popped in to see sweary mick on the way to darley moor, i was dropping off a pair of bar end's that dangerous had machined up before he scooted off to the lake district in the motor caravan, mick get's us a brew on while i get my gear off, he soon returns to the shed with the tea and a fresh, raspberry do-nut, still warm, the crunchy sugar dusting the perfect foil to very strong tea, we sit in the late autumn sunshine looking at the aermacchi on the bench, one thing i notice straight away after studying the 250 mettise is that the head has been machined away for a central spark plug, mick's other bike has it in the traditional left hand, 45 degree position, he's made a blinding job of cleaning and sorting out the bodge's of the previous owner, his attention to detail is amazing, not only has he started machining all the fastener's, dishing out the heads of the bolt's, [mick's proper old-school, none of that socket head bollock's here], he's also drilled out the centre's to reduce weight, here's a bloke who's raced at all level's in his past seventy year's, from 'scrambles' to trial's to road racing, what do i know? fuck all, i'm standing on the shoulders of giant's me......
What a beautiful machine, and very nice work by sweary Mick. As a mechanic way back when, most of the guys poked fun at the 'Little Harleys' that would come through the shop. Seems I ended up working on most of them. It seems like I remember mostly electrical problems on them. Never did any real mechanical work on one. Being low on the totem pole for awhile, I got to work on all the 'oddballs'. Must be fun to observe the flywheel as you fly down the track.
ReplyDeleteLarry, hard to imagine electrical gremlins on Italian bikes . . . they were the one nation whose bike production made Lucas seem not quite the lone Prince of Darkness . . . 'Vague-lia' indeed.
DeleteHa ha, yeah it's been...oh, bout 36 years since I last worked on them. Our foreman would say things like...'tell him we'll work on it, but he's gotta agree in advance to buy one of our good used generators and anything else that's gone south on it...'. For Hodakas, it was 'tell him only if he agrees to buy a new shift cover , and any of the good used gear sets that thing will probably need...'. 36 years, criminy...yeah kid, I'll take the senior discount on that coffee, and make it snappy!
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