What To Do With An Old Airplane Engine

[Pa]

Great looking ride, but with that gas tank.....I bet he has to fill up about every 30 miles to feed that beast......couldn't go outside the city without a chase vehicle.....kinda useless in my eyes. Rich boyz toyz......bragging rights and all that.....for sure...

[Pa]

I thought the same thing Kurt. I also imagined one of the cylinder heads or pushrod assemblies blowing apart, but which one ? And in what direction ? Pa

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Here's one I prefer - the Speedy Babbs Daytona special c.1955 - pics courtesy of an ebay auction I drooled over...

Now that's more like it. Different, yes; but at least it's rideable, albeit better suited to a sidecar tug with the limited angles of lean that seem to be available!.

With apologies to those of you who do ride and build chops, I've never seen the point of trying to create a motorcycle whose stated objective is cruising by making the damn thing as uncomfortable as humanly possible. Harley-Davidson managed that perfectly well with the Ironhead without any help from the custom industry!

Stuff like the radial is just stylistic willy-waving in my opinion. Lots of clever engineering gone into it (and no doubt a sizeable wedge of dollars too) but at the end of the day the thing is not fit for purpose.

Agreed!

Here's a more rideable radial, the Verdel (c.1912):





Pictures courtesy of the interweb.

Another mc with radial engine inside the front wheel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megola

2000 of them where built!

... just like to point out the so called "1912" Verdel was made in the late 1990s by a friend of mine, and successfully unloaded to a museum... Apparently, the museum knows it's a "modern custom" but chooses to advertize it as some French Wonder from the old days...

Patrick

Hi Patrick! That's some amazing handywork there by your friend. It must surely be a unique machine to ride.

How are your own projects going these days?

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Here is another motorcycle that never existed. Walt Riddle started with a Spacke engine and fabricated the rest. What a nice job. It looks a lot like several old motorcycles but is a complete fabrication. While the first motorcycle manufacturer was The California Motorcycle Company there never was a Californian.

hey,

let's see someone put one of these radials in a bike! and a 2 cycle diesel to boot!

made in milwaukee.

john

If you ever want to see a serious piston engine go to Greenfield Village Museum and scope one of the original nine steam engines that powered the Ford Rouge and the electrified portion of the DT & I RR back when Henry was alive. The piston diameter is about that of the entire engine in the preceeding photograph.

Last weekend, a WW2 target drone motor went at my hometown antique tractor show flea market for $75.

It was an opposed twin that could have been 45 cubes max, with a downdraft carb, but with next-to-nil flymass.
So it would have been great for a very light machine, but only at full tilt.
And the cylinders would have to be placed fore-and-aft to hook up a conventional primary.

All I came home with was an old AMA pin.

...Cotten