I bumped in to Steve and Jack the other day, the father and son duo that I have now purchased something like 6 or 7 bikes from, all absolute corkers. My Wife tries to keep me away from them so when I spotted them pulling in to the Stickney auto jumble last weekend I pretended I needed the toilet, set off in that direction and then doubled back to where they were standing. It was a genius plan that backfired a bit later in the morning when I really did need the toilet but didn't want er indoors thinking me prostate was playing up, I had to hold it for over an hour, very uncomfortable. Oh well, what the hell, it worked better than the truth.
Anyway, they had another lovely machine with them, these guys are the world's best at finding great bikes, I don't know how they do it but I'm glad they do. Inevitably we got in to a bit of a chat and the subject of a very special bike that I had seen at their place a few months back came up. I had expressed an interest in it at the time but funds are a bit limited right now with a combination of poor health, other projects and a massive down turn in business all having an adverse effect. Steve had said they were looking to pass it on, his health hasn't been brilliant recently and I think they just have too many other things on. Anyway I went back to my pitch before Mrs got too fed up and sat pondering what might have been. A bit later Jack - the Son - came over and resumed the conversation and happened to mention that they would rather like the Dr Joe Ehrlich Motobecane back - the one I had bought from them as a project some time back. I had taken that pretty much as far as I wanted, I was still looking for a tank panel to complete it and I was going to have a go at building the 70cc engine that was in bits but it was definitely on the back burner with the Itom Astor - also purchased from them - being the one that was getting all the attention at the moment.
Anyway, the bike in question will be a replica of the famous Honda RC163 as raced by one Mike Hailwood back in the early 60's, the original of which is in the motor museum at Beaulieu. This was one of the bikes that cemented Honda's place in motor racing history. Introduced in 1962 the bike was a 4 cylinder in line 4 stroke of 250cc capacity, it's party piece was that it would rev to a massive 20,000 RPM, a ridiculous number of revs, more than any formula 1 car and way higher than any other 4 stroke of that capacity at the time. It was also one of the loudest, with an ear splitting exhaust note that could wake the dead, apparently the ghost of Beethoven was disturbed by it and wrote a strongly worded letter to the organisers of the TT. Sorry, I made that up - back to reality. Now any genuine Honda racer from that era would fetch 6 figure sums if they came on the market today, somebody was building replicas of the 163 at one time but with a price tag of 120k such a frivolity is way outside of my meagre means. Fortunately Honda came up with a road bike that also had a very high revving 4 cylinder 4 stroke 250cc motor - the CBR250RR. This gave builders the possibility of recreating the 60's racers at a far lower price because now there was an off the shelf engine that would be credible as a power plant. The bike had two different versions - the MC22 and the MC19, the 22 is the one to have as it revs to 19,000 RPM out of the box, a full 1,000 RPM more than the 19's 18k. The bike produced 45 BHP as standard, a very respectable figure for a 250 with other bikes of a similar size producing about 10 bhp less back in the day. Racing versions with the open mega exhausts and no air boxes were pushing 60 brake and top speeds of 200 KM/H- crazy numbers, nobody could beat them. Sadly the bike was never officially imported in to the UK so engines had to come from Japan but at least they existed and plenty of importers were willing to bring them over. My engine still has the Japanese stickers on it. Weirdly the engine is designated RC14E, usually Honda engine numbers echo the bike model but this is not the case with the CBR250's with the 14e engine being used in the 19 and 22 models, I believe they were used right up until 2007 in the MC31's. Weird but true.
So, with a stock engine mated to a 6 speed box quite a few replicas were built, this is one such bike. It would have cost a fortune to build, it's in the wrong colours and it doesn't have a fairing - that's ok because somebody makes them and they are available for not too many quids. They have had it running, I have seen the video, it's not right, the carbs need cleaning, setting up and balancing, I suspect they need different jets too, if it's still on standard jetting it will be running far too lean without the air box fitted. The fork seals are leaking and a few bits need fabricating but it's a very good start with all the right bits looking splendid. I don't know the full spec yet, I think the frame may be Honda CB72, I'm pretty sure that's where the front hub / brake comes from as it looks like the one I have on my Moto Morini Corsaro. The wheel rims are the correct shouldered items, there are probably quite a few things I need to change to get it looking a bit more authentic, I haven't had a proper crawl over it yet, it definitely looks right, albeit in the wrong colours. My intention is to paint the hand built aluminium tank red, get the fairing and recreate the silver / yellow original paint job with the green roundels, I think the correct vintage tank decals are still available.
To make my example a 163 it will need two more exhausts adding, this bike currently has just 1 each side, the downpipes are there so making two more pipes and rejigging shouldn't be too difficult, they were painted black on the original so they don't need chrome plating, which would scare me a bit. It needs different clip ons as there ones on there hit the tank. The tacho only reads to 18k, which is not high enough, I will see if I can find one that reads to 20k but as most bikes don't rev that high it may be a fruitless quest.
It's yet another project that will take a lot of hours and effort to make right but it will be a very highly desirable and valuable machine when done, I can't wait to get cracking. Better finish the Itom first though, I suppose, don't want to give Mrs yet another excuse to kick me in the scrotum.
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