Latest rally down under

Hi
I just thought you may be interested in my latest rally was in Maryborough, Victoria, Australia. It was a four day rally the first and last days I rode my 1909Humber, but the second and third days I rode my ABC. The weather was perfect , sunny and about 25 - 30 degrees each day and we covered about 300 kms in those two days. My ABC ran beautifully cruising at about 70 - 75 km/h. Nothing broke and nothing fell off, and I have not lost any push rods.
May I encourage all ABC owners to get them out and ride them as they are excellent bikes and if prepared are quite capable of keeping up with more modern machinery.
So have fun and enjoy.
Andrew Cox

Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the encouragement.
If you could export some of your climate to us, it would help even more...UK weather this week is a bummer.

Greetings Andrew,

Glad the rally was a success. I see from your previous posts you had valve spring problems. I had a race meeting in Stanthorpe last weekend and did an inlet valve spring. It is obviously an original judging by the wear patterns. This is just one more issue in the littany of things to fix on my route to getting my ABC in road-friendly state. I wish to participate as well.

Did you make some and if so did you use piano wire on a former of your own device or what?

Regards

Guy
Brisbane

Hi Guy

How time passes, I had forgotten about the valve springs, that was in 2018 I think.
They were made by a local small spring maker and I think he used piano wire and made a former to suit based on my original spring.
I have done about 3,000kms with them so they seem to be successful .
I would suggest there would be a local spring guy near you, and get him to make them for you.
The guy I used is, The Spring Shop, 27a Amberley Crescent, Dandenong, Vic. 3175 phone 03 9794 9399.
I have a couple of spares if you need a pattern ?

All the best Andrew Cox

Today I received some pictures from Andrew who's taken part in a rally in Australia.
He's also asked an interesting question: "How often have you seen this ?"
Personally I've never seen it but I wonder what Bradshaw would have said.

Andrew,
Very sorry to see the pictures of your frame failure. Like Giovanni I have not seen a frame failure before yours. I had previously read of the ABC's frame design weakness in Phil Irving's book 'Motorcycle Engineering'. (Photo of the relevant page attached). Not sure we can do to avoid it, except try to avoid big pot holes. Hope you get it mended quickly and are back on the road,
best wishes
Ian