Sidecar and motor

The SR500 is very close to being back on the road, reincarnated as an SR400 with this motor which I purchased yesterday. It is a grey import from a motorcycle wreckers and was the best of the bunch, all of which have low kms. Whenever I pull up in a weekend biking town on my SR, alongside $20,000 Harleys and Ducatis, everybody walks passed them to look at my $3000 bike. At $600 for a good replacement motor, I reckon the SR makes for bargain motorcycling!

I also purchased a sidecar from a friend. A sidecar has two basic components: the chassis (frame, brackets and wheel) and boat (the boat-like thing in which a person sits). The chassis on this was custom-made for an SR500.  It has an SR500 18" wheel. I still need a small bit of bracket made before I can fit it to the SR. The boat is a 1951 Australian-made Murphy. It is not much use to me and I'll make up another boat with the aid of somebody who can weld. (Probably I will get a big tin box, cut the front and round it out, or make a basic steel frame and box it with plastic, and will replicate this Murphy but make it larger boat; or, I was thinking of welding up some light ribs, and fitting vinyl over it as a very light-weight and interesting body - just think of it!, a heavy-weight tent-like boat that folds down when there's no passanger, to minimise wind-resistance, and even folds down if the passanger prefers to be exposed, which is more fun). I am already getting lots of encouragement from the sidecar community - a wonderful bunch of generous-spirited eccentrics! For those wondering about it, there are essentially no engineering or road-worthy laws pertaining to sidecars, they are listed as an accessory.



Soon I will be back on the road on a big single all-roads tourer!