Cooper & Ludwig

Hello Ludwig the Second!
​
As I could see from photos on Internet, Motobecane-7 is cute and light moped, probably simple too... What is its power and speed in original variant?
Any photos to share about starting of this phase?
Ciao,
Zoran
​
 
The Raleigh is a bit like this, but currently there's nothing worth taking a picture of. It's all rusty and dirty parts needing work to bring up to scratch, but movement is slowly happening. I have the wheels in my back bedroom from the Motobecane to have the hubs stripped out, and then the rims and spokes scrapped.

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The wheels will be 28" blank rims with 28 holes punched to suit the Moby hubs. Tyres, Doug's fairly sure he has a pair of 1.5" autocycle tyres lurking. The engine from the Moby will be used, as the other bits that came with the bike are AV78 Mobylette from 1957, and would need a complete rebuild, whereas the Motobecane 7 is in large lumps and the clock only shows 4,606 miles.
 
The general arrangement now will be like this Turkish bike.

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This engine position was the first concept, but the Turkish style wins.

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Back across on Monday with the hubs released from the spokes and rims. Then a few more hours of pulling things apart and working out what goes where, what is needed etc.
 
Doug came up with a minimalist idea that saved reinventing the wheel, as it were. The bottom bracket tube of the Motobecane has been extracted from the rest of it, and cleaned up, with the shoulders of it skimmed a little to allow ball bearing cups to have a close, tight, fit. The plain bushes the pedal crank runs in were extracted, the tube was shortened, and the bushes reinserted. The complete assembly is then placed between two bearing cups back in the original bottom bracket, using all original Motobecane parts for the mechanics, but looking 100% vintage bicycle externally.

Here is a sort of sketch.
 

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I dunno Ludwig, I kinda like the rikimbili look of the lower Bike. It's kinda got that
'nobody's gonna steal me' look.
 
No, this is going to have discreet but real style. I'm thinking 2 tone blue, gold lettering, and a dignified, upright old fashioned riding position.

Then I'll get on it with a bottle of red shoved down my leather jacket.
 
I spent 5 hours today cutting and filing bits of steel for a new bracket to mount the Motobecane variator spring. I'm slow, but I got it right. Only another 40 years and I'll be finished.
 
Here are some long overdue pictures. The first and second show the minimalist idea of the engine mount on the Cooper & Ludwig and the third is where it was shimmed/balanced in place.
 

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Today we found out the lovingly hand crafted bracket I made the other week for the Gravis et Lento is no longer needed. The transmission tension spring will now mount direct to the seat tube with brazed on nuts and 2 spreader plates.

However, we have settled on the front suspension and hub, from a New Hudson Restyle autocycle. Like this.

New-Hudson-1948-AT5318-10.jpg
 
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The speedo and drive for it are also added to the list. Why mess about making something fit when you can get
the job right to start with?
 
Forks, brakes, speedo, all ordered. Money sent. Progress. A further time for fettling will be organised soon, there will be Things Done.
 
The box of bits is being despatched tomorrow, arrives probably Friday. Sometime next week, I will go over to Redditch with them and we then set about mixing and matching and fitting.
 
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