We in Oz were virtually cut off from where just about everything was made during WW2, and after the war, it was decided we didn't like that at all. So they came to the conclusion building cars would develop a broad-based manufacturing industry and importing migrates would support this as well and be good for the country and the rest of the world as well. Fast forward 60 years and apparently that's now a bad idea and we now have a race to the bottom for wages where populations HAVE to work cheap around the world to compete with each other in this downward trend. And when the shit hits the fan we then find out how hard making paper masks are with no skilled workforce here or plant to do it. But at least the economists are happy
wanted - moto giro bike
- Thread starter Paul LeClair
- Start date
We now export car manufacture to places where the work force is cheaper.
Then fill cargo ships to get the cars.
It would be much better if we made the cars at home, making expensive cars with a cheap work force who couldn't afford them, just like in the good old days.
Paul
Ariel Marx
New member
- Location
- Lille France
Hi Paul L,
Very lovely little gilera you have there. I have always had a passion for those little Italian singles. We have things in common as I also have a little gilera 175 rossa extra that had been campaigning in various races locally, and a 125 Laverda regolarita that is also undergoing full overhaul. Some photos of my gilera below.
Very lovely little gilera you have there. I have always had a passion for those little Italian singles. We have things in common as I also have a little gilera 175 rossa extra that had been campaigning in various races locally, and a 125 Laverda regolarita that is also undergoing full overhaul. Some photos of my gilera below.
Attachments
- Location
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Hi Ariel
Great project photos! The 1950s Gilera are pretty much unknown where I live in western Canada. I guess early in the 1960’s Gilera came to North America under branding from Sears Roebuck, a huge department store but I have never seen any of those in real life.
I still have most of my previous intended Moto Giro project bike, a 1966 Garelli 150 with a Lavern’s single engine. It got fire damaged in a garage fire about 14 months ago and I am still debating whether to try to resurect the Garelli with parts from Wolfgang or accept Wolfgang’s offer to buy the Garelli remains from me
Please post updates of your project!
Great project photos! The 1950s Gilera are pretty much unknown where I live in western Canada. I guess early in the 1960’s Gilera came to North America under branding from Sears Roebuck, a huge department store but I have never seen any of those in real life.
I still have most of my previous intended Moto Giro project bike, a 1966 Garelli 150 with a Lavern’s single engine. It got fire damaged in a garage fire about 14 months ago and I am still debating whether to try to resurect the Garelli with parts from Wolfgang or accept Wolfgang’s offer to buy the Garelli remains from me
Please post updates of your project!
I know that bike!
Ariel Marx
New member
- Location
- Lille France
That’s a shame for the garelli, if you decide to restore it and you are looking for parts, let me know what you need and I will have a look through my spares. For the gilera, I think some of them were built in Argentina at least some 200cc. If you are on Facebook, there is a nice group where you’ll find some help at https://www.facebook.com/groups/gileramotorcycles/?ref=share
All I can tell you if you are looking for the factory production date of your bike, you have 2 stamps on the engine one on the side which tells you the date of assembly of the engine is on the inside of the main case usually on the Dynamo side. The second one on the rear mount where you fit the engine onto the frame that gives you date of motorcycle completion (photos for examples are not from my bike)
Attachments
Ariel Marx
New member
- Location
- Lille France
You’ll surely ride it too
- Location
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Hi Ariel
I went and joined the Gilera Face Book Group you mentioned. Saw you and others are looking for the long speedo cable to the rear wheel. So am I. Someone mentioned buying a speedo cable from "Retro in Italy" but nothing comes up when I search. Have you found a source to supply the needed extra long speedo cable yet?
I went and joined the Gilera Face Book Group you mentioned. Saw you and others are looking for the long speedo cable to the rear wheel. So am I. Someone mentioned buying a speedo cable from "Retro in Italy" but nothing comes up when I search. Have you found a source to supply the needed extra long speedo cable yet?
Ariel Marx
New member
- Location
- Lille France
I did find one on eBay Italy today, it’s the first one I come across in 3 months. I am sure you could have one custom made of you can’t find one. I will keep an eye out for another one, very odd to have such a long cable connected to the rear wheel.
So far I have found multiple websites that sell little things such as
Facebook group (mostly in Italy) that’s specialized in sale of gilera parts:
www.facebook.com
Stickers: https://www.motortransfers.it/catalogo/moto/gilera/page/2/
Rubbers:
Plenty of parts for small Italian bikes on here:
Brezzi Samuele Collezionismo | Marmitte - Fanalini - Cerchietti per moto d'epoca
desc di area: Home page
www.brezzisamuele.com
- Location
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Hi arielI did find one on eBay Italy today, it’s the first one I come across in 3 months. I am sure you could have one custom made of you can’t find one. I will keep an eye out for another one, very odd to have such a long cable connected to the rear wheel.
So far I have found multiple websites that sell little things such as
Facebook group (mostly in Italy) that’s specialized in sale of gilera parts:
Stickers: https://www.motortransfers.it/catalogo/moto/gilera/page/2/
Rubbers:
Plenty of parts for small Italian bikes on here:
Brezzi Samuele Collezionismo | Marmitte - Fanalini - Cerchietti per moto d'epoca
desc di area: Home pagewww.brezzisamuele.com
I got my Gilera transfers from https://classictransfers.co.uk/
someone else just recently mentioned brezzisamuele, thanks. I just ordered the bright red "ball protector" and half a dozen more necessary items a day or so ago from that site, quick internet acknowledgement of the order.
going to check out the Italian language FaceBook group you mentioned.
Attachments
Dellortoman
Hero member
- Location
- Tasmania, Australia
How long a speedo cable are you talking about Paul?
I'm thinking it might be possible to modify a speedo cable from something else. In cars, the cable would often go from the rear end of the gearbox, up to the speedo in the dash via the engine bay, so they were quite long. If you can get a sufficiently long cable you could cut it to length and fit the appropriate ends.
It's also possible to buy a length of inner cable separately. But that's only helpful if you if you have the original outer cable. I've done my last couple of speedo/tacho cable replacements that way. It's a lot cheaper than buying the fully assembled cable, and especially useful with old or rare machines for which parts are unobtainable.
I had to make the die to form the square ends on speedo/tacho cables. It's nothing more than a couple of little steel plates with half of the square form (split across the diagonal) in each side. Slip the cable in between them and squeeze them together in a press. You can also make the outer cable fittings if you have the necessary tooling.
Here's a video explaining the process. The bloke is a little long-winded and goes into a lot of unnecessary detail about making the die plates, but he shows the process pretty clearly.
I'm thinking it might be possible to modify a speedo cable from something else. In cars, the cable would often go from the rear end of the gearbox, up to the speedo in the dash via the engine bay, so they were quite long. If you can get a sufficiently long cable you could cut it to length and fit the appropriate ends.
It's also possible to buy a length of inner cable separately. But that's only helpful if you if you have the original outer cable. I've done my last couple of speedo/tacho cable replacements that way. It's a lot cheaper than buying the fully assembled cable, and especially useful with old or rare machines for which parts are unobtainable.
I had to make the die to form the square ends on speedo/tacho cables. It's nothing more than a couple of little steel plates with half of the square form (split across the diagonal) in each side. Slip the cable in between them and squeeze them together in a press. You can also make the outer cable fittings if you have the necessary tooling.
Here's a video explaining the process. The bloke is a little long-winded and goes into a lot of unnecessary detail about making the die plates, but he shows the process pretty clearly.
Jo
Hero member
- Location
- Cologne, NRW Germany
Simple and efficient. Even if the guy reminds me a bit of the farmer from Shaun the Sheep ...
- Location
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada
ordered my ball protector from Brezzi Samuele in Italy on Tuesday, was delivered to my door in Calgary, Alberta, Canada 3 days later, today, Friday January 28, 2022! Remarakable!! Also came with the shipment a full set of throttle, clutch, and front brake cables, all in bright red sheathing, and a bunch of Gilera branded rubber bits. I am still waiting for stuff I ordered from the UK December 22, 2021, and stuff I ordered from the U.S.A. January 6, 8, and 12th, 2022, bloody hell, so three days door to door from Italy is pretty impressive.
I expected the ball protector to be bright red, as that is what I ordered. I did not expect it to be bright red one side, black the other. I may test fit it to a Laverda triple just to test it out.....
picked up the last of the bearings today on my way home from work, I now have every bearing brand new for every bearing in the bike. Taking the Gilera transfers/decals to the painter tommorrow, will be interested to see what progress has been made, will try to get him to provide some sort of completion date estimate.
got my order with Hagon shocks in the UK sorted, and paid, they emailed they built the shocks yesterday to my spec, and will be shipping shortly. Central Wheel is making the polished stainless steel spokes, they estimated three weeks. I think I now have pretty much all the bits and bobs sourced, ordered, and paid for, just waiting on shipping from all over the world, and customs processing delays. One glaring outstanding part is a long speedo cable to reach the rear wheel speedo drive, I have to measure and photograph the broken original then follow that up.
I also had made a complete list of every fastener on the bike when I took the bike apart, sent my order in to my bolt supply place end of last week https://www.bisci.ca/ they had most of it in stock, brought in the few things they did not have right in stock, and I picked up all the rest of the stainless steel fasteners today as well. The only thing they couldn't get were the peculiar flat headed closed headed acorn type nuts, but no big deal, I sent 13 of those originals in with the other stuff for show chroming anyway.
I started wet sanding one of the engine case halves the other evening after work, and picked up a better sanding block and better wet sandpaper today, sanding the engine case is going to be attempted this weekend, although the other engine case half is still with the specialty welderr being repaired. If I run out of things to work on while I am waiting on shipping and other services, I may drag the 1966 Garelli 150 out of the shed,( I have not really even looked at it since the garage fire 14 months ago), and see how much is salvageable. A bunch of it got charred in the fire. I also know some of the parts, like the new piston rings for the new oversized piston, disapeared in the cleanup of the gutted garage after the fire, but now I will make an active effort to determine if that project is capable of being resurected or if I should just sell all the remaining bits to Wolfgang as he suggested.
I expected the ball protector to be bright red, as that is what I ordered. I did not expect it to be bright red one side, black the other. I may test fit it to a Laverda triple just to test it out.....
picked up the last of the bearings today on my way home from work, I now have every bearing brand new for every bearing in the bike. Taking the Gilera transfers/decals to the painter tommorrow, will be interested to see what progress has been made, will try to get him to provide some sort of completion date estimate.
got my order with Hagon shocks in the UK sorted, and paid, they emailed they built the shocks yesterday to my spec, and will be shipping shortly. Central Wheel is making the polished stainless steel spokes, they estimated three weeks. I think I now have pretty much all the bits and bobs sourced, ordered, and paid for, just waiting on shipping from all over the world, and customs processing delays. One glaring outstanding part is a long speedo cable to reach the rear wheel speedo drive, I have to measure and photograph the broken original then follow that up.
I also had made a complete list of every fastener on the bike when I took the bike apart, sent my order in to my bolt supply place end of last week https://www.bisci.ca/ they had most of it in stock, brought in the few things they did not have right in stock, and I picked up all the rest of the stainless steel fasteners today as well. The only thing they couldn't get were the peculiar flat headed closed headed acorn type nuts, but no big deal, I sent 13 of those originals in with the other stuff for show chroming anyway.
I started wet sanding one of the engine case halves the other evening after work, and picked up a better sanding block and better wet sandpaper today, sanding the engine case is going to be attempted this weekend, although the other engine case half is still with the specialty welderr being repaired. If I run out of things to work on while I am waiting on shipping and other services, I may drag the 1966 Garelli 150 out of the shed,( I have not really even looked at it since the garage fire 14 months ago), and see how much is salvageable. A bunch of it got charred in the fire. I also know some of the parts, like the new piston rings for the new oversized piston, disapeared in the cleanup of the gutted garage after the fire, but now I will make an active effort to determine if that project is capable of being resurected or if I should just sell all the remaining bits to Wolfgang as he suggested.
Attachments
Cosi
Hero member
- Location
- Kingscliff
I don’t think the word “toilet” really means what you’re using it for either. “To clean” or similar I thought…
Euphemisms must go waaaay back
The proper terminology if you wish to take it onboard is water closet, abbreviated “WC”, but only builders and architects will
Know what your referencing
- Location
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada
just paid the import fees and customs clearance on the Hagon shocks coming from the UK by UPS, so they should be here soon, got a note from UPS that delivery is "scheduled" whatever that means.
After a lot of digging around I found a supplier in Italy for a pair of Gilera 150 appropriate brand new 7 mm valves, valve keepers, caps, new valve guides, new doubled springs, etc. Just paid for those by PayPal, and vendor has cautioned may take two weeks or possibly considerably more to get here from Italy. I watched a couple of YouTube videos on removing and installing valve guides, will check around for local experts and see if anyone will tackle this, or whether I may consider attempting it myself..........
my youngest son turned up yesterday and spent a couple of hours grinding/sanding/surface preparation on the larger engine case half. Removed a considerable amount of surface material to erase most of the largest of the deep gouges. Now waiting for the return from the specialty welder of the other case half, to then bolt them together and do the final finishing as a unit. May have to resist a final mirror polishing of the engine cases, the other bits I am polishing are coming along. The 1957 Gilera engine castings are not to the same level of quality as late 1970's early 1980's Laverda triple engine castings. A lot of porosity, casting bubbles, irregularities in the Gilera engine cases, and 65 years of being apparently heavily knocked about.
Put the vapour blasted 18 mm Dellortto carb and cast aluminum air filter assembly together, looks like jewelry. Presently fitted with a 108 main jet, couldn't identify the needle, the needle jet is stamped 2608. Going to see what Wolfgang can supply for a range of jets/needles/needle jets, if any.
I have figured out spark plugs, have a couple of modern equivalents, and have also found a source for the apparently rare as hens teeth pink Magneti Marelli original plugs, have two of the original pink plugs en route, the vendor is hoarding his remaining supply, would only sell me a maximum of two. I have no idea if the pink plug is any good or not, seems to be a bit of a fetish for bonus originality cred in the older Ducati tiddler world, I expect I will run the bike on a modern plug and save the pink plug and original funky plug wire for display purposes.
Other than my continuing to fiddle with polishing of wheel hubs, clutch cover, and various other minor bits, the 1957 Gilera 150 Sport project is now pretty much at a standstill while I wait on suppliers, shipping, the welder, chromer, painter, etc..
Paul LeClair
After a lot of digging around I found a supplier in Italy for a pair of Gilera 150 appropriate brand new 7 mm valves, valve keepers, caps, new valve guides, new doubled springs, etc. Just paid for those by PayPal, and vendor has cautioned may take two weeks or possibly considerably more to get here from Italy. I watched a couple of YouTube videos on removing and installing valve guides, will check around for local experts and see if anyone will tackle this, or whether I may consider attempting it myself..........
my youngest son turned up yesterday and spent a couple of hours grinding/sanding/surface preparation on the larger engine case half. Removed a considerable amount of surface material to erase most of the largest of the deep gouges. Now waiting for the return from the specialty welder of the other case half, to then bolt them together and do the final finishing as a unit. May have to resist a final mirror polishing of the engine cases, the other bits I am polishing are coming along. The 1957 Gilera engine castings are not to the same level of quality as late 1970's early 1980's Laverda triple engine castings. A lot of porosity, casting bubbles, irregularities in the Gilera engine cases, and 65 years of being apparently heavily knocked about.
Put the vapour blasted 18 mm Dellortto carb and cast aluminum air filter assembly together, looks like jewelry. Presently fitted with a 108 main jet, couldn't identify the needle, the needle jet is stamped 2608. Going to see what Wolfgang can supply for a range of jets/needles/needle jets, if any.
I have figured out spark plugs, have a couple of modern equivalents, and have also found a source for the apparently rare as hens teeth pink Magneti Marelli original plugs, have two of the original pink plugs en route, the vendor is hoarding his remaining supply, would only sell me a maximum of two. I have no idea if the pink plug is any good or not, seems to be a bit of a fetish for bonus originality cred in the older Ducati tiddler world, I expect I will run the bike on a modern plug and save the pink plug and original funky plug wire for display purposes.
Other than my continuing to fiddle with polishing of wheel hubs, clutch cover, and various other minor bits, the 1957 Gilera 150 Sport project is now pretty much at a standstill while I wait on suppliers, shipping, the welder, chromer, painter, etc..
Paul LeClair
Ariel Marx
New member
- Location
- Lille France
Hi Paul,
Looks like your balls will be in good hands on the gilera. Good to know that Samuelson Brezzi is a reliable source of parts as I will be purchasing my twin exhaust from him shortly. Let us know how it goes for the garelli, again if you need some things, I have a little stock of parts and will gladly help if you need anything.
On my side of the world, I have completely rebuilt the 175 gilera to adjust all the parts before sending it all to the painter. My main problem is the front fender that seems to be for a 17’ wheels and I have 19’. I have already sourced a new one that should arrive soon. I am hoping that everything will be painting before the end of March if I manage to get some time off work. For February, it already looks like it will be hard to work on any bikes.
Looks like your balls will be in good hands on the gilera. Good to know that Samuelson Brezzi is a reliable source of parts as I will be purchasing my twin exhaust from him shortly. Let us know how it goes for the garelli, again if you need some things, I have a little stock of parts and will gladly help if you need anything.
On my side of the world, I have completely rebuilt the 175 gilera to adjust all the parts before sending it all to the painter. My main problem is the front fender that seems to be for a 17’ wheels and I have 19’. I have already sourced a new one that should arrive soon. I am hoping that everything will be painting before the end of March if I manage to get some time off work. For February, it already looks like it will be hard to work on any bikes.
Attachments
No point in ordering valve guides before you have removed the old ones Paul. You need to know the bore size in the head in order to get the correct oversize, if needed. Maybe you're lucky and the ordered bits will fit OK. If they do, you may as well buy a lottery ticket too.
piet
piet
You may just need to look into tyre profile for that front wheel. Some tyres, even though the right size on paper won't fit when space is limited.
P