The Ramblings and Rantings - A Life Unreal, Well, Mostly...

With huge thanks to the fantastically talented engineering skills of Croz Engineering in nearby Raglan, project Yamamito now has some engine mounts to which we can one day attach an engine, which will be a major step forward.

There are kits available to make this conversion online but we wanted to do this our way and knew that Wayne would come up with a novel and well engineered solution. The job is a good 'un as they say and we have a set of engine mounts that bring the front sprocket as close as possible to the swing arm pivot, minimising chain snatch. They also bring the engine up as high as possible in the chassis to leave plenty of room for expansion chambers, maximising ground clearance and keeping the engine level for the sake of gearbox lubrication.

As an added bonus, for future maintenance and repairs to the top end, the engine can pivot forward and down on the rear mount to give easy access without removing it entirely. A triumph of design to make something beautiful that is also highly practical.

Work can now start on making the engine and gearbox ready to go into its new home, while the chassis and wheels go off to be made beautiful by our local powder coaters. With this as with other aspects of the project, the key word is local. As a local business ourselves, it is vitally important to us that we buy in specialist services from people as close to home as possible, so if you are involved in any business that may contribute to custom bike builds and you are in the vicinity of Chepstow, then drop us a line, we will do our best to use and promote local suppliers wherever we can.

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At long last, the chassis and parts of the engine are in the same room. Today, we took a look at the crankcases to work out where to make the engine mount plates fit.l With that rough stage in mind, we can move on to the next step.

The rear subframe and footrest mounts have been removed to make more room to work and the chassis plus a built up dummy engine are on their way to the immensely talented Wayne Crosby of Croz engineering where accurate measurements to mount the engine and align the sprockets will be made before welding the engine mounts in place.

Unlike some variants of this conversion, we have decided to weld the engine mounts to the crossmember beneath the rear suspension unit, then use the spacer in our swing arm pivot to locate the fore and aft stabiliser bars bolted to the bottom of the crankcase.

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