Das Tillhammer

[oo7]

After some deliberation I have now eventually decided to post here about my intended little project.

The reasons for my apprehension to open up the inner activities of my squatter hut to the general public are multiple. For instance:

• This is probably just “another one of those airhead project threads”, so why bother;

• The level of skill, talent and pure brilliance by professional amateur mousterbaaik builders like Freak & co makes it very difficult for someone like me to pluck up enough courage to also attempt something similar AND display it to the whole wide world, full knowing what has been done already;

• I am a total frieken klutz when it gets to anything remotely mechanical, so stand a good chance of making a fool out of myself given what I am about to attempt ;

• I’m not really the exhibisionist type (although this seems to lately not really be the case . . .)

• Etcetera etcetera

However, on the flipside of the coin, the following considerations eventually swayed me to start the thread:

• As I have said, I am mechanically illiterate and one of the main reasons why I have decided to take this “build” on, is in an attempt to up skill and self-teach me a bit more about the anatomy and physiology of mousterbaaiks and matsjiene in general. From lurking around in other similar threads, the WD’s seems generally to be very helpful and knowledgeable, so in using this webspace I hope to get some pointers in the right direction where I get stuck or maybe some ideas that are better than my own;

• Leading from the previous point, hopefully my problems/issues/mistakes may assist some others – and WD’s after all has given me a lot so I might as well contribute something sensible for a change;

• I would have documented the project on the interweb somewhere for close friends and foes elsewehere to see, so I might as well do it here.

I guess it is mainly due to the utterly bad influence of my friend Maverick here on the forum, that  I got (really) introduced to airheads. To cut a long story short, I now really like these old machines – they have so much more soul than their modern cousins! From what I was told, it is not also a bad choice of bike to tinker around with given the apparent relative simple mechanics of these bikes.

At one stage I was travelling a lot to PE for business and saw a bike on gumtree that fitted my budget.

Here we are about 5 hours into our love affair,  somewhere between PE and Slaapstad - not sure exactly where though:

Safely home after the collection ride – the bike did the 900km odd from PE to CPT without a blink.

The only issues that I noted were:

• If you let go of the throttle it dies on you. I suspect this could be due to either a wrong carb setting or malfunctioning of the actual throttle unit?

• Oil sweating through the gasket between the block and the sump;

• Oil sweating through at one of the tappet cover (?) gaskets

• Side stand is FUBAR

• Centre stand bolts decided to commit harakiri  after taking the above pic

Apart from the above, this bike purred and started first time everytime. Although I also suspect that the steering head bearings may be shot and the back shocks also probably had it.

Next step was to tidy up my garage so that I could have a proper area to work on the bike. More here.

I have been toying around a lot about exactly what I want to do with the bike. Although it is still in reasonable good condition, I am not keen on a restoration back to original, as I do not really like the particular styling of this model - its a 1981 R100.
My initial  thoughts were to ‘simply’ copy what this oke did (check out the video):

To me, this is the most beautiful mouserbaaik on the planet. Finish & klaar.


However, given that I do not intend spending an arm and a leg, this would have meant that I had to source some serious parts in the line of spoke wheels, new can, seat, fenders etc etc, so I am currently in the space of a “low rider” of some sorts - something perhaps like this bike that used to be close to my heart:

I am thinking black tank & fenders with a white pin stripe, engine & rims to be beadblasted to retain the “aluminium” look and frame to be powder coated black, with a black single seat.

And perhaps this bag behind the seat?

So the (current) plan is therefore basically as follows, namely that the existing back fender be retained as is with nothing but a small illegal plate and a small “Defender Landrover back light” as brake / rearlight – similar to the one in the above  pic. The current fender is still in good shape and I hope to be able to modify it slightly:

Subframe then to be chopped and shortened right behind the bit where the top part of the shock bolt onto the frame, and existing seat to be modified into a single (if that turns out to be possible at all).

Handlebar indicators to serve as only blinkers and a different (probably lower) handlebar to be sourced, with main headlight to be retained and a single speedo (I like the one Freak sourced from e-bay and used in his magnificent green bobber).

This in short is where I am in terms of what I want to do to the bike currently, but I suppose given the nature of this type of project I will have to wait to see how it eventually pans out.

This is what the bike currently looks like after removing a few things:

I don’t plan to open the engine at this stage because I think it is still in good shape. Must admit I am fairly nervous to see if I am going to be able to pull this off.

But then again – how difficult can it really be?  8)



 

 

[DirtRebell]

 

[oo7]

 

[Gypsybaron]

 

[oo7]

 

[subie]

 

[Lem]

 

[Gypsybaron]

 

[Gerard]

 

[LuckyStriker]

 

[grego]

 

[Freak]

 

[oo7]

 

[Buzzlightyear]

 

[bmad]

 

[hando]

 

[oo7]

 

[superfoxi]

 

[Freak]

 

[LuckyStriker]