G
Just caught up with this, loved the look of this bike back in the day
In fact think it looks better than any modern bike .
Keep going John
In fact think it looks better than any modern bike .
Keep going John
Italeri 1/9 Manx Norton.
- Thread starter JayCee
- Start date
Hello folks. Yes, I am still here. I haven't departed for pastures new. After an exceptionally long summer hiatus brought on by my love of Sun, Sea and Sand, caused by spending the first 26 years of my life in these sunny climes, compounded by a complete lack of mojo, I have finally got my 2 remaining brain cells lined up and working almost in unison. The first job tackled was to strip the chrome parts. I was dubious about this after reading the trials some of you guys had been through. Luckily it was easier than I expected. I put the sprues in a poly bag with a good few squirts of Mr Muscle oven cleaner (other brands are available) and after about 10 minutes the chrome just dissolved away. After a soapy wash and a good rinse I was left with this.
The plastic looks soapy but feels just as hard as all the rest. I have painted a few pieces on these sprues, mainly the engine plates for the moment.
I have assembled the gearbox and filled the unwanted seams. It is not perfect but when it is between the engine plates not much of it will be on view.
Gearbox on the left, of course. The end cover is meant to be separate. The carburettor is to the right. The main body of the carb is marred by 3 knockout pin marks. These are partially hidden by the choke tube I have retrofitted. This is the white piece running from top to bottom on the carb body. I have also bodged the mixture screw that was missing and the securing nuts to hold the carb to the inlet tract. Also the float chamber will help hide any shoddy work on this side when I get it completed. There are numerous photos of this GP2 carb on the tinterweb but I am mostly working from memory. The same carb was fitted on my Goldie, so I have experienced the real thing.
At the top of the photo you can see the front forks (just dry fitted together) which are going to be a problem. The sliders (the bottom pieces that hold the wheel) are supposed to be hollow to allow the stanchions to fit inside them. Unfortunately one of them has been cast solid, so the razor saw has been at work and now the final measuring will need to be done so both legs are the same length.
Hopefully some more progress over the weekend.
All comments, good, bad or indifferent welcome along with plain old abuse.
Cheers for now.
John.
The plastic looks soapy but feels just as hard as all the rest. I have painted a few pieces on these sprues, mainly the engine plates for the moment.
I have assembled the gearbox and filled the unwanted seams. It is not perfect but when it is between the engine plates not much of it will be on view.
Gearbox on the left, of course. The end cover is meant to be separate. The carburettor is to the right. The main body of the carb is marred by 3 knockout pin marks. These are partially hidden by the choke tube I have retrofitted. This is the white piece running from top to bottom on the carb body. I have also bodged the mixture screw that was missing and the securing nuts to hold the carb to the inlet tract. Also the float chamber will help hide any shoddy work on this side when I get it completed. There are numerous photos of this GP2 carb on the tinterweb but I am mostly working from memory. The same carb was fitted on my Goldie, so I have experienced the real thing.
At the top of the photo you can see the front forks (just dry fitted together) which are going to be a problem. The sliders (the bottom pieces that hold the wheel) are supposed to be hollow to allow the stanchions to fit inside them. Unfortunately one of them has been cast solid, so the razor saw has been at work and now the final measuring will need to be done so both legs are the same length.
Hopefully some more progress over the weekend.
All comments, good, bad or indifferent welcome along with plain old abuse.
Cheers for now.
John.
Glad you picked this up again. Looks an OK kit.
Finally a miniscule amount more done to the Manx. Continuing from my last post I have finished the carburettor. This first picture is of the real thing and is for information purposes only.
The next picture is my attempt at the same thing. Blown up like this it looks absolutely abysmal, but in real life and using the 2 foot viewing rule it is not too bad.
I have also gone back a step and done some remedial work on the engine. Previously I mentioned that the camshaft drive tube was too short. I decided that it needed fixing so off it came. Luckily it wasn't glued too firmly. A shim of plastic card underneath did the trick. It now stands more or less straight instead of looking like the well known Italian bell tower. Once this was done I mounted the engine in the frame. This was when I found out just how brittle the plastic really is. I made the mistake of cementing the front engine plates in place on both the engine and the frame, to hold it in position while I manouvered the rear plates into position. The twisting motion needed for this snapped both front down tubes of the frame. I think this can be repaired fairly easily, but it is fighting me all the way. This is where I am now.
I am presently painting pieces on the sprue before attaching them. Cheers for now, all C&Cs welcome.
John.
The next picture is my attempt at the same thing. Blown up like this it looks absolutely abysmal, but in real life and using the 2 foot viewing rule it is not too bad.
I have also gone back a step and done some remedial work on the engine. Previously I mentioned that the camshaft drive tube was too short. I decided that it needed fixing so off it came. Luckily it wasn't glued too firmly. A shim of plastic card underneath did the trick. It now stands more or less straight instead of looking like the well known Italian bell tower. Once this was done I mounted the engine in the frame. This was when I found out just how brittle the plastic really is. I made the mistake of cementing the front engine plates in place on both the engine and the frame, to hold it in position while I manouvered the rear plates into position. The twisting motion needed for this snapped both front down tubes of the frame. I think this can be repaired fairly easily, but it is fighting me all the way. This is where I am now.
I am presently painting pieces on the sprue before attaching them. Cheers for now, all C&Cs welcome.John.
John,
Very nicely done mate great skills on show.
Very nicely done mate great skills on show.
Is that an Amal monobloc I see before me ... ?
Steve
Well now that the engine/gearbox is mounted in the frame I can progress with the drive side of the engine. The first thing I did was to install the HT lead to the spark plug. This is where I found out that, as is common with most of these kind of kits, the tubing supplied is actually too small to fit on the "pips" it is supposed to. The answer was to cut off the "pip", carefully drill a hole in its place and cement in a suitable size piece of wire. The end going into the magneto was straightforward as the connector is in a straight line with the lead. The spark plug end was different. Firstly, the kit has the spark plug in completely the wrong place. Where they have it, it would be sparking in the open air between the cylinder head top fins. I chopped off the lead fixing "pip" as per the other end and once again drilled and cemented in a wire. This wire was then bent where it entered the spark plug, so the lead and plug ended up at 90 degrees to one another. The pin on the other end of the plug was then removed and sanded flat. A blob of CA in approximately the correct position and job done. Now looking a whole lot better. At this time I also cemented on the rev counter drive. Unfortunately this is as far as I can go with correcting the top end ( the valve springs were done when I did the other side). The reason being that the cam box is completely the wrong shape and size, so there is nowhere to place all the fixing bolts. As it will mostly be hidden by the top frame tubes and petrol tank I am reasonably happy with how it is. After this I started on the primary drive. Engine sprocket, primary chain and gearbox sprocket are all one piece, so a bit of gentle persuasion (SWMBO said it was brute strength and ignorance) and it fit in place. Glued on the clutch end plate and this is how she looks.
The main thing left to do on this side is the primary chain guard. Morebodging work needed on this piece. The forward fixing bracket is okay, if a little chunky. However the rear one will need some work. The kit has it bolted to the outside of the frame gusset, however the real one bolts to the inside of the gusset I will firstly try to thin down the outside of the bracket to see if I can get it to slide inside the gusset. Failing this I think I will have to remove the bracket and replace with a thin plastic card one. This is the part in question. The offending bracket is on the right.
That's all for the moment. Please excuse the rubbish photo's. As usual all C&Cs more than welcome.
John.
The main thing left to do on this side is the primary chain guard. More
That's all for the moment. Please excuse the rubbish photo's. As usual all C&Cs more than welcome.
John.
'Tis I. The reason nothing has been done on the bike I can only put down to some kind of mojo loss. I can spend plenty of time working out what needs doing and how to do it, but actually getting started is something else entirely. Having operations and chemo for skin cancer hasn't helped either. To top it all an unexpected and enforced visit to the UK really stopped me from being at the bench. All being well I should be back home in a week or so. I really want to get some more work done on the bike and see if I can get it up to my expectations. See you guys soon.
John.
John.
Get yourself well and take care the mojo will return.
Hooray ! I am back. At least for the moment. The chemo is finished for now and the crappy side effects are dissipating. Anyway enough of me, there are, unfortunately, members of the forum who are far worse off than me.
On to the build. Carry on from where I left off last time ( last year :angry: ). A goodly amount of scraping, filing and sanding got the bracket thin enough to get it behind the frame gusset. A bit of reshaping was needed on the top edge to get it to fit underneath the frame cross brace. Once glued in place this left a fixing hole in the gusset. A spot of filler, smoothed down and a nut/bolt glued on top and job done. While I was working on the gussets I shaved off the moulded on bolt heads and replaced them with more appropriate nuts/bolts.
Another episode to follow.
On to the build. Carry on from where I left off last time ( last year :angry: ). A goodly amount of scraping, filing and sanding got the bracket thin enough to get it behind the frame gusset. A bit of reshaping was needed on the top edge to get it to fit underneath the frame cross brace. Once glued in place this left a fixing hole in the gusset. A spot of filler, smoothed down and a nut/bolt glued on top and job done. While I was working on the gussets I shaved off the moulded on bolt heads and replaced them with more appropriate nuts/bolts.
Another episode to follow.
AS can be seen in the above photo, I have fitted the oil tank and associated pipes. When I found the tank in the box of bits I cringed in horror that I had actually shown a photo of it here. It looked as though it had been built by a retarded chimp. Pretty apt considering I have been referred to in those terms (usually by SWMBO).
I removed the first attempt at the fixing bobbins and then cleaned the whole thing back to the plastic. The seam down the centre was refilled and sanded down. I then measured from the rear of the tank (same distance both sides) and then from the bottom upwards. Where the two lines crossed I drilled a hole in each side of the tank. I put a length of appropriate size plastic rod through the tank so there was a good length on each side and glued it in place. After a day or so I could trim the rod to the length needed. I did this by using two cocktail sticks. Putting one on each side of the rod laying flat on the tank. By laying my cutters flat on the sticks I then cut the rod off. This worked better than I expected and the result was a near perfect length for the bobbin. The discs on the end are just two pieces of etch I found in a drawer. No idea what they are for but they are near enough the right size. The rubber bands that hold the bottom of the tank against the frame are just two pieces of thread supplied courtesy of the wife. They are a bit too thick and hairy, but will suffice.
The view of this side of the bike gives a better view of the oil pipes. The feed pipe is the one coming out of the side of the tank and going beneath the gearbox. The return pipe come back over the top of the gearbox and joins the tank in the bottom corner. I have just noticed (looking at this photo that the joint between the outlet pipe and the flexible pipe has gone awry. I glued them together and left it. Mistake! This whole area needs the paint touching up, then I will see what needs doing.
All comments welcome. John.
I removed the first attempt at the fixing bobbins and then cleaned the whole thing back to the plastic. The seam down the centre was refilled and sanded down. I then measured from the rear of the tank (same distance both sides) and then from the bottom upwards. Where the two lines crossed I drilled a hole in each side of the tank. I put a length of appropriate size plastic rod through the tank so there was a good length on each side and glued it in place. After a day or so I could trim the rod to the length needed. I did this by using two cocktail sticks. Putting one on each side of the rod laying flat on the tank. By laying my cutters flat on the sticks I then cut the rod off. This worked better than I expected and the result was a near perfect length for the bobbin. The discs on the end are just two pieces of etch I found in a drawer. No idea what they are for but they are near enough the right size. The rubber bands that hold the bottom of the tank against the frame are just two pieces of thread supplied courtesy of the wife. They are a bit too thick and hairy, but will suffice.
The view of this side of the bike gives a better view of the oil pipes. The feed pipe is the one coming out of the side of the tank and going beneath the gearbox. The return pipe come back over the top of the gearbox and joins the tank in the bottom corner. I have just noticed (looking at this photo that the joint between the outlet pipe and the flexible pipe has gone awry. I glued them together and left it. Mistake! This whole area needs the paint touching up, then I will see what needs doing.
All comments welcome. John.
Good to see you back and glad your on the mend and feeling better. The bike is looking superb.
Just a quick update re the oil tank, which I forgot to put in the last post. Anyone watching this will have noticed that I have not put any lining on the tank. This is for two reasons. Because I have altered the tank by putting on the retaining bobbins the supplied decals for the lining will need cutting up to fit. I really cannot be bothered with this. The second reason is more historical. Despite most bikes in use today having the oil tank lined, when the bikes left the factory the tanks were in a plain metal finish. The few period photo's I have of bikes with this style tank ( they were only used for the last two years of production ) clearly show plain unlined tanks. So, plain it will remain. Now to hopefully do some more.
John.
John.
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