rewdco

The 4 spring Acumen is post war…

Thanks Andy, it is indeed a New Imperial! I've just done some research... In the spring of 1917 New Imperial (together with several other British manufacturers) had a contract for a number of 8HP solo machines for the Russian Imperial Army: In September 1917 there was another Russian contract, for 8HP motorcycles with a military side car: The Russians did some serious testing of all the British motorcycles and combinations: In February 1918 the US Army also ordered New Imperial (solo) motorcycles: But due to the October revolution in Russia, lots of undelivered Russian contract motorcycles and combinations were diverted to other countries. And so it happened that the Russian contract New Imperial outfits ended up in the US Army...

Indeed, too many differences... But thanks for your input! 😊

Didn't think about that! But I have my doubts, when I look at the pictures of the WW1 V-twin Sunbeams that I have... 😕

It is a little-known fact that the American Army had ordered several British motorcycles and combinations contracts. Royal Enfield 6HP combinations, Matchless, Rover, Douglas just to name a few: But the other day I found the photograph below. Two French moustaches, but the driver of the outfit could be an American? There are US markings on the petrol tank, but the bike looks very British to me. Does anybody recognise the make / model?

The Middlesex C.C. registrations (RMH, JMK, RMK, PMK, ...) were all issued to the War Department, prior to early September 1939 (war declaration). After that date military vehicles no longer had civilian registrations. Unfortunately the Middlesex C.C. registration ledgers haven't survived. The Home Office did use civilian registration numbers for its vehicles during the war. I think GGU 519 is one of these.

As this lorry has gone through a "Class 1 rebuild" (H17xxxxx census number), you may find a data plate somewhere in the engine bay or in the cabin, giving more information about this rebuild. See also this thread, bottom of page 1:

Five years ago I’ve made a CAD drawing of the typical Royal Enfield style census numbers, so that Axholme could produce them as low tack stencils. (https://hmvf.co.uk/topic/41549-royal-enfield-census-numbers-low-tack-stencils-now-available-from-axholmesigns/). Since then I’ve seen many Royal Enfields with census numbers in the correct style, mission accomplished… 😊 But a couple of weeks ago I was talking to an Ariel W/NG owner who asked me if I could do the same thing with the typical Ariel stencil font (not to be confused with ARIAL.TTF, and also not to be confused with STENCIL.FNT which are both post war American fonts). So that’s exactly what I did. In the attached pictures you can see some war time examples, and a screenshot of all the numbers. Axholme sells them in 1" high or 1 1/4. In my opinion they should be 1”, about the same height as the Ariel logo just below the census number. (https://www.axholmesigns.co.uk/motor-bike). Hope these stencils will be useful!

If you want to clean that data plate without causing further damage, I would put it in vinegar for 24 hours. Rinse in water with a spoonful of washing soda to neutralise the acid, dry with a hair drier and preserve with some WD40. Any other treatment will cause further damage…

Enfield spare engines can easily be identified by the fact that they do have a "true engine number" (the V-number in case of a Flea, or the number just below the magneto on a WD/C or a WD/CO), but no "duplicated frame number". For as far as I know, "all" the Flea spare engines had this dataplate, "normal" engines never have. I've got several WD/C and WD/CO spare engines in my Register, all inspected by M211. Looks as if he was in charge of the surplus to contract spare parts department. WD/C: WD/CO: WD/RE:

THE ENFIELD CYCLE Co Ltd Art N° Series N°

Inspector 419 moved around a bit, as he's also checked some early WM20s and the late war Kitson Pease gearboxes (Albion gearboxes made under license by Kitson Pease in London, there had been a lot of quality problems so they got an official inspector).

This is the footage that Ron was talking about: On 1.55 you can see him putting his 419 stamp on the headstock.

As Ron says: this is a spare engine. Easy to recognise: engine number without a duplicated frame number, M211 is the typical inspector's number for the spare engines (WD/C, WD/CO and WD/RE), and the ID plate.

Reminds me of these pictures... 😊

I've just made a few more changes to the Terry Universal and the Mansfield Universal saddle descriptions.

Pretends to be a Morgan 3 wheeler...? 😁

Just discovered this picture:

Engine number 68961 (or 68981, difficult to see). As Ron said, contract S/6680 was supposed to be a contract for 8.000 bikes (frame numbers 53418 - 61417 and "matching" engine numbers 63418 - 71417). But the war was "over" when only 5200 bikes had been built, the rest of the contract (frame numbers 58618 - 61417 and "matching" engine numbers 68618 - 71417) was cancelled. This cancellation happened to other motorcycle manufacturers as well. I'm not a Triumph specialist, so I would like to compare with the situation at Royal Enfields. They were building the 5.000 WD/COs for contract S/3357, but for the same reason, after having made 1.500 of the 5.000 bikes, the contract was cancelled. At that time Enfield still had enough parts in stock to build most of the remaining 3.500 bikes! And that's what they did, they made a batch of 2.834 "civilianised" "post war Model CO" motor cycles, which were all sold on the export market. The home market had to make do with refurbished ex WD bikes. This was the "export or die" period... Now... Could Triumph have done something similar I wonder? I guess that when the contract was suddenly cancelled, they also must have had a considerable stock of parts. Did they put them together and sell them on the export market as well? This could explain why your bike turned up in India. Just a thought... The frame number is a mystery to me...

It looks gorgeous! 😍

Fantastic job, love it! Looking forward to seeing pictures with the tank on the trailer.

Fantastic thread! Love it!

X3 on the drum side, X4 on the other side... Not so special...?

I'm not a Triumph specialist, and I'm not a post war specialist either. But I do know that before and during the war, Royal Enfield often used Terry saddles (both companies were Redditch based, so they were almost neighbours). I've just checked the post war Royal Enfield Model G parts lists (1946 up to 1953, see scan below), and they all show the Terry Universal. I can imagine that the "Universal" saddles became standard after the war (until the arrival of the dual seats)? In that case your Triumph would have had a Lycett Universal? Just my twopennies...

Fantastic job! 👍