Oddball engines and prototypes

[WilDun]

Whist it may be better it was still a travisty to saw up a intact Vincent crankcase then...........Anyway here is something oddball

Here is the Megola (German) motorcycle which the guy in the Video referred to :- https://silodrome.com/megola-motorcycle/

[Grumph]

That Honda 750 front brake was probably not the first motorcycle disc brake perhaps, but really the first disc brake to go into mass production - from memory, it was a simple single piston swinging caliper affair.

I used to work with (the late) Lloyd May in Papakura where he was a toolmaker and he decided to make a close copy of that brake and fitted it to his newly acquired 350 Yamaha racer (TR2 ?) which still had the massive front wheel drum brake.
It all seemed to work very well, but then one day at Pukekohe something went wrong and he went straight on at the last right hander going into the main straight and through the hedge at quite high speed, He was terribly battered and bruised for a long time afterward!
I think it was the brake that failed, he was too experienced for that to have happened any other way.

Well, it's a bloody small world, Will....What Lloyd and his close mate Neville Landrebe copied were the Lyster calipers off Neville's Lyster Matchless - which is in ChCh now. The set off Lloyd's Yamaha are in my workshop rebuilt with modern seals and stainless pistons - to go on the Lyster Honda sitting here.
Before buying them off the then owner - not Lloyd - I talked to Lloyd about them and his version was that he'd had a cable operated mastercylinder under the tank - with a variable leverage ratio - and the cable broke...

Lloyd's name came up just last week - the DHB social worker sorting out what's happening to me post op - about 6 weeks away - knew Lloyd for many years.
Grew up with him actually. Again - small world.....

Megolas - I've got a Classic Bike mag with an article which includes pics of the engine internals. Husa will have it too... I looked hard at what was involved building one. I reckoned Briggs and Stratton SV cylinders, the crank and case didn't look terribly hard.
I was frankly seduced by a pic of the racing Megola and could just see myself showing up at the Pukekohe Classic festival with one....

[Michael Moore]

That Honda 750 front brake was probably not the first motorcycle disc brake perhaps, . . .

Looks like 1906 from the caption on this photo of a rear disc and then 1923 for the Douglas outfit

[Frits Overmars]

More early disc brakes:

[Frits Overmars]

But do not dismiss the drum bake yet:

[WilDun]

But do not dismiss the drum bake yet:

Ok, thanks Frits - all you guys have got me cornered - thought I knew it all! ...... but look at my signature at the bottom and you will see that what it says is CORRECT!!

Yes Grumph but I feel that the one he was experimenting with at first was based on the Honda and then he and his mate may have rethought things and decided on something better - like the Lyster brakes.
Lloyd and I used to have some laughs, especially leaving work when we always had a "dice" - Lloyd on his old norton twin (I think) and me on an old Triumph Tigress 250 Scooter (best handling scooter ever!), all great fun and I was very sad to learn that he had died a few years back.
Did he grow up in Christchurch?

Glad to hear that you're making progress on the medical front, chin up, it'll all all be worth it believe me!

[Grumph]

The Lyster stuff was pre Honda. I'm told that Colin Lyster was a tad grumpy about not receiving any royalties from Honda as with the exception of the seals, they pretty much copied what he'd done. Nev Landrebe had brought the Lyster Matchless back from the UK and won the NZ 500 title a couple of years before they got into Yamahas. He sold it to Bob Harris down here to finance his trip to race in the states I believe. Dale Wylie was sponsored by Bob and won the bike's second NZ title.
The guy I was speaking to said they grew up on the outer edge of Auckland. I don't know the area at all but he was talking about out at the heads around the harbour entry.

[WilDun]

But do not dismiss the drum bake yet:

Frits. Honda probably was inspired by that brake when they designed their 50cc twin racer,

Grumph, Will check out the Lyster brake, was it single piston, swing caliper? - I still think though that Lloyd was fiddling around with the Honda brake when he was wotking in Papakura, but we'll never know!
At that time I was trying to build my T20 Suzuki into a "proper" racer and I was being guided by him on what to do. - that was in the days of Ron Grant from America (who came originally from the same place as myself), Geoff Perry from Auckland and Clive Kingston from Tauranga. but I wasn't in their league! - BTW At that time, I was a shit mechanic as well !

[Frits Overmars]

Frits. Honda probably was inspired by that brake when they designed their 50cc twin racer.

Yeah maybe, Will. I suppose it's so long ago that not everybody still knows what we're talking about, so here are some pics for the youngsters.

[Grumph]

I've always looked at that brake and thought that it proves the 50's were simply powered bicycles, LOL.

As an aside, Burt Munro turned up here for a NZ records meeting, I think just after his first trip to the US. The Indian was failed at scrutineering as it only had a brake on the rear wheel. He shot into the nearest town - Kaiapoi - and woke up the bike shop owner who was having a Sunday morning lie-in.
Came back and spent half an hour fitting a push bike brake onto the front rim just like that Honda. From memory he ran about 165mph at that meeting.
It was the last one run on the Tram Road where Burns and Wright had set the worlds records. Traffic increases meant we moved to the parallel South Eyre road after that.

[WilDun]

Those little Hondas were both complicated and simple at the same time, revving to 22000, and probably unable to run, or at least produce much power under 15000, needing at least 12 speed boxes, with rim brakes, skinny tyres able to top 100MPH ! they must have been a bloody nightmare to ride in IOM!

I say at least 12 speed boxes because I remember reading that going up the mountain the clucth had to be constantly kept slipping ( by the rider) - A large part of their success was down to the rider's ability.
Taveri, Bryans etc were amazing riders really - people have been given knighthoods for less!.

...... However, New Zealand's Hugh Anderson on his two stroke Suzuki was often able to beat them - he eventually had a 14 speed gearbox!
Then the 'powers that be' saw that it was becoming a pissing contest , put a stop to the craziness and limited them and the 125 machines to single cylinder and six speeds.
Guess that's when people like Jan Thiel etc came into their own and the big factories then pulled back.

(or something like that).

[Grumph]

Frits. Honda probably was inspired by that brake when they designed their 50cc twin racer,

Grumph, Will check out the Lyster brake, was it single piston, swing caliper? - I still think though that Lloyd was fiddling around with the Honda brake when he was wotking in Papakura, but we'll never know!
At that time I was trying to build my T20 Suzuki into a "proper" racer and I was being guided by him on what to do. - that was in the days of Ron Grant from America (who came originally from the same place as myself), Geoff Perry from Auckland and Clive Kingston from Tauranga. but I wasn't in their league! - BTW At that time, I was a shit mechanic as well !

I'd met both Ron and Geoff and ridden against both, but it was some years later while Ron and I were watching Cathcart crash test the Britten at Ruapuna that he offered me a job at Honda Britain. I told him he was about 15 years too late as I'd had two heart attacks by then, LOL. Nice guy.

Here's a pic of the ex Lloyd May calipers - incl an original piston with O ring seals...I've even got Lloyd's mounting hardware for TR2 forks. At the time they were done there were no readily available handlebar mastercylinders, let alone a choice of sizes. Hence Lloyd's use of a remote master with adjustable leverage ratio.

[WilDun]

I was frankly seduced by a pic of the racing Megola and could just see myself showing up at the Pukekohe Classic festival with one....

Would like to see that Grumph, you flipping it through the double chicane at high speed and then opening it up coming out on to the back straight with the front wheel pawing the air and the engine screaming (at about 2000 revs). What a spectacle!

Hang on, the front wheel wouldn't be pawing the air, it's front wheel drive!

The brakes do look familiar as the pads that Lloyd was playing with were round and (unusually) held in the middle by a bolt - is that correct?.

[Grumph]

Would like to see that Grumph, you flipping it through the double chicane at high speed and then opening it up coming out on to the back straight with the front wheel pawing the air and the engine screaming (at about 2000 revs). What a spectacle!

Hang on, the front wheel wouldn't be pawing the air, it's front wheel drive!

The brakes do look familiar as the pads that Lloyd was playing with were round and (unusually) held in the middle by a bolt - is that correct?.

I'd have liked to have seen it myself, LOL. I suspect that with the 28 inch wheel needed to get the gearing, the rotational inertia would have been awesome...Probably need those long wheelbarrow bars to get it to turn. I was never any good at wheelies though so that would have suited me.

Yes, the fixed pad is retained by a screw. The pad in the piston end seems to be press fit.

[Frits Overmars]

Those little Hondas were both complicated and simple at the same time, revving to 22000... needing at least 12 speed boxes...
I say at least 12 speed boxes because I remember reading that going up the mountain the clucth had to be constantly kept slipping

Will, you shouldn't believe everything you read (except when I wrote it, of course ).
Here are that 50 cc Honda twin's internals: 8 speeds.

However, New Zealand's Hugh Anderson on his two stroke Suzuki was often able to beat them - he eventually had a 14 speed gearbox! Then the 'powers that be' saw that it was becoming a pissing contest, put a stop to the craziness and limited them and the 125 machines to single cylinder and six speeds.
Guess that's when people like Jan Thiel etc came into their own and the big factories then pulled back. (or something like that).

Not quite; Jan Thiel came into his own a bit earlier, when the 14-speed Suzuki twins were still allowed.
In 1968 his 9-speed Jamathi single beat the works Suzuki twin ridden by 50 cc world champion Hans-Georg Anscheid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lodewijkx)
While we're on the subject of gearboxes, here are the 14-speed Suzuki box and the 9-speed Jamathi box, a marvel of simplicity compared to the Suzuki.