Wacky 50

That is highly illegal! The hind hooves are obscuring the rear number plate.

With construction of the new nuclear power station here in Somerset being ever more imminent, those innovative young minds at nearby Bridgewater College came up with this on site runaround that will keep the shoes of those executive types free from being soiled!!

Excellently eccentric! with the sting in the tail....

In the Twenties CP Snow said without industry the poor would be poorer still and perhaps now without atomic power stations we´d be without electricity -- but I am sure a lot of us wouldn´t mind using candles instead of
having irradiated milk in our tea.... In Zummerzet an´ar´ll...

Whoops!
Sorry for getting political but a lot of strange happening around here in Germany just now!!!!


Cheers!
JayBee....

Heard Tell...

How Hydrogen will be the domestic gas in Blighty soon. I wonder how I´d feel with a possible Hindenberg Zeppelin in the kitchen every time I had a brew up!!!!!!!

I must see if I can shuddup and trace the Japanese "walking motorbike" instead of all this xxxyyy....???

Maybe I dreamt it??

Cheers!

JayBee -- ex Icarus-1 -- how I miss him...

John,
By mentioning the ill-fated Hindenburg and of course the British R101 both of which immolated in spectacular and tragic manner reminds of just how volatile and dangerous hydrogen can be. As to including it in domestic fuel supplies here in GB that seems a little extreme, however, hydrogen is a very attractive energy source if it can be safely managed and controlled.
Before re-locating to Somerset, I lived a few miles from the gargantuan airship sheds, in Cardington, Bedfordshire. Nothing prepares you for the sheer size of those buildings and the scale of the airship project of the mid 1920s!
There is a family sized car at bottom right which provides for scaling these buildings and provide for some sort of perspective. In fact these things are just so way-out they could just be de facto Wacky candidates?

Trevor

Thanks Trevor!

Those buildings are unique and should be made use of -- for ever & ever, amen....

Definitely wacky now but not way back then. I read the Count Zeppelin story which was typical German engineering at its best. Went to the Museum  at Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance and there was little to see because Adolph had had everything destroyred after the Hindenberg disaster. However, there was a triangular frame, made of aluminium-alloy which was probably the forerunner of duralium which in its  thousands helped make the Zeppelins lighter than any of our and American airships.

Pity about the airships because I could imagine myself luxuriously lying back
in one, travelling in comfort that´s not there in jet planes....
 
I remember as a kid -- wow! this really ages me -- being woken at midnight -- plus a bit-- by people in the village waking my parents becaus they´d  seen an airship somewhere over Chelmsford way and had guessed it would come our way. I got outside in only my PJs to see and hear the airship directly overhead by only a few hundred feet. We could hear the paino playing above the engine noise and see peopel in the gondola waving at us.... Probaly 1936 .....!

I read that bit about hydrogen in a newspaper cutting my late buddy had sent me about 8 years ago.  
Probably the project was dropped for obvious reasons.

I wonder what happened to the Fuel-Cells development?

Cheers!

Jaybee.

Been in those sheds about forty years ago they are unreal seem even bigger inside.
Bill

Black & White film made in 1934  sometime...,  showed on German Telly ten years back, showed a Zeppelin inside a German shed and the the riggers going up gigantian ladders to work on the skin. Later there was a scene with a Zeppelin flying,  riggers out on the top sort of waddling along doggy-wise on the obviously slippery surface . I felt a bit queezy just watching those blokes at work....  

I hope Trevor is going to make a book of this lot because all this Wacky engineering should not be lost .... Some of them might be repeated and with modern materials be hugely successful fun....??

Cheers!

No it hasn`t lost a wheel!
I was given the heads-up about the Scott Sociable from one of my friends in the north, and this example resides in the Bradford transport museum. It is certainly an oddity, but by virtue of being a three wheeler and not four it just about qualifies as a bike?
The original concept was as a machine gun carrier but the was rejected by the war department, only to be resurrected in 1920 for civilian use as personal transport. However, production was brief extending for just five years and during this period around 200 were made.
Power came from the Scott twin cylinder two-stroke engine with an integral 3 speed integral transmission driving one rear wheel. A lot of technical innovations, such as the tubular space frame, were featured in the design concept but I guess it was just too wacky to be a commercial success!

Trevor

Well done that man!

Unbelievable what wars did to transport vehicles -- or would-be´s.

Thanks Trevor,

I got a call from the UK.A likely lad tells he is sending me the copy of (an MCN, May 1969) a pic of the "Japanese Walking-Motobike."
I hope it gets here but my scanner blew itself to bits and if the copy does arrive I´ll send it on to you....

...if you want it that is...?
--
CheerS?

JayBee...........mmmmsnore!

Thanks John,
Sorry to hear about the scanner, Had similar problems a few months ago so bought a cheap £30 printer/scanner not the best quality mind you but gets the job done and my desk is far less cluttered now.
I had a look around the net but couldn't find your walking motorcycle so yes please pass on the MCN article and I`ll get it posted to Wacky, sounds intriguing!

Take care out there,
regards Trevor

Thanks Trevor!
In those days (late 20th century) the Japanese had plenty of money to chuck about and they seem to still be leading in the number of humanoid robots any one nation makes.

I think it is rather ... hmmm ... what should I say ... not that ... not that ... a bit silly -- I suppose. But then they all are....!??

Since my pins were giving bother I converted my excycle to be a sitting-pedlar and although I walk slower I still go walkies every day. Then thinking recently my arms were getting a bit odd Í made an attachment to the excycle where I can be rowing, cycling, watching telly or even doing maffmatics (got a book with more intelligence type questions than arithmetic...making equations that function seems to be fun too...) all at the same time.

Although there was some blood I´ve still got all my digits in the right place but I proved I still have the ability to make fings -- of course I used a lot of aluminium alloy & Pop-Rivets instead of steel & nuts and bolts.

I reckon most of the Bantam lads are on Facebook (I cannot get on...) because it looks as if there´s only about a half-dozen of us using this site.....

I'll send the copy -- if it ever arrives -- since Brexit the GPO must be using Cleft-Stick and would-be Olympic runners ....

Go well & keep well...

Cheers!

John.

john bass wrote:

 
I remember as a kid -- wow! this really ages me -- being woken at midnight -- plus a bit-- by people in the village waking my parents becaus they´d  seen an airship somewhere over Chelmsford way and had guessed it would come our way. I got outside in only my PJs to see and hear the airship directly overhead by only a few hundred feet. We could hear the paino playing above the engine noise and see peopel in the gondola waving at us.... Probaly 1936 .....!


Jaybee.

I was to young to have any recollection of air ships but I can remember as a kid laying on my back on the Wanstead Flats watching paratroopers in training jumping from barrage balloons. (Got sweet FA to do with bikes but if the young sprogs don't use this site what the heck.)

Many thanks for the letter John always a little exciting to receive overseas mail, in fact getting a letter of any kind is a increasing rarity these days. In fact our local postman recons most of what he delivers goes unread straight into recycling bins, what a monster we have created!

That walking machine is indeed a way out bit of kit, but looking at the quality of construction it perhaps could only have come from an established engineering source, so well done Toyota.
I had previously tried to discover more by searching the internet via Google, sadly with no success, but struck lucky after having the correct description to hand with the arrival of the article. There is a very brief video of the thing walking but a lady on a bike pedals past it with seeming ease! So anyone further interested, get Googling.
The inset amphibious sidecar outfit looks promising, I`ll do a bit more research on that and see what comes up.

I know how you must feel Ned a fabulous site being ignored, I only bother with Wacky now, pictures are popular with the sprogs, reading text seems too much trouble, so they stay away. All of the other forum on sites around the world that I visit are vibrant, informed and push the limits of experimentation of two stroke engines, and the collective information available is astonishing, and can directly influence Bantam tuning.
Actually Ned, the next Wacky also includes a bit of social history, it shows the inside of the Douglas factory so does have some bike reference.

Trevor

Thanks Trevor,

Came out better than I thought.

Hello Ned! I was wondering where you´d been. Essex had a lot of war history merely because of London being close that the bombers of both wars would come across `safe´parts of Essex after having done London. Or missed it like a Zeppelin crew who got shot up and most of the crew jumped out rather than be burnt to death. It was said  that the Kapitain was standing upright -- quite dead -- from waist up in the Essex marshes with his peaked cap still on (the Zeppelin officers  had a special Stürmband  as chinstrap)....I found the grave of the dead crew at Lichfield after they´d all be moved in 1970 from Ingatstone -- I think?

I know -- I know it is not motor bikes -- but who cares!

I do.

If the trend continues there will only be a few Bantam riders on Facebook with this site belly-up.

Take care,

Cheers!

John-Boy....

This isn`t the originally intended picture for the next Wacky inclusion but as soon as I saw it, well, it just had to go in!
There are loads of fascinating things going on here and can be immediately seen but perhaps the most intriguing is the engine, I am reliably informed that the basis is a Jawa/CZ unit. However, we have an external bevel shaft driving a wide toothed belt to one off “cam box” with the cams being replaced with what could be a Froede type rotary valve set up? The carb is high up on the other side of the engine fixed to the new housing. Other parts have been identified as coming from a DAF Variomatic car transmission and the front forks have DMW type single spring unit, the headstock seems welded to the fuel tank and there must be an oil take in there as well, and so it goes on!
What staggers me is that there is just so much ingenuity and original thinking, and fine engineering, the whole thing must have taken an absolute age to get to this stage, and then maybe just petered out, judging from the appearance it seems to have stood neglected for some time. What about that front brake though, wouldn`t fancy relying on that to stop me at any sort of speed!
One hell of a conversation piece though don`t you think!

Trevor

"Petered out"... "Neglected"... got a bantam like that Trevor

Heady stuff, indeed!

I have an idea it might have been one those experiments where the combustion chamber moved to have the max combustion pressure occur later in the expansion cycle ... Theory much like the Dr Joe' s, e-3 articulating con-rod except this could be a moving combustion chamber...er?

Er? yeah, don´t waggle your head like that -- a lot of people tried to do it...

And front brake?

Who wants to bother with brakes when the real search is for something revoluntionary in the engine...?

Thanks Trevor!

Keep well,
cheers!

JayBee -- not yet ex....

Yes, Nigel I`ve got one as well, it used to win races once!

Thought you guys would like to see the other side of this extraordinary machine. Actually Nigel this vario drive machine could be just up your street, you must have enough bits around to have a go?

Cheers, Trevor

oddly enough Trevor, as John has just posted, im on the variable comp ratio road at present. sliding inverted piston, convexed to follow engine piston profile,, externally sealed by piston rings, within a housing. sealed bottom end of piston, with actuating shaft and water cooling via coolant pipe passages... ....... god i really need a lathe!!

Sounds good Nigel, but didn`t Yamaha do it first with the Polini power-head, actuated by gas? Love to see it all, any chance for the Avenue?
If any one can crack it I`m sure you can, all the best with this new project.

Cheers, Trevor

Trevor cant believe i missed the polini power head...

Several of us (engine devlopment companies) had a go at this:  " ... the proper utilization of the crank mechanism..." as quoted by BICERA of Slough in the Sixties when they sold their patent to Continental .....  

This was a piston inside a piston with the upper piston being lifted by oil pressure to change the Comp Ratio for fuel or altitude variations.  With tubocharger both  petrol engines as well as diesel could run on different fuels and different altitudes at max efficiency. Automatic variation of comp ratio in proportion to gas pressure in the chamber....

Our try was with a moving cylinder head (MCH) -- which I think LOTUS  had a go at about 15 years ago.

Anyone got any news on that Lotus work??

What we wanted to do was have the max combustion pressure occur later ... our experimental version worked well in LABORATORY conditions with limited speed range and we gave up just before KHD Inc, Canada went Belly-Up ***....

The BICERA piston was too heavy -- of course -- to go further than aircraft engine application where max ratings were less than 2500 rpm. I have a picture somewhere....?    

Cheers!

JayBee....
*** Belly-Up because we lost the Mil contract for Jeep replacement engine HUMMMVEE to the GM HUMMER ... Not because we were fooling with MCH...

Riding the salt! Run what you brung and set a record at.........35mph!

Trevor

Trevor that reminds me of when my kids had a Yamaha 80 trials bike we took to meetings with us as a paddock bike. The evening before a meeting at Debden I decided because it had a silencer it would be OK to do a few reconnaissance circuits of the track on it. Well this bike seemed pretty nippy over the rough, but on full bore going down the main straight it was so slow it felt like I could have rolled a fag while I was waiting for the end to come in site. It made me realise just how quick good bantams were and one lap was enough because I didn't want to be late for the meal my wife was preparing.