An unusual ABC find

To be fair, when I took the picture of the engine drawing I didn't realise the text at the bottom was not readable so I cannot tell for sure what's the name of the engine.
Could this be another mystery engine for our website members to investogate?

gioorl wrote:

To be fair, when I took the picture of the engine drawing I didn't realise the text at the bottom was not readable so I cannot tell for sure what's the name of the engine.
Could this be another mystery engine for our website members to investogate?

It’s all about piecing information together !

I will try and get some more useful photos later this week.

Until I read David’s email I had assumed that the ABC Bee parts had come with the rest of the items Bob had obtained from a Gov. surplus sale ( in the late sixties, I think) as they were discovered together stored in an ammo. box.

It isn’t always obvious sometimes what it is we are looking at:
A partially dismantled unitary construction V twin engine and gearbox was a puzzle until the penny dropped that it was from a Panthette which are quite rare.
Obvious then..
We should have realised that unusual features in the design amounted to a Granville Bradshaw signature - such as laminated ie. leaf springs for the exhaust valves.

'Mazing, apsly 'mazing! The collective knowledge of our Association knows no bounds!
A browse in the correspondence files bequeathed me by David Hales, prompted by Roger's #1333, has turned up the attached photos of a four-cylinder OHC engine. They are annotated 'Lapwing Minor Aero Engine made by HRG', not perhaps quite what Roger sought, but interesting for all that. Note the caveat, "this way up": the engine was intended to work inverted.

The photos are seemingly from a Ben French, sometime owner of CB2506 (these days to be seen in the Brum Mausoleum) and BN4384 (auctioned by Brightwells in 2015).
Further...I remember riding Bob's Panthette up and down Glen Auldyn, alongside 'Milntown', and was impressed by its zippiness. Bob said that its tank wasn't correct, but no matter. I also remember the 'Bee' in Bob's machine shop (first floor of the Mill) and his Marshall Tridyne rotary engine on the ground floor, still bearing a transit label, "Kings Cross Station", I think.

Paul wrote:

'Mazing, apsly 'mazing! The collective knowledge of our Association knows no bounds!
A browse in the correspondence files bequeathed me by David Hales, prompted by Roger's #1333, has turned up the attached photos of a four-cylinder OHC engine. They are annotated 'Lapwing Minor Aero Engine made by HRG', not perhaps quite what Roger sought, but interesting for all that. Note the caveat, "this way up": the engine was intended to work inverted.

The photos are seemingly from a Ben French, sometime owner of CB2506 (these days to be seen in the Brum Mausoleum) and BN4384 (auctioned by Brightwells in 2015).
Further...I remember riding Bob's Panthette up and down Glen Auldyn, alongside 'Milntown', and was impressed by its zippiness. Bob said that its tank wasn't correct, but no matter. I also remember the 'Bee' in Bob's machine shop (first floor of the Mill) and his Marshall Tridyne rotary engine on the ground floor, still bearing a transit label, "Kings Cross Station", I think.

Thanks, that would seem to fit.

That Panthette you recall ( ie the complete machine not the engine/ gearbox I mentioned) is on loan to the Isle of Man Motor Museum at Jurby on the former site of RAF Jurby).
Milntown hasn’t the space to display all the bikes so we have several on loan there and can “rotate” them with Milntown.

dhales wrote:

The V-4 crankshaft is indeed from a Bee engine and was salvaged by me from the factory in 1971 together with various other Ridley/Bee ancillaries. I have not as yet seen a complete Bee unit although the Woking ATC apparently had a couple in the 1970s. I thought Bob Thomas had one, or the makings of one, and hence I passed a number of bits and pieces of Ridley and Bee units on to him. I also salvaged four or five Ridley units of which Bob had one, Bill Boddy had one for his Welsh Motor Museum (since sold), one I think went to a friend in the Outer Hebrides and I kept one for quite some time before I sold that a few years ago. I still have a few Ridley ancillaries which will no doubt end up at Brooklands in due course. I thought Bob also had my spare 12/40hp Supersports engine which should be somewhere in the store!

Keep Beevering.

Looked again at the ammo. box with the Bee engine spares:

crankshaft, 2 cylinder barrels, two cylinder heads a new Solex and a cracked inlet manifold flange :



No sign of a SuperSport engine.

However, we were very pleased to find two new- looking SkootaMota wheels with good tyres hidden under some packaging material.

It is interesting to hear of a Supersports engine. I have the ex Hales car, the only I know. If it is possible I would like put the engine in the same ownership as the car. After blowing the engine in a race meeting I hade to make new cylinders and find new pistons that could be modified. The rebuild is completed to a very good result.
Hakan