Sir Eddy's Rocket

Best of luck! Maybe I'll hitch a ride down there with you. I should be in PDX on Sunday (with some luck).

That works for me, lets keep our fingers crossed.

Glad to hear you're on schedule, Paul. I'm still finishing up my Norton, but see no real issues left. I'm planning on leaving next Friday, stopping overnight in Alamo or Ely on the way, and rolling into Wendover fairly early Saturday afternoon. See you there.

Ken

Well I can say that we gave it our all to get the bike to Bonneville this year. My buddy Eric finished all the welding on Tuesday and we brought the bike back to Les. Les finished the motor on Wednesday and we put it in the bike Thursday. We hooked up the ignition and had to guess on the wiring being that my dad purchased this over 5 years ago and I wasn't able to find the paper work. We didn't have spark so we loaded it up and headed home. On the way I called my wife and asked her to look through the box of paperwork on the bike to see if she could find the info on the crank fired ignition. By the time I got on the freeway she called and with good news. We rewired it and still no spark, after messing with it until we hours of the morning we ended up getting spark and felt like we were good to go. The next morning we went to fire it and the timing was not right so we dove into it again and remounted the left pickup on the ignition plate until we had spark and felt that the ignition was close. We loaded up the bike @ 9:00 PM on Saturday and headed for Bonneville and drove straight through to arrive @ 1:30 on Sunday for registration.



We passed tech except for needing to drill and wire the front axle nuts and metal valve steams so we ran back and broke two bits drilling the nuts and took the caps off the motor home. We felt that we were good to go so we went back and got the bike through tech and received our first Bonneville Tech sticker. We were good to go now!!!!



Meet the family honoring Sir Eddy and making him proud to have his dream at the Salt.



Ready to go... We fired up the bike and headed down the salt to get a test run. The bike pulled great right up to getting out of the needle and into full throttle and then it would fall on its face. Then it lost spark in both cylinders and down came the pit crew to load me up and take me back to the pits.

Photo after the maiden voyage.



We battled with the ignition the entire day (or at least we thought it was the ignition) firing on one side then both then the other side. We couldn't figure out why and what the hell was going on. After a day battling with the ignition we packed it in and headed in for the night. called Ken Canaga and discussed the issue. He and Jim Comstock were both on the phone and gave me pointers to go back with the next morning.

The next day Jim Comstock came by and timed the ignition and found that we had the left had pick up 180 degrees out so we turned it and re-bolted it to the plate in the same spot that Sir Eddy had it in the first place. We also found a broken lead to one of the pickups. Jim soldered the wire back to the pickups we put it back on the bike and it fired right up. We all were so thankful for Jim and for all his help figuring out the ignition and we were ready to go once again!

Attached is the pic of all celebrating Jim and getting the bike running and firing correct!
Thank you Jim!



We ran it down the salt and had the same result where the bike would just fall on its face at full throttle and stop. This time though it sounded terrific and we were getting close. We got it back and fired it on the stand and found we once again we had spark and tried it again with the same result. After a couple of tries with different jetting we got it back on the stand and it started right up, this time we had a whisp coming from the right cylinder and found that we had a bad head gasket. By now the day was gone and we had to get off the salt so off we went...



On the way back it turned black and we couldn't see the boat ramp to get off the salt so I followed a car leaving at the same time figuring they knew where they were going. After driving a while the motor home started to slow and felt like it was starting to sink. My brothers were in a car and off they went keeping the speed up and made it off the slat, the truck in front started to slow and I so did the motorhome, I tried to keep rolling but gradually came to a stop and what do you know we were stuck. After trying to get out for over an hour we all walked to the road and called a tow company which sent a snow cat out in the morning at the tune of $900.00... Where is Waldo...





This next day was now Wednesday and we had rain the night before so the runs were canceled. My brother Andy and I pulled head and replaced it with a new gasket, this took most of the day but we finally got it done and fired the bike. This time we were good to go, it sounded great and idled!










They extended the Thursday runs until 4:00 PM so we got up early and started in jetting the bike starting at 240's then 260's all the way up to 330's with the same issue of falling on its face once we got out of the needle and into full throttle. We made drastic changes going all the way down to 190's with the same result running down the salt getting it to 8,000 rpm at 3/4 throttle but not able to get full throttle. One last try around 3:00 PM resulted in the same result with the 190's and then we lost spark in the left cylinder once again. The day was done and we decided we were Bonnevilleized...









After many long days and many highs and low' throughout the week I always remembered why I was here and many of times I felt my father by my side. He is smiling down on us and saying you made it! Around 4:00 PM down came Ken Canaga, Jim Comstock and Ken's crew, Ken opened a bottle of aged Whiskey out of a wooden box and we toasted Sir Eddy and the overall success of getting the bike to the salt and getting the opportunity to finally get here with my dads dream. Many thanks to Jim and Ken for all the advise and Jim's help sorting the bike to the best we could with the limited resources at the salt and the limited time to work the quirks out before loading the bike in the trailer.

2015 will be here soon and we will be back, the bike is complete and now we will have time to get it on a Dyno and figure out the issues and go set the record my dad deserves.
Thank you to everyone for all the help!

Special Thanks to Les Barker and The Vintage Advantage, Erik Gustin @ Alternative Metals, Donny Nieligh, Doug Towsley, Connie Bilton-Smith, Sir Eddy and Paige my Wife for puting up with me for the last 2 years working all hours of the nights and days trying to get this to the salt. We would not of been able to get it as close as we did without Jim Comstock's help at the salt!
I cant leave my Brother in Law PJ, Nephew Cody and Brothers and Sister for all they did and for the support.











Picture of my mom and I with my dads pic that was under my seat









Love you Pops! Can't wait to ride with you again next year!

Wow great effort and I wish you all a blazing success next year... Thanks for posting this.

Great report, Paul. Really enjoyed seeing you and team on the salt, and look forward to seeing you back next year.

For the rest of the list, let me add that with all the issues he encountered, Paul never gave up working on the bike. He was tireless in his efforts to get it sorted, and just ran out of time. I have no doubt that he will have it running perfectly when he comes back. The first year on the salt is sometimes a real learning experience.

Ken

lcrken said:

Great report, Paul. Really enjoyed seeing you and team on the salt, and look forward to seeing you back next year.

For the rest of the list, let me add that with all the issues he encountered, Paul never gave up working on the bike. He was tireless in his efforts to get it sorted, and just ran out of time. I have no doubt that he will have it running perfectly when he comes back. The first year on the salt is sometimes a real learning experience.

Ken

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Thank you Ken,
I appreciated all the help you and Jim gave me. You are both wonderful people to be around. I enjoyed spending the time with you at the salt and Miller Raceway.
I am already planning for next year and look forward to seeing everyone again!

Good to see you got there , and thanks for taking the effort to put up the pictures and the report .
Youll have to take the Champange next year .

Matt Spencer said:

Good to see you got there , and thanks for taking the effort to put up the pictures and the report .
Youll have to take the Champange next year .

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We will drink some more of that great Colorado whiskey that Ken brought. The bike will be ready to go and will deserve the Champagne. Thanks for stopping by!

gtsun said:

Wow great effort and I wish you all a blazing success next year... Thanks for posting this.

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+1

Are the fork yokes derived from a TZ350 Yamaha ? Your steering geometry looks very similar to that of my Seeley. You bike is much longer however I would have thought the steering would still be too quick for the salt ?
Great story, really enjoyed reading it. Better luck next time.

Go to this page and look at the record holding 5th Bike down (Yellow Commando).

http://www.jsmotorsport.com/images.asp

Randy Johnson couldn't get enough fuel to flow through his Amals to sustain WOT. They drilled the fuel passages and adjusted the floats until they measured 10 oz through the bowls per minute and it was still too lean. They finally went to Alky carbs (on gas) to get the fuel supply they needed.

Well, as they say... if it was easy then everyone would do it.. Better luck next year. Sounds like you need a much better ignition to start with.. but wonder what your fuel issue is..?

Good Luck..

Ron

I suspect the fuel issue is the fact that there is a 38mm carb on a 250 cc cylinder which put the needed jetting out of the range of the common sizes we had available. Jim

That old Bernoulli Principle velocity squared thing again.

Glen

Salt conditions sounded like a type of mud that's half depressions of damp mush with crusty peaky hi spots, ugh. Each tire can hook up and slip independently freaking randomly.

acotrel said:

Are the fork yokes derived from a TZ350 Yamaha ? Your steering geometry looks very similar to that of my Seeley. You bike is much longer however I would have thought the steering would still be too quick for the salt ?
Great story, really enjoyed reading it. Better luck next time.

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It is actually a CBX frontend trees and forks...

Son of Siredward said:

acotrel said:

Are the fork yokes derived from a TZ350 Yamaha ? Your steering geometry looks very similar to that of my Seeley. You bike is much longer however I would have thought the steering would still be too quick for the salt ?
Great story, really enjoyed reading it. Better luck next time.

Click to expand...

It is actually a CBX frontend trees and forks...

Click to expand...

Thanks for that useful information. How much offset and trail does that give, I take it the head angle is 27 degrees ?
Your fuel flow problem is probably the tank breather.

Good Morning,
I wanted to share a couple pictures of Sir Eddy's Rocket in the MPS trim. This is how we will run the bike in the Modified Partial Streamlined class.
I would have to say that it will be representing Norton's proudly...

Definitely a good looking race bike. Be sure and bring a grinder next year in case tech decides they can't quite see enough of the rider and makes you remove some material. That happened to Tom Mellor this year.

Ken