Jim Steadman bikes

[Ivan]

Has anyone got any pics of his bucket bikes or anything else I have seen his 750 triple but want to see his buckets

[F5 Dave]

Every time I take a picture it’s because they are in some crazy position trying to pour water into it. None electronic, but I can describe easily.

Take a cruddy looking bike.
Add some drop bars.
Nice comfortable seat.
Never ever bloody ever clean it, paint it or otherwise pay any attn to the cosmetics.
Make it go indecently fast, then ride it appropriately.

Ok if we are to make this a series, next I’ll move onto the Sheriffs bikes. Craig & Chris’s bikes were all similar to Sheriffs Senior (Morley). His bikes were pretty much as above but built from very 2nd hand parts found that morning & assembled on the way to the track. After winning the race they were then returned to the chicken-coop.

[speedpro]

Actually that's not quite right. Morley used to turn up late with a bucket that wasn't running, make an ignition system from a box of bits with the wires stripped and twisted together with a bit of tape. Then go out and win the GP. The rest is pretty spot on though.

And Jimmy's bike's drop bars are actually old "ace" bars put on upside down and backwards so they don't drop at all but rise. Initially a bit weird but "oh so right" once you get going. That bucket is the sweetest handling thing I have ever ridden. Even hanging right off I managed to grind the sidestand tang on the frame and and it was no problem changing lines even with a knee down and the brakes on hard. What a weapon!

I just checked, I have lots of pics of the SS750 as it was built but none of his bucket. Jim has only ever had two buckets I think and he still owns the original. They look basically identical - Kawa 100 chassis with KE125/100 engine the later one with a RG400 barrel.

[Ivan]

I hear that one was running 4 chainsaw motors and have always wanted to see what that would go like

[F5 Dave]

Actually that's not quite right. Morley used to turn up late with a bucket that wasn't running, make an ignition system from a box of bits with the wires stripped and twisted together with a bit of tape. Then go out and win the GP. The rest is pretty spot on though. . .

Yeah & that's typically with turning up late & not doing practice, & a drum brake to boot.

[speedpro]

You may be thinking of one of Neil Hintz' buckets. He built a uniflow 2-stroke which originally used 4 brush cutter conrods. It had 2 cylinders, 4 pistons, and a crankshaft at each end. Currently he has a 500cc version which if his wife looks the other way will be fitted to an autogyro, which he also builds. Neil also did the supercharged 100cc buckets ages ago. Very interesting sitting round having a few beers with Neil and doodling/sketching some of his ideas. He is one of a very few in the world who has ever made a uniflow design work and it is all his own work from the design to the patterns/castings and machining. The little one sounded awesome when it was running, pulling something like 20,000rpm, each piston only moved about 15mm.

[F5 Dave]

I hear that one was running 4 chainsaw motors and have always wanted to see what that would go like

Erm, right. . .
I heard it was model aircraft engines & there were 26 of them, but it never raced as he’d miscalculated & it was .5cc oversize.

(This is going to turn into 4 yorkshire men sketch, who can top that?)

[Ivan]

Yeah did sound a bit random that but they are high performance motors

[speedpro]

Some of Neil's "ideas" go a ways beyond that. One of his better ones was for a 2-stroke that had a single valve in the cylinder head for inlet and exhaust, no ports in the barrel. Direct injection, supercharged, supplementary barrel valves, all controlled and phase varied by modern electronics. I think in the end we decided that two valves would be better with both opening and closing together and still providing both inlet and exhaust functions.

The new design uniflow uses different size pistons on the intake and exhaust sides plus they get to TDC at slightly different times and the strokes are different, I'm not sure about rod length though.

What would be real cool is for someone to pay Jimmy and Neil to work for them just doing R&D on different motors. Neil is already a party to cylinder heads fitted to Subarus for the home-built market in the USA and Jim has plans started for other projects as well but has to work the farm to make a living. Jim's brother Kenny is also a bit of a "clever dick" and has designed and built reed and power valved chrome bored cylinders for his TZ500H. One other Steadman brother(Peter) has a bucket that will pass Jim's in a straight line. There's other Steadman's as well but you get the picture.

[Ivan]

sounds like some good ideas