O&RBike

Wow when I first saw it (no pun intended ) I thought it was going to sell for big bucks. $369 does not seem unreasonable for one in NOS condition like that. I wonder if the $369 helped resolved the family feud or made it worse!

Well I thought I had seen all the O&R / Orline applications but this was a new one for me... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ohlsson-Rice-1HP-Engine-TILE-CUTTER-NEW-Never-Used-MINI-BIKE-Go-Kart-/121972697482?hash=item1c6623a98a:g:F10AAOSw3mpXJQLB

Not mine...If you live in Chicago area this looks like a pretty good deal. http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/pts/5218281508.html

Very clever.

OK thanks....I'll check out the possibility of a lean condition.

I love the simple architecture of that house...looks like late 50's early 60's. The brick work and vertical siding ...and the little roof extension with the crutch support really add character. Shame they don't build houses like that anymore. The whole neighborhood looks like it was built in that style and all looks well kept. The long cupola above the garage roof is interesting, does it serve a purpose.?

Ok O&R gurus.....Every once in a while the engine will not want to idle down even though the throttle is fully returned and the governor/butterfly is closed it begins running at a high speed..... I'm not sure how its even possible since the butterfly is shutting off the air supply and venturi effect. Its like the engine is running away. Then it will stop and idle normally again ?? Do these carbs have an actual idle circuit in them. Is there some way the fuel could be circumventing and feeding through the high speed circuit ?

Thanks guys... I do have a video of my son riding it...we been holding off posting it because we are still trying different sprocket ratios and have a new clutch on order and we think we can get it better than it is. It goes forward when you hit the gas but it's not going to break any land speed records lol. Actually it's pretty much what we had expected...something just under 20 mph, maybe 16 or 17 mph. That's not bad considering most O&R Tom Thumbs only run about 10 mph. Might be able to find another couple mile an hour by tweaking the ratios...but 1HP is still 1HP and there's just so much your going to get out of that engine. It also doesn't help that he's 6'3" and 180 lbs. If you put an 80 lb kid on this thing I think it would easily run 20 mph. We only had time for one quick test ride and he had to hop a flight back to school. I'll send the bike out to him and he can fool around with it some more in his spare time. Overall I would call it a success and we had some fun working on it. He's already planning a scratch built bike with more HP for the next project. I will post an update with the new clutch and sprocket ratios installed.

Break in run....(video)

Ready for a test run....

Started roughing out a chain guard for the pto side: Down on two wheels .... Right side spring loaded brake handle serves as throttle:

Odds and Ends.... Turned a longer solid aluminum seat post for it to gain some leg room ... Swiped a set of suspension forks off another junk BMX bike: We had to press a sleeve in them to fit the vintage aftermarket handlebar stem. Aside from the internal springs, these also have the provision to mount a front caliper type brake. (We had to ditch the original coaster brake with the custom rear hub.)

Off camera we had to bend the arms on the pedal crank outward to clear the works...sort of a "Z" shape bend, out and then back parallel again. The local bike shop actually had a special tool with a long cheater bar on it designed for bending the arms (cold) that we borrowed. It's really made for making small tweaks on a bike that's been laid over or crashed. We needed a full 2" offset. I could not believe the steel arms would bend that much without heating them up but they did with a lot of persuading. I said we did it "off camera" because there was a lot of swearing going on hahaha...