Post by dusty350 on Dec 27, 2014 20:54:38 GMT 1
Hi
Found a couple of old pics today, of something that happened to me back in 1986 ! I can smile about it now, but at the time it was far from funny.
In 1985, aged 18, I joined the Fire Brigade, and for the 14 week training course, I commuted to Reigate in Surrey on a Sunday night, and then home again on Friday afternoon. Once I finished training, I was posted to Staines and my wages went up a bit. I had always wanted an Rd400, so I started looking, and found one in Warlingham which I bought. It was an ex Brands Hatch race school bike, which had been sold on when the Lc's came along. It was on a "Q" plate which wasn't the end of the world back then, basically standard looking, but running on Castrol R premix. The fella that had bought it from the race school had got some work done on it by Stan Stephens and it was rapid !! I rode it like that for a time but decided to get it off Cazzy R and onto something a bit cheaper. I took it to a bike shop in Windsor who told me they stripped it apart, cleaned out all traces of "R" and put it all back together with new two stroke oil for premixing. I rode it home and it seemed fine. Next time I rode it was to Boxhill on Sunday afternoon. Big group of us went, and I had a girlfriend on the back too. My mate took a pic of me and the bike and his girlfriend, and we are at the top of Boxhill;
Shortly after this pic was taken, we left as I had to get home as I was on nights. We were all hammering home on the M25, in the fast lane, and the bike was flying, when all of a sudden it seized good and proper
. Clutch lever in, and a desperate manouver across 3 lanes of busy motorway to get to the hard shoulder - goodness knows how we made it but we did. Long story short, my mate rode back to his girlfriends house as she worked for a courier firm and had a transit sized van we could get the bike into. I was approx. 2 miles from the Chertsey junction (11), and if I could get the bike up the slip road, my mates girlfriend could pull up and get the bike in.
I was left on the hard shoulder with my girlfriend and another mate, Mark who was on a 350 Lc. I started the long push towards the Chertsey junction, behind Mark who was going at walking pace on the Lc in front of me, when he suddenly stopped next to a length of blue webbing. It was the sort of webbing you find on curtain sided trucks, and was a bit frayed where it had obviously come off the truck, but it was quite a long piece. Mark's bright idea was tie the webbing around my fork leg, and the other end to his grab rail, and he would tow us to the junction in double quick time. I was fairly new in my job and didn't want to be late for the night shift, so although I thought it was a bit dodgy, I decided it would be ok ! So, with the webbing tied round the left fork leg, and the other end to Mark's grab rail, we set off, staying on the hard shoulder. Mark had to rev his Lc quite a bit to get moving as me, the girlfriend and the 400e weighed a helluva lot more than him. At first we were moving at about 6 or 7 mile an hour which was ok, but buoyed by our progress, Mark decided we could go much faster . By the time we were doing 30mph, I new this had been a really bad idea - I was fighting to keep the bars straight, and screaming at Mark and sounding my horn to get his attention, but he couldn't hear me above the sound of his screaming Allspeeds ! It took all my strength to keep the bike straight and on the hard shoulder - slow lane traffic was still moving much faster than us and only inches away. How we got to the Junction at Chertsey in one piece I will never know, but it's the most dangerous and stupid thing I've ever done on a bike. This is a pic of Mark and the bikes I took from the roundabout on top of the junction;
We got the bike in the van and dropped it off home where I got changed and drove my car to work, and I wasn't late !
Next day, when back at home, the strip down revealed lots of aluminium debris in the down pipes. Worst was to come though, and all these years later I still have some of the remains;
The crankcases were scrap too as there was a big jagged trench in the bottom of the case where the broken conrod had spun on the crank and gouged it out. We think that an old circlip had been reused by the bike shop, and had come free at 95mph on the M25
When I look back now, I'm thankful for not only surviving the initial seizure, but the hard shoulder ride to junction 11 !
The 400 did live again - I bought a complete 400e runner from a mate for £200, just for the engine, which is still going strong in the bike today - my mate's brother has it now.
Happy days
Dusty
Found a couple of old pics today, of something that happened to me back in 1986 ! I can smile about it now, but at the time it was far from funny.
In 1985, aged 18, I joined the Fire Brigade, and for the 14 week training course, I commuted to Reigate in Surrey on a Sunday night, and then home again on Friday afternoon. Once I finished training, I was posted to Staines and my wages went up a bit. I had always wanted an Rd400, so I started looking, and found one in Warlingham which I bought. It was an ex Brands Hatch race school bike, which had been sold on when the Lc's came along. It was on a "Q" plate which wasn't the end of the world back then, basically standard looking, but running on Castrol R premix. The fella that had bought it from the race school had got some work done on it by Stan Stephens and it was rapid !! I rode it like that for a time but decided to get it off Cazzy R and onto something a bit cheaper. I took it to a bike shop in Windsor who told me they stripped it apart, cleaned out all traces of "R" and put it all back together with new two stroke oil for premixing. I rode it home and it seemed fine. Next time I rode it was to Boxhill on Sunday afternoon. Big group of us went, and I had a girlfriend on the back too. My mate took a pic of me and the bike and his girlfriend, and we are at the top of Boxhill;
Shortly after this pic was taken, we left as I had to get home as I was on nights. We were all hammering home on the M25, in the fast lane, and the bike was flying, when all of a sudden it seized good and proper
. Clutch lever in, and a desperate manouver across 3 lanes of busy motorway to get to the hard shoulder - goodness knows how we made it but we did. Long story short, my mate rode back to his girlfriends house as she worked for a courier firm and had a transit sized van we could get the bike into. I was approx. 2 miles from the Chertsey junction (11), and if I could get the bike up the slip road, my mates girlfriend could pull up and get the bike in.I was left on the hard shoulder with my girlfriend and another mate, Mark who was on a 350 Lc. I started the long push towards the Chertsey junction, behind Mark who was going at walking pace on the Lc in front of me, when he suddenly stopped next to a length of blue webbing. It was the sort of webbing you find on curtain sided trucks, and was a bit frayed where it had obviously come off the truck, but it was quite a long piece. Mark's bright idea was tie the webbing around my fork leg, and the other end to his grab rail, and he would tow us to the junction in double quick time. I was fairly new in my job and didn't want to be late for the night shift, so although I thought it was a bit dodgy, I decided it would be ok ! So, with the webbing tied round the left fork leg, and the other end to Mark's grab rail, we set off, staying on the hard shoulder. Mark had to rev his Lc quite a bit to get moving as me, the girlfriend and the 400e weighed a helluva lot more than him. At first we were moving at about 6 or 7 mile an hour which was ok, but buoyed by our progress, Mark decided we could go much faster
. By the time we were doing 30mph, I new this had been a really bad idea - I was fighting to keep the bars straight, and screaming at Mark and sounding my horn to get his attention, but he couldn't hear me above the sound of his screaming Allspeeds ! It took all my strength to keep the bike straight and on the hard shoulder - slow lane traffic was still moving much faster than us and only inches away. How we got to the Junction at Chertsey in one piece I will never know, but it's the most dangerous and stupid thing I've ever done on a bike. This is a pic of Mark and the bikes I took from the roundabout on top of the junction;
We got the bike in the van and dropped it off home where I got changed and drove my car to work, and I wasn't late !
Next day, when back at home, the strip down revealed lots of aluminium debris in the down pipes. Worst was to come though, and all these years later I still have some of the remains;
The crankcases were scrap too as there was a big jagged trench in the bottom of the case where the broken conrod had spun on the crank and gouged it out. We think that an old circlip had been reused by the bike shop, and had come free at 95mph on the M25
When I look back now, I'm thankful for not only surviving the initial seizure, but the hard shoulder ride to junction 11 !
The 400 did live again - I bought a complete 400e runner from a mate for £200, just for the engine, which is still going strong in the bike today - my mate's brother has it now.
Happy days
Dusty
I couldn't even apply my brakes because I think it would have flipped him - he said afterwards his front end was very light whilst towing us ! I think we all used up a few lives that day 
