it. I remember some guy in a $tealership trying to sell me
three NGK B8ES plugs and telling me that, sure, they'd get my computer,
food mixer and television working. Well, I wasn't paying eight bucks
apiece for that, so I got in my pick-up and drove 40 miles to the next
town where I knew I could get some plastic stock and wires, and I made
my own. You could do the same.

A spark plug has to be done up tight because if it is left loose and
just dangling on the end of the wires, then the engine will have no
compression and it won't run. I thought everyone knew this.

Get some Berryman's carb cleaner and add a gallon to a piont of petrol.
It won't actually help the spark plug, but it'll make you feel like
you've achieved something.

Next, get a spark plug wrench. Before you do that you'll need to see how
big the flats are on the spark plug. Some have 16mm flats. Some have
18mm. Some have really small ones. To do this, you need two stiff
straight pieces of steel stock. Put them down the spark plug tunnel,
making sure they're parallel, and measure the gap between the ends.

Now you know what size plug spanner to use.

Remember that you have to remove the spark plug cap from the end of the
plug before you attach the spanner. This is attached to the ignition
system by a wire. Lots of people call it a spark plug "lead", but
they're ignorant. It's a wire, like for cutting cheese.

Push the plug spanner down over the spark plug. Now you have to figure
out which way to turn it. Try turning it clockwise. People will ask:
"Which way is clockwise?" Well, it depends on whether you're the clock
or not. So turn it to the right first. If it's hard to turn, turn it to
the left. It may turn, but it may also feel stiff and turn reluctantly.

Get another bottle of Berryman's carb cleaner, and add to a quart of
vodka. It'll make you feel a lot better.

Now we're getting somewhere. Continue turning the spanner in the
wirection you were using before, and if you've done it right, the plug
(OK, I've proved it isn't a plug, but we'llcall it that for the moment)
will fall out. Remove the spanner.

Now we have the problem of how to get the plug out of what may be a long
tunnel in your bike's engine. I'll cover that next week."

 

The Older Gentleman schreef:

I recently heard that Hoyt fell of a twig.
Cannot say I miss his postings.
But I sure would miss B-12 if he fell off his bike (twig is not what
I'd like to fall off for a biker).
Apart from the fact that in between all lines B-12 writes
there many times is a valid remark, he makes this
group fun to read.

If we all reacted like TOG: 'Buy the fucking manual'
this group would be a dull read, even if TOG is correct.

Rob.

 

B-12 schreef:

You lost points in my 'like_to_read_table' FB.

Rob.

 

Oh, I miss some of his ravings because they were so *funny* as he tried
to twist and turn and do anything rather than admit he was wrong. The
time when he refused to believe that a Honda 250 Rebel had vertically
split crankcases, for example. He even cited "experts" he knew who said
it was rubbish. In desperation, I suggested he just looked at one....

Oh yes.

Oh yes.

Oh yes.

 

Well, like I said before, I pretty much ignore all the usual suspects
in this group, but occasionally TOG starts jumping up and down and
squeaking, "Pay attention to me!
I'm important here, too!" Then I have to notice him a little bit, until
the next tantrum.

 

Oh. It has a previously concealed sense of humour.

It's not a savage with dry stick, after all...

 

<G>

You really have no idea, sometimes.

I mean, you're the man who maintains that the purpose of this is to
permit the Blessed with Insight (you) to impart their wisdom to those
not so similarly blessed....

Which is, of course, another Wrong.

 

[snip]

ROFL!

--
Later,
John



'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

 

Heh. Seriously, though, any more thoughts? Because I can't think of one
before the LE Velo, and there *must* have been one. Mustn't there?
Didn't someone make a water-cooled Vee twin between the wars?

 

writes
[]

You'd think so. Mind you, I'm toiling to think of any between the LE &
the CX but there must be some I'm overlooking.

If they were obviously neither wildly memorable nor particularly
successful. There, that should guarantee some-one reminding me of a
staggeringly successful & hugely memorable example in the next hour or
two.

 

I've got a reference to a Williamson flat twin, from before the 1st
world war. The engine was originally produced by William Douglas for a
cyclecar. If a "Liquid-cooled side-valve four-valve flat twin" from 1913
counts, there you go. Reference from "The Ultimate History of Fast
Motorcycles, Roland Brown. Paragon Publishing, 2005.

If you want V-twins, I'm not so sure. AJS had a supercharged V4 with
water cooling in 1939. Did they make twins as well? I also see
references to "large water-cooled twins" by DKW from about the same
time, but I believe that they were 2-strokes.

HTH

--
Later,
John



'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

 

Yay! You star. Knew there had to be something, even if I've never heard
of the Williamson!

They were. Supercharged, as well, some of them.

There's one in the Sammy Miller Museum in southern England, along with a
sign saying that on full chat, it could be heard eight miles away.

 

<stunned> I taught ToG something?...Hey, does that mean that I'm getting
old?!?

;-)

As for the Williamson, it's notable that the cylinders were oriented
longitudinally, not transversely. It was also made on your side of the
pond, and the book has pictures of the thing, so maybe it's in a museum
or something.

--
Later,
John



'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

 

The Older Gentleman schreef:

Did you read
http://www.motorcycle-uk.com/lmm/updates/birthofmotorcycling.html
I suppose the water cooled twins they talk about are all trikes. Not
sure about
that.

Rob.

 

The Older Gentleman schreef:

While we are at it, does anybody know about the first five cylinder?
I recall a bike (five cilinders in a star, like the airplane
engines in the 1st world war), with no gear box, air cooled (I better
say that the cylinders had cooling fins so I think it was
air cooled). It also had a leather drive belt with short wooden
V-shaped blocks rivited (sewn?) onto the leather so it was like
the later V-belt, and a lever that pressed a roller on the
flat outside of the belt, which made it work like a coupling.
The rear pully was a big one, almost the size of the wheel.
That all was bolted onto an (in my memory) almost standard
bycicle frame.

If you think of an aircraft engine, the propellor was on
the left hand side, but replaced by a small drive pulley.
It was owned my someone my father knew, but I don't know
if he was a friend of my father or a customer that wanted
something be repaired. I only saw it once.
Could also be that the owner was a former pilot with
left over spare parts who decided to create his own
bike. I haven't got the faintest idea.

Glued to that memory is the year 1917, but I could be
totally wrong.

Rob.