On other forums people asked if the harbor Freight 79cc Greyhound engine could be adapted to a bike. Many said no, the engine was too big to fit inside a frame. I'm here to tell you that it can be done. Here's the story of Kilroy and Fossil's Greyhound.
My brother Jim (Fossil on this forum) decided to try this Greyhound engine, as the price was right. The engine is around $100 at Harbor Freight. He hit me with this project with little more than two weeks to go before the rally at Cape Henlopen. Could we have it done in time? The first question is, did we have a suitable bike to try to fit the engine in? Jim came over and we picked through the 20+ bikes on my garage (almost all vintage balloon tire bikes), then it dawned on me. I have a Schwinn Corvette cantilever frame bike that would surely take that engine! We dug it out of the corner and made some measurements, and yes, the engine would fit! So, we're off to the races.
The bike was close to being a basket case. One fine Wednesday (a week and a half before the rally) I set upon the bike to change that. While I worked on the bike, Jim worked on the engine, stripping it of the gas tank, muffler and air cleaner. He then fitted a Whizzer WC-1 air cleaner. While he was doing this, he was having a custom mount fabricated.
After a day's hard labor on the bike, it emerged fully stripped and with two coats of primer. The next day I reassembled it with an aftermarket springer by Pyramid, heavy duty rims with 12ga spokes, new fenders by Wald, a new seat off a Huffy Cranbrook, Whizzer handlebars and a Whizzer rack. Because of rust issues, the crank and chainring did not clean up as well as I had hoped so they got sprayed in primer as well. The first photo shows the bike reassembled and sitting in my living room, awaiting the engine (and the chain guard, on which the primer was still drying). That weekend I delivered the bike to my brother so he could fit the engine. So, now you're probably thinking what gearbox are we planning to use? Enter Quenton Guenther and the new EZ Q-Matic drive. Jim and I are both EZ dealers, so he was able to get Quenton to ship a pre-production example of the drive to us. It arrived the day I took the bike to Jim to be fitted with the engine. Two days later Jim returns the bike to me, with the engine and drive in place. It's now up to me to fit the chains and the rest of the bits and pieces to make this a motorbike. We used the hardware from an old GruBee kit that Jim had on hand, such as the throttle and the tank. The next photo shows it sitting in my living room, now beginning to look like a motorbike. But Jim really didn't like the peanut tank, so he ordered a tank from Whizzer. It arrived just before the rally. We loaded up the bike to go to the rally, and we discovered that there was an alignment issue regarding the drive chain. It turns out that one of our measurements was off. The idler pully from the kit was used to temporarily rectify the situation until the mount gets modified. We took the bike to the rally, fitted the new tank and tried to fire it up. Nothing, there was no spark. After going through the process of elimination it was discovered that the magneto was damaged. It was bent and twisted. Jim set out to try to repair the magneto, and a little while later we were treated to the sound of the Greyhound engine firing up.
Despite the chain alignment issue, the bike was ridden about a total of six miles that weekend. There were some tweaks that we performed on the bike at the event to make it more rideable (such as a slight re-routing of the exhaust to avoid scorching one's inside leg), and it's still a work in progress, but this concept bike shows that the Greyhound engine can be a viable option to power a bike. Not only did we have a Greyhound engined bike at the event, but Ray from Massachusetts also arrived with one. It too was fitted with a pre-production Q-Matic. I didn't get a good photo of his bike, but it's the yellow one in the fourth photo below.
My brother Jim (Fossil on this forum) decided to try this Greyhound engine, as the price was right. The engine is around $100 at Harbor Freight. He hit me with this project with little more than two weeks to go before the rally at Cape Henlopen. Could we have it done in time? The first question is, did we have a suitable bike to try to fit the engine in? Jim came over and we picked through the 20+ bikes on my garage (almost all vintage balloon tire bikes), then it dawned on me. I have a Schwinn Corvette cantilever frame bike that would surely take that engine! We dug it out of the corner and made some measurements, and yes, the engine would fit! So, we're off to the races.
The bike was close to being a basket case. One fine Wednesday (a week and a half before the rally) I set upon the bike to change that. While I worked on the bike, Jim worked on the engine, stripping it of the gas tank, muffler and air cleaner. He then fitted a Whizzer WC-1 air cleaner. While he was doing this, he was having a custom mount fabricated.
After a day's hard labor on the bike, it emerged fully stripped and with two coats of primer. The next day I reassembled it with an aftermarket springer by Pyramid, heavy duty rims with 12ga spokes, new fenders by Wald, a new seat off a Huffy Cranbrook, Whizzer handlebars and a Whizzer rack. Because of rust issues, the crank and chainring did not clean up as well as I had hoped so they got sprayed in primer as well. The first photo shows the bike reassembled and sitting in my living room, awaiting the engine (and the chain guard, on which the primer was still drying). That weekend I delivered the bike to my brother so he could fit the engine. So, now you're probably thinking what gearbox are we planning to use? Enter Quenton Guenther and the new EZ Q-Matic drive. Jim and I are both EZ dealers, so he was able to get Quenton to ship a pre-production example of the drive to us. It arrived the day I took the bike to Jim to be fitted with the engine. Two days later Jim returns the bike to me, with the engine and drive in place. It's now up to me to fit the chains and the rest of the bits and pieces to make this a motorbike. We used the hardware from an old GruBee kit that Jim had on hand, such as the throttle and the tank. The next photo shows it sitting in my living room, now beginning to look like a motorbike. But Jim really didn't like the peanut tank, so he ordered a tank from Whizzer. It arrived just before the rally. We loaded up the bike to go to the rally, and we discovered that there was an alignment issue regarding the drive chain. It turns out that one of our measurements was off. The idler pully from the kit was used to temporarily rectify the situation until the mount gets modified. We took the bike to the rally, fitted the new tank and tried to fire it up. Nothing, there was no spark. After going through the process of elimination it was discovered that the magneto was damaged. It was bent and twisted. Jim set out to try to repair the magneto, and a little while later we were treated to the sound of the Greyhound engine firing up.
Despite the chain alignment issue, the bike was ridden about a total of six miles that weekend. There were some tweaks that we performed on the bike at the event to make it more rideable (such as a slight re-routing of the exhaust to avoid scorching one's inside leg), and it's still a work in progress, but this concept bike shows that the Greyhound engine can be a viable option to power a bike. Not only did we have a Greyhound engined bike at the event, but Ray from Massachusetts also arrived with one. It too was fitted with a pre-production Q-Matic. I didn't get a good photo of his bike, but it's the yellow one in the fourth photo below.
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