Thunder Can

What looks like an exhaust system is only a mock-up


Started this morning with my latest project. Or it all started when I talked with a guy sometime in August and promised to buy one of his bikes. Well time is something who consumes a lot of energy.. so I didn't pick it up until last week. He had bought it together with some spare parts for other motorcycles and since it is an odd model that only odd people care about (this will be my third :-)) he had just stuffed it into a corner and newer even tried to start it up. I took it home on my trailer and of course was kind a curious if it would run at all.

So this morning I started with changing the flat front tyre, changing front brakes that where obsolete, a new battery, spark plugs, oil and filter since it had been drained for some suspicious reason.. and then on the starting button but responses where slow so I used the old Dr Frankenstein method that really can waken up the dead, Ether gas.. And it bursted into life, left cylinder first as they always do and then it woke up with a gigantic rawl!! What an enormous sound, there wasn't just some minor leak from the exhaust, there seemed to be no silencer at all. The sound was this typical V-engine sound almost like a Dragster although this has only two and not eight cylinders.

Of course I had to take it out on a short trial on some of my unpaved roads. Really had a tremendous sound and I thought about that I'm lucky that there is no neighbours complaining out here in the woods. Big smile on my face, it really had that "lock-in-your-daughters" sound..

Now this evening I have changed the exhaust systems, the one who followed with the bike looked like a strainer with holes from rust everywhere. The bike must have been standing outside in rain for a long time...

With a much more civilized approach I put on helmet and leather suit for a test to see if it would run on high speed, this is the Achilles heel on many old bikes of this odd type. Ahh.. yes it had that sound and feel and it had.. that unfortunate fault that makes it unable to rev above 3000 and so restrict the speed to 90...

That's probably why it had been sleeping for ten? years. The problem is not expensive to fix, just change a coil that brings electricity to the ignition, problem is that you have to pick out the engine and tear it apart because that coil is placed behind the flywheel. Those engineers who did this is probably in some Japanese old-peoples-home now and use to laugh about the thought of that job and if there are any fools who still runs what they designed for over thirty years ago.

I bet they are kinda oddballs..