I found some time today, to get over to my favourite engineering supplier - Craftwork Engineering over on the Marsh Lane industrial estate, it's one of my favourite places - much better than Barbados or some other place with beaches. I needed some 3mm steel sheet and some 80x40 box section for my paddock starter, I bought a much larger bit of the 3mm than I needed as I like to have some around, I am always needing some for various jobs.
I have now assembled most of the bits I think I need, I am just looking for the right sprockets now, I checked my stock and I don't really have any suitable, I will find some from somewhere. I have plenty of chain, I bought the bearings that I needed, I have cut most of the bits of metal to shape, I will use a bit of the 3mm to make a ramp at the front of the thing to make it easy to get bikes on and off it. It's quite an enjoyable little side project, I still have lots of little jobs to do on the Triumph, a few on the Bianchi Stelvio too. I am in the middle of making a chain guard for that as original items simply don't exist. I had taken it over to Malcolm's so I could borrow his MIG but Russell saw it there and did the job for me, he really is an absolute diamond geezer. I have now trimmed it to shape and have bashed it in to the right form, I found an old photo that I was able to use as reference. I put a smear of filler on to hide my incompetence, that will get rubbed down so it's totally smooth and paint will then be applied. Once that's done I just need to wire it up, it only has about a dozen wires so that won't take long.
Anyway, next job on the starter is to weld the round ends on to the rollers then put them in my lathe and make the holes in the middle to take the spindles, they will then get welded together, some stick on grip tape will make sure the tyre bites well. I am thinking I may need to gear the starter motor for more torque and a bit less speed, although if I let the rear wheel spin up to speed before dumping the clutch I should be ok. I have a battery that was in my Range Rover, it's a big old Bosch thing that seems to provide endless power so that should be fine. I have yet to figure out a switch, I need to operate it with my foot as most of the time I won't have anybody to assist me. I will see if I can find a press button solenoid, I have a feeling old minis may have used them. It isn't rocket science, I can always make something if I can't find something suitable.
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