Ian

Glad your enjoying the build Neil, how could we not do a thread when there are so few RJ's over here... It gives me something extra to make a few video's about as well More progress.. Getting the knackered tyre off the front wheel rim was fun, the tube put up more of a fight than the tyre! Does anyone know what the random hole in the wheel rim is for? It doesn't seem to line up with anything on the RJ and I'd of thought it would have two holes for bolting a wheel weight onto! I wondered why the paint off the bottom of the gas tank had been stripped, someone has done a solder repair.. What's Nigel spotted in the tank? Nope, it's not a mini star system but quite a few holes instead! Some detail brought back by cleaning up the pull start casing.. Cleaning up the rear wheels.. Someone at some point had flattened the paint back to a beautiful smooth finish and then for what ever reason gave them a quick (very quick) spray with grey primer.. The odd rusty bit cleans up very easily The other rear wheel decided it wanted to leak water on my bench! 10psi later and water was pouring/bubbling out all over the place! I'm not looking forward to popping the tyre off the bead to clean the water out and see how badly rusted it is inside! I must remember to take a photo of the tyre valve tomorrow as I've never seen one like it! A hint of things to come Not forgetting of course

More of an RJ update for you chaps, let's have a look at the hood/bonnet shall we.. Interesting, a repainted gas tank with no fuel tap (Neil did mention it leaked ) and lot's of paint cleaned off the bottom! What's going on under (or is that above?) the tank? Soooooo... Someone has ground back the filler smoothing out the underside of the hood/bonnet to weld on new fuel tank straps! I'd guess when the hood was painted no tank straps were fitted.. It so happen that the strap welds are in the same place as the filler cracks above! Who ever did it thought something sucked as that's what it looks like has been written! No idea why when I upload this photo it turns it sideways! Oh, and the top of the tank never got painted! Out with the grinder and a workshop full of filler dust later it was good to see the rust was surface rust only, and only where the filler had cracked... And a random pop rivet! As the bonnet/hood has quite a lot of ripples under the filler, there was no point in taking it all out only to replace it.. So with the surface rust carefully cleaned back to bare metal the first layer of filler went back in.. Easy sand no pin holes filler eh! At least the easy sand bit was right.. No worries, a second skim will sort it. Meanwhile I catch Nigel dancing with some masking tape and a bench full of RJ parts! Some parts like the gear (I'm not sure it should be called that!) lever had never be repainted, so here it is with all the thick surface rust cleaned off awaiting some red oxide primer. Some parts in the "need to to have the paint flattened back to give the primer a good key" Que Some primed parts hanging about the place. The hood now looks good with a fresh coat of red oxide primer, I'm happy with the overall shape of my filler work, there's a just a couple of little spots that are annoying me.. I will sort them tomorrow.

Paint chat now had, he (I keep going to call him her!) will look stunning with fresh paint. Glad you like the vid's, Part two will be along in a mo.. It's a shame about the cracked filler, but the rust has been caught in time before it chews holes through the hood.. Lot's of filler in it, but it had been done to a very high standard.. Just a shame about the bubbling. As promised here's Part 2 of the RJ Diaries..

A few photo's of the hood, fenders etc after they were painted Monday.. They be looking good

Speak with you tomorrow Neil, it's been a long day! Here's a couple of pic's of what's hiding under the filler bubbles on the hood!

It's a pleasure to be helping on such a machine Neil, a great bit of history with it too.. A "he" it is Ta for that photo Neil, it helped a great deal working out how the pulley system worked I'm not sure about the silver steering wheel though, what is the correct colour as I've seen em painted silver, black and red.. It didn't take long to get the belt guard and hood off.. The first job was to have a look at the engine, it has good compression and after a bit of plug and plug lead cleaning it has a spark I expect with a temporary gas tank fitted and a bit of move juice the engine should come to life.. Something to look forward to on Monday The engine pulley is not quite in the right place on the shaft, it should be closer to the engine.. Me thinks the pulley needs to turn a little on the shaft as well.. Having not worked on an RJ or any really early Wheel Horses before this er.. brassy bit on the back of the pulley confused me for quite a while until I worked out it's the reverse er.. cog In fact the whole drive belt system confused me for a while until I disconnected this spring and then everything fell into place.. With the RJ's engine having a good spark the time had come to look at the carb.. An interesting find behind the carb... Me thinks that gasket might be a bit small! Everything moved freely in the carb, so with a new gasket made (your see it in an up and coming video) the carb was bolted back on and a temporary fuel tank lashed up. A few pulls of the cord (steel cable in this case!) and the engine coughed into life and ran for a few seconds before stopping, which was just as well as the carb was leaking fuel from around the float bowl in vast amounts! Off with the carb again, ahhh there's the problem! As luck would have it Nigel had a spare carb which I could borrow to check out how the engine runs.. Thanks mate A few pulls of the cord later and the engine didn't start... One "big" pull later the pull cord came off in my hand but the engine did start, run and sounded very nice until it ran out of petrol and I gave myself a shock from the HT lead! All of which you will see in a video of course I thought I had snapped the steel cable pull cord thingy (I hadn't seen on either) until a saw how long it still was and checked the (not so) snapped end! As it turned out the nut that holds the end of the cable on was loose and the steel cable had simply pulled out! Phew While we have the pull start assembly apart let's turn it over and have a look..... What the??? Pull the cord and the center changes into a hexagonal shape! Which grips on a hexagonal shaft on the flywheel! I've never seen a pull start that works like that before... Me likes Then this happened This is a good point to put up a RJ Intro vid, the first part of "The RJ Diary's" should be up later today

A little RJ update, she (Is it a she Neil?) has moved onto my bench ready for work to start on it Friday, it's a kinda joint mini project with Nigel.. It's going to be interesting working on such an old and fine machine

The carbs had a quick (very quick) clean up before being hit with some black paint. For some reason the engine when in the trike never had a choke cable fitted, but it was quite easy to fit the original quad cable to the carbs. Carbs fitted. The throttle cable had seen better days and decided to snap! Looking at this "unsnapped" section of it I'm surprised it had held together for as long as it did! Another thing for the shopping list! Tank and seat plonked back on.. The reason for fitting the tank was to work out if I needed to re-position the fuel tap.. As it turned out the original tap position was spot on, it's just a shame someone had cut it out to fit it to Why Not's tank! The plan was to cut this tap off the trikes tank and graft it onto MadTrax's tank.. Well... That was the plan until I found the tank still had some petrol in it! I guess it still is the plan, it will just have to wait a few day for the tank to air out.. Some funky airbrushing.. Looks like a previous owner had a thing for Iron Maiden

Morning all, time for a long over due update starting with a much more detailed photo (that I found buried in my phone) of the captive nut and screw thingy that holds the top of the gauge pods together. Both freshly painted gauge pods were part assembled and bolted back on MadTrax.. They looked so terrible that they came off again, got hit will some filler and then repainted! Me thinks they look much better now The temp gauge and warning lights almost ready to go in the pod. The original bike warning lights would not fit in easy.. So I bought some of these Two extra holes drilled in the temp gauge mounting plate which for some reason doesn't look too happy about it!! A small but worthy attention to detail thing.. The new warning lights had chrome effect surrounds.. That would never do, something shiny!! So.... Fitting the temp gauge and warning lights in the pod was a bit tight... Yes the paints chipped already Ta-Daa.. The rev counter... A new rev counter cable was fitted, which meant the radiator had to come off the engine again! I'm finally happy with the gauges now

Thanks Iain, I did leave the radiator draining for just long enough to see if it had the desired effect... Good to know it did

Looks like you had a fun day Chris.. In the last photo is that a really narrow rear axle with disc brakes at the top of the skip? I don't think it is but that's what it looks like!

Not a great deal to report as I've not been up the workshop apart from a few hours Friday where my body needed a break from all the festive sitting around! Trying to follow a wiring diagram on a smart phone (printer out of ink) was interesting but I did manage to remove a few more un-needed wires from the loom... It's starting to look less frightening now Just before silly season hit I pulled the gauges out of a box to finish them off.. The glass "eyebrow"/top/bit that actually holds the gauges in (the pods were make from ride on mower headlamps remember) needed a little something to stop them from flying apart during high speed jumps/crashes (delete according to taste/fear/bravery). A bit hard to see from this photo snatched from video footage, but there is a small Allen key bolt that screws through a hole in the lip thingy into a threaded insert welded to the pod body. Gauge pod body's and trim/eyebrow top ring thingys hit with the black stuff.. To finish this update off here's the latest MadTrax video where I play around some more with special effects and a few sound effects as well.. I even do some work on MadTrax

It's a shame the deck drive never turned up Richard, but it's good news about all your money being returned

Thanks mate, by the time she's all black she should be able to lurk in the shadows without being seen Thanks Iain, the wiring isn't too bad really. Most of it makes sense.... I need to get a wiring diagram for the wires that don't

Happy birthday Darmic, here's wishing you a good day

Happy birthday Henry, have a good day

A lot less mud than last year, great photo Mark

Looks like you both had a fun day in the woods... I bet the weather was a bit of a shock for Karl seeing as he had just got back from a holiday in warmer climates

That's good news Norm, I look forward to the vid of Billy running. I've never seen one in action. That's quite a selection of pullers

The near side exhaust is the correct one, the other side has a large pepper pot silencer!

Thanks Iain, glad you like the extra "silliness" in the vid... I wasn't sure how people would take to it.. The full size Nigel spends most of he's time sitting down, if the small bloke had a chair nothing would ever get done Before the engine could go back in there was a slight frame mod to do.. As the shock mounts had been moved up.. The strengthening bar between them also got moved up.. Engine in, thanks for your help today Rob should you be reading this. I just need to finish sorting out the rat's nest of a wiring loom! Yesterday all the front end parts had a session with some rattle cans. A spring looking good in black.. Well, it did look good until I noticed how much I had missed on the other side.. Spring can be a right pain to paint! The front end bolted back on.. The good thing with painting everything satin black is I can just spray over any pain chips without having to mask anything up

That looks a nice clean van Andrew, a tad of rust on one wing, but nice and clean.. What's the plans engine wise? Plenty of space to put something a bit bigger than the original

Happy birthday James, here's wishing you a great day