Bikes

These are our two current bikes. The yellow one is the much reworked SR500 and the other is the 5.0 litre Chevrolet V8 monster, still awaiting completion. The V8 motor runs but needs a clutch system to make it driveable. Nearly everything is home made by myself, including the frame, forks handlebars, exhaust, fuel tank, cissy bar, mudguard,engine plates and all bracketry.

The bike was bought in 1996, and was a standard looking black Yamaha SR500. Within hours of the purchase I started realising things weren't all they were meant to be and over the next few weeks I gradually discovered what a wreck I'd bought. It was stripped to the bare frame and a major rebuild was undertaken. See above. There was never any intention of keeping it standard, so I had no qualms about cutting all sorts of excess parts off.
The bike to the right is what remained after the second rebuild. This time more radical surgery was undertaken on the frame, lowering the seat and extending the swing arm some 3".

This Royal Enfield Machismo was actually snapped in a dealers in Bombay. The original Royal Enfield 350 was built by the British, and when they decided it was obsolete, India stepped in and bought the factory and tooling complete. Enfield India later upgraded to a 500cc model, then to the largest Enfield yet, at 535cc.
The Machismo has a new design aluminium cylinder head, to go with the flashy name no doubt.

Below are two more pics of the V8 project in the construction phase, which it still is. The clutch is proving to be a bigger pain in the ass than was anticipated. A car type power brake booster was originally thought powerful enough to facilitate hand lever operation of a standard Chev clutch, but the engineering proved to be too complicated, and it wasn't really powerful enough after it was finished.
Latest plan is some kind of centrifugal clutch.
All suggestions welcomed!!!

During my early teens I had no interest in motorcycles whatsoever, and thought them a slightly ridiculous and pointless form of travel. At the age of fifteen however, my elder sister brought home her first 'Biker Boyfriend', and things were never quite the same again for me. He rode a gold and black Yamaha RD 250
Over the following years I bought, rode, enjoyed and crashed many different types of motorcycles, and covered several hundred thousand miles in both England and Europe.
I've also ridden in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

A pic of the first version of the SR500, taken in Bam Ban, near Angeles City. it was so dusty, we used to carry a few rags to clean the bike off whenever we stopped riding.
Shirley Ann was an active participant in the rebuild, when she discovered it was the only thing that kept me sane in the Philippines