Cars and bikes I’ve come across in my travels

I had a chat with the owner builder, it's a Dihatso Triple with a homemade frame. He is also building one with the same engine but Turboed, but he was saying the rego regs have changed and his Engineer said no homemade frame now, he was saying he needed a vin from a late model goldwing to do and I lost the next bit, it got complicated. There is a long history of this in Oz, there was some bloke building customs using a Howard Air-cooled pump engine as a Power Plant. Thia is not the bloke I heard about, his was 30 years ago.
 
Vince said:
I had a chat with the owner builder, it's a Dihatso Triple with a homemade frame. He is also building one with the same engine but Turboed, but he was saying the rego regs have changed and his Engineer said no homemade frame now, he was saying he needed a vin from a late model goldwing to do and I lost the next bit, it got complicated. There is a long history of this in Oz, there was some bloke building customs using a Howard Air-cooled pump engine as a Power Plant. Thia is not the bloke I heard about, his was 30 years ago.
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Absolutely love this- I’ve said it before but I admire the Aus/ New Zealand guys for their ability to make things work- in the UK we have all the facilities and all we seem to do is produce endless CX 500 cafe racers with brown seats, no mudguards and fucking exhaust wrap !
 
thats a much better looking diesel bike than most. Virtually all car engined specials look crap, the motor was never designed to be looked at, length and weight create problems as well, I have akways fancied building one, as modern car diesels especially small ones have improved massively, some are even not too heavy (well ish). In a way, I still think of the precious Laverda V6 (any of the three) look like car engined specials, which if course makes sense since the engine designer was a car man, (Alfieri) and he based the design on a 5 litre V6 Masserati engine. But (LISTEN) isnt it just the most beautifull car engined bike on the planet?
CLEM
remember I said car engined
 
CLEMTOG said:
thats a much better looking diesel bike than most. Virtually all car engined specials look crap, the motor was never designed to be looked at, length and weight create problems as well, I have akways fancied building one, as modern car diesels especially small ones have improved massively, some are even not too heavy (well ish). In a way, I still think of the precious Laverda V6 (any of the three) look like car engined specials, which if course makes sense since the engine designer was a car man, (Alfieri) and he based the design on a 5 litre V6 Masserati engine. But (LISTEN) isnt it just the most beautifull car engined bike on the planet?
CLEM
remember I said car engined
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Someone used a V6 maserati engine (2.7-3.0) engine for a look alike Laverda V6 special. These engines have a strange 90 degrees bank angle for a V6 since originally it was a V8 design. An interesting car engined project is the V6 Alfa Busso engined motorbike. The engine is also not placed inline as the Laverda since this V6 has a normal 60 degree cyl bank configuration
Jeroen
 
That gadget is similar to a plane's front landing gear. I've seen another Euro bike in the 1990s run similar but nowhere near as thick.
 
Vince said:
That gadget is similar to a plane's front landing gear. I've seen another Euro bike in the 1990s run similar but nowhere near as thick.
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I would expect it to be heavily relieved on the inside where you cannot see it. FWI, Cannondale used this design for years on their road and mountain bikes. Certainly it has been practically the default for aircraft.

No reason why one big tube cannot provide damping as well as two smaller ones.
 
Alzero said:
No reason why one big tube cannot provide damping as well as two smaller ones.
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Stiction would be a big one.
An aeroplane has a immensely higher sprung/unsprung weight ratio, compared to a motorcycle, and spends only a tiny percentage of total time travelling on its wheels. Even less at significant speed.
Apples and oranges!
 
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Alzero said:
I would expect it to be heavily relieved on the inside where you cannot see it. FWI, Cannondale used this design for years on their road and mountain bikes. Certainly it has been practically the default for aircraft.

No reason why one big tube cannot provide damping as well as two smaller ones.
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Cannondale lefty rider here for years. It looks strange at first but if you look into it, it makes a lot of sense. Engineering wise that is.
We all know the increase of strength a bigger tube has with the same weight. Using the full length of the "fork" (strut) up to the handlebar further increases stability. Also, stiction is very well taken care of by the use of linear bearings (which of course cause other issues).
Looks much heavier and also somewhat flimsier than a traditional MTB fork but in reality it's more stable and certainly not heavier or lighter.

Unfortunately, it never really caught on the market, like many good ideas.

PS: Did I mention how cool it is to change a tire without having to remove the wheel? Not that it matters much in times of tubless and tire sealant....
 
I’m slightly surprised Stephen Antis didn’t fit something like that to his recent creation.
And as for the Yamaha, ‘bike’ of choice for a lot of the camera bike crews following the TDF/GD’I etc.
 
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