That engine sounds awesome , I 've always had a hankering for a sleeve valve engine, can't wait for your updates, someone find him a gearbox please.
L-Plate Rider
That engine sounds awesome , I 've always had a hankering for a sleeve valve engine, can't wait for your updates, someone find him a gearbox please.
Hardcore Biker
A photo and some discussion of shell molds used at Greeves
http://www.spitfire-racing.com/greeves/fact_tour.pdf
cheers,
Michael
Anorak
Great findOriginally Posted by Michael Moore
In 1963 Greeves were buying complete 32A engines from Villiers throwing away the cylinder, head, most of the clutch, crankshaft.
They were only basically keeping the cases and gearbox.
Villiers steadfastly refused to sell them just the cases.
They later realised how silly this was as they only needed to make their own cases and fit an Albion box.
I have a few pics of the Silverstone cases they were as simple as but far better than the Villiers stuff.
Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken
Hardcore Biker
I had a 250 Griffon. The Greeves gearbox was much smaller than the Albion and also worked well. The Griffon was probably about as good as you could get for a non-unit engine of the time.
Anorak
I have never seen one of the short stroke 250 challenger greeves a guy here imported an engine, but I don't think he ever ran it.
My father has enough bits to lying around to build up a few greeves but only has the late twin loop later frame. like the griffon.
Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken
Low personal B.M.E.P.
I've ridden a 360 Griffon...Quite good, compared well to the bike i regularly borrowed, a CZ 250 twinport.
I've got a 197 Villiers special here i must get going again one day, has a 4 speed greeves box fitted. i refer to the bike as a "facetious pastiche of a Silverstone" It is just that. Got around the clutch problem by fitting an RD350 clutch run dry....
Greeves level of foundry work was actually pretty good for the era - and the equipment they worked with.
Muddler/Dabbler.
Greeves must have been very 'foundry orientated' when you look at the famous cast alloy front frame "tube", - I never could see any benefit of it really! but then Greeves was very successful brand in it's day, ie till CZ came into the act.
Talking about CZ, you had to be real fit (and very lucky) to get them going again if you happened to stall the engine during a race!, (Jikov carb?) ....... then all those dented pipes!
Anorak
The Greeves I beam served a few purposes it was easy to make and solid also that together with the Engine plates that joined to the fame meant the same or very similar frames could be used for multiple engines.Greeves must have been very 'foundry orientated' when you look at the famous cast alloy front frame "tube", - I never could see any benefit of it really! but then Greeves was very successful brand in it's day, ie till CZ came into the act.
Talking about CZ, you had to be real fit (and very lucky) to get them going again if you happened to stall the engine during a race!, (Jikov carb?) ....... then all those dented pipes!
Hard to believe now but a lot of the factories had no welding facilities (like Norton) hence the early reliance of lugged frames (the featherbed frames were made by Reynolds as were the early commando frames later they we made overseas.)
Just as distinctive were the Greeves rubber in torsion leading link front forks the early models even had rubber in torsion rear suspension. of course both later gave way to more conventional hydraulic units these of course became a important design feature of The Greeves along with the I beam well past there usefulness . Much like the desmo for Ducati or the styling of Harley's
Incidentally the rubber in torsion was developed for the invalid cars that were the backbone of Greeves production until the orders and the need petered out. Hence the move into bikes.
Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken
Low personal B.M.E.P.
The beam came about because of the very low quality of tube available in the UK at the time. Most manufacturers racing scrambles were suffering frame breakages way too often. There's a story that to fix the problem, at least one factory James had a front downtube from solid barstock...Greeves must have been very 'foundry orientated' when you look at the famous cast alloy front frame "tube", - I never could see any benefit of it really! but then Greeves was very successful brand in it's day, ie till CZ came into the act.
Talking about CZ, you had to be real fit (and very lucky) to get them going again if you happened to stall the engine during a race!, (Jikov carb?) ....... then all those dented pipes!
Restarting a CZ hot....Oh, yes, eastern european electrics...I remember it well. Nearly every race I remember someone stuck on the infield, kicking, and kicking..I see the nicely restored twin pipers in VMX now complete with dentless pipes and walk away shaking my head....They're just not riding them hard enough.
Muddler/Dabbler.
I may be wrong, but I'm sure those twin pipers had magmesium crankcases and cast iron barrels - strange combination I reckon - one cancels out the other in terms of weight!
Anorak
No idea but the poms as Grumph said used a lot of Aluminium post was as the steel was rations and the mag and aluminium wasn't. that's why the Landover are aluminium ands same with the Housings on a TEA
The Russian used to make there shovels out of titanium it was very abundant over there plus it doesn't go brittle at -30C or something like steel does
When the yanks built the U2 and SR71 that had to find a way of getting some from them through other countries to build them because they controlled the worlds supply
Three useless little bits of husa info for the price of one.
Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken
Low personal B.M.E.P.
Normal alloy cases - magnesium does not like getting wet...At all.....And the eastern bloc factories were very pragmatic, an iron barrel could be made to work very well at low cost. Plus i seem to remember the bikes were close to the minimum weight regs of the period.
No8 Wire Extraordinaire
But it just loves catching on fire and then getting wet if you remember the Falklands conflict.
Don't you look at my accountant.
He's the only one I've got.
Low personal B.M.E.P.
Put water on burning magnesium and you've really got a bigger problem then...
What i meant was corrosion. Best (worst) example I known of in our bike world is the early Honda drum brakes. The early 125 road bikes used an iron liner in a cast magnesium drum. Find one that's been stored in damp conditions and it's almost certainly corroded at the joint face - To the point where i was shown a drum where the liner simply fell out...Speedway JAP motors were available with Mag crankcases, even with the best chromate coatings available at the time, they were limited life parts.
Anorak
The Cosworth F1 V8 engines heads they had made in Mag didn't last the bedding in on the Dyno.
They were soon after followed by failure of the engine block.
That story came from a Cosworth designer.
The guy said it was grossly unsuitable for anything other than stuff like valve covers and that stuff better made of Carbon Fibre anyway.
YZR500's never had much luck with them either. From memory they were 12,000 pound a pop.
Not sure how much mag was in 7R/G50 and Manx cases.
I think to get it to work properly the part has to be designed from the onset to use mag, that said I always loved the look of the Chromate coating.
I have spent many years drooling over pics of Fontana, Oldini and similar brakes.
The commercial aircraft industry went away from Mag for the Wheels as it was more trouble than it was worth re the in service testing requirements and then repainting etc.
Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken
There are currently 3 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 3 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks