98cc Villiers on a 1945 Sears Roebuck

Thanks Velo. I’m not excited about selling it. You’re right that there’s a lot of things here that were hard to come by in the states at a reasonable price anyway. Hanging it in a bar is a great idea. There’s a bunch of microbreweries here that might be interested in something like this. I’ll put out some feelers. Not sure what the market will tolerate on a price but there’s one way to find out. We’re moving in about a month and a half so I have a little time but not much.

...or sell the house and live at the bar! This isn’t a must sell but one of many options. We didn’t plan on moving and so there hasn’t been any motivation to clear out the excess. It went from “what if?” to “here we go!” really fast. I’m just looking to lighten the load.

Thanks Rick. My preference would be to hang on to it but I think I’d be short sighted if I wasn’t considering my options. I do have relatives with sheds / garages that I could squeeze into but that’s just more logistics to coordinate.

Recently got a PM from MotoMagz asking what’s up. Hey, thanks for asking Moto! We did finally land in a new house. New to us anyway. It’s a mid century modern style house from 1961. A style I’ve been wanting all along but has avoided me. It’s been an “adventure” up this point. Our house sold in a day. There was about 6-8 weeks between when we had to be out of our old house before we could move into the new one. I am very fortunate to have family with a condo on Lake Michigan where we could stay. I’ve never stayed at the beach. Almost 60 and lived in Michigan my whole life. So we stayed at the beach for what was the coldest April on record. We then moved to a house with no AC on the hottest Memorial Day weekend on record. Pays to have a sense of humor.

The Sears Villiers is being stored at my folks house until I have a way to transport it over like in a pickup or rental van. The new place needs a lot of work. We’re getting AC installed but have been doing without and it’s mighty hot and muggy in here. On the upside of things: heated garage! I can work out there even once the weather turns nasty. I’m hoping to have the bike here before the fall colors start to turn but the way my luck is running that could be next week! Selling is still a consideration but I’m still in no rush. Hope everyone is doing well.

https://imgur.com/gallery/DUHr2ng

Alrighty then. Finally settling in after two moves and getting a little ahead on house repairs and improvements. Hopefully the link works because I got to work on it today and actually have it starting and running like it should.

Sort of “out” if out in driveway in the sun instead of in the garage counts! It’s not road worthy yet but getting the engine to fire on the first or second kick several times was a big step in getting there. Details like connecting the rear brake and adding a solder ball to the throttle cable to eliminate the vise grips need to happen.

RocketJ said:

That looks amazing. What is that silver foot pedal used for? Kick start or gear change?

Click to expand...

The chrome one behind the foot rest/floorboard is the kickstarter. The rusty one in front is a brake pedal.

Hey Gents, it does feel great to get out and work on the bike just to clear the mind. It's always disappointing to pop in and out here when life gets in the way but hobbies slide when the important stuff intrudes.

I did cheat a bit there Rick. Skipped to #3 several times yesterday and it was rather fun. It was a beautiful day like Moto mentioned which meant my neighbors were out and there were a lot of people just out for a walk. Even had somebody pull into the driveway while out for a cruise. Lots of questions but the one that throws me off is "what year is your bike?". Oldest parts are from the late 1800's and newest are from 2016 or so. I could just say it's built as a period bike from the 1920's but I'm rarely that quick.

I hope to post more details of what I'm doing and how I'm doing it instead of my usual "I haven't posted in a while..." catching up thing. The next real challenge as I see it will be getting the intermediate chain that runs from the gearbox to the jack shaft installed and aligned. It's a tight squeeze in there. I got started on it yesterday and can't find a #40 master link in all of my junk. I'm sure it made sense to me to put them where ever I put them but I can seem to find them now. As I'm cleaning it up and adding more stuff I'm also going through each piece of hardware to add thread locker and for all of the moving parts to clean and grease.

There's still the lighting to finish too. Converting the acetylene lights to LED has presented challenges as well. Fitting in heat sinking, voltage regulator pucks, and hiding the battery and wires has been fun in its own way. Once I have that working like it should I'll post something on it. I also want to install a charging system. I'm thinking I can either take advantage of the jackshaft that hasn't been cut to drive a pulley or I can use the chain drive on the Villiers and try to make it look like a magneto drive system. The charging system will be one of the last things since I can just stick the battery on a charger overnight.

Thanks Curt and Mr. B.
I'm looking forward to having some time to catch up.

I really need to connect the rear brake but....

A packet of master links came in the mail so I could install the chain from the gearbox to the drive pulley. Put a bit more gas in the tank, gave it a few kicks and I was off on my maiden ride tonight. Five years in the making and finally a spin around the block. I still have work to do getting the gear ratio right. I had anticipated first gear to be more like a walking pace but I was bouncing along around 15-20 mph. Between the gearing and engine not being quite right, getting up the little hills in my neighborhood was slow go. Engine was bogging down. Nonetheless, first ride!