Can't say we didn't try

We completely missed last weekends race meeting at Shakespeare County Raceway, but it wasn't for lack of trying.....
The master plan was - that on Friday, i would take all the engine stuff with me to Rogers in Leeds, and start assembling the bottom part of engine whilst Roger finished off the cylinder head. And with any luck it would come together not too late in the day and I'd go and fit it to the bike and go racing.
However, a few problems arose that didn't become apparent until it started to come together, and by mid afternoon it became obvious that it wasn't going to happen. It's the first race event missed since we started racing 3 yrs ago, hopefully there won't be many more!
The good news of course, is that all this means that the repairs from the engine destruction of the last event are almost complete. There is a fresh and super duper finest ever crank in there, with many modifications and improvements over the last one. A properly fettled set of crankcases with big mouths for the barrels, shift fork trap door mod, and many more tweaks. The barrels themselves have a new sleeve to replace the trashed one, new piston, pin and rings.
And the cylinder head has also returned from the dead ..... Rog has done a great job and fitted 2 new valve seats and replaced the damaged epoxy.
The clutch basket has been fixed with a hammer, it looks terrible but works fine!
In fact, the only things left to done is 4 valves sorting out and the head reassembling and fitting. There are 4 weeks to go till the Summer Nationals at Santa Pod. that should be enough time to get it finished and fitted in the frame.
The only real worry is that no definite cause for the destruction has been found. Lots of ideas and theory's but nothing for sure. Which doesn't help in ensuring it doesn't happen again!
One million thanks go to Roger Upperton for repair work on the engine, it's nearly all been done in less than 2 weeks and can't be faulted. If you want any info, his site can be found here Uppertonracing.com

One of the minor problems encountered during the rebuild - the crank is the later type which has a larger taper on the left side. It means the crank seal i had no longer fits, and the hole is too small to use another. The solution is to make a seal holder that bolts to the plate.

Poor old effie has now gone to a new home, and parts of effies engine have been sold too. All i really require is the crank and cases. The head might stay too, and instead I'll sell some of the excess ET heads i have.... i counted 6 the other day!

Next weekend is the Main Event at Santa Pod. Sam, her nephew Tom and myself, are going for a couple of days to hopefully watch some fantastic european drag racing.