Buell and Cooper
- Thread starter Rob
- Start date
- Location
- Southern Vancouver Island
My one's still running great for its' new owner & the motor be oil tight. The 500 motor in these bikes have a much more positive & efficient oiling system than the HD v-twins.
If riders treat these RE's well, they will last fine. It's the only bike I ever owned that garnered waves from oncoming Harley folks to boot.
My one's still running great for its' new owner & the motor be oil tight. The 500 motor in these bikes have a much more positive & efficient oiling system than the HD v-twins.
If riders treat these RE's well, they will last fine. It's the only bike I ever owned that garnered waves from oncoming Harley folks to boot.
Well, that's all well and good...but do the textbooks authorize you to consider it beautiful? Personally, I think it's a knock-out; watching a guy riding a Buell always makes me think he's trying to hump a giant beetle but the beetle has other ideas and is doing its best to escape.
Speaking of the Steyr Scout, that has been a favourite rifle of mine since it was introduced. As a Cooperphile, I tended to listen to The Great Man when he spoke, so I gave the scout concept a try, first with home-built DIY jobs, then one of the original Savage versions (best value-for-dollar scout rifle ever!) before finally graduating to the actual Steyr product. I have strayed from the scout scope concept a tad in recent years, simply because there are few scout scopes with sufficient diopter adjustment in the eyepiece to compensate for my growing astigmatism. Even when used with standard scopes, the Steyr's combination of ergonomics, handling and accuracy endeared it to me. I still own two and use them an awful lot, especially for a guy who isn't really a .308 fan...and even though I "know" they are butt-ugly.
In fact, I like them so well that they are...in the eyes of this beholder...becoming quite beautiful.
My one's still running great for its' new owner & the motor be oil tight. The 500 motor in these bikes have a much more positive & efficient oiling system than the HD v-twins.
If riders treat these RE's well, they will last fine. It's the only bike I ever owned that garnered waves from oncoming Harley folks to boot.
Yesterday I parked beside a new looking Indian Enfield in the Canadian Tire parking lot. Somebody must be selling them around here again.
I knew the former Enfield dealer in this area and he gave up on them. He said he just couldn't sell them...not and still make any money. He thought they were overpriced.
My PHD Mechanical Engineer younger brother who recently moved from Silicon Valley, Ca. to Saanich, B.C. custom builds bikes when he isn't building fly rods and fishing. His daily rider is an Aprillia triple (in the background outside the garage) but he likes custom upgrading vintage Hondas. Also check out the California Cafe "Yamaha" 500+cc single that he built...its a beauty...total custom, from the ground up, inside and out...just the thing for "putting round the backroads" of southern Vancouver Island.
By the way (and I'm not saying this), my brother believes that on the one hand there are Harleys (and their Japanese cruiser clones) and on the other hand there are Motorcycles and they aren't the same thing.
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- Location
- Southern Vancouver Island
Beauty shop that feller has. The bikes be sweet to boot. I used to ride a 400F in '77 & they are a fun way lower the insurance gouge.
Wow...that is an impressive garage. Your brother actually works on his bikes in there? That guy operates on an entirely different level...I make more of a mess of my kitchen when I build a sandwich...
In his defence, that isn't the whole garage (nor are those all of his bikes!) and its a newly rennovated facility. But engineers can be a bit obsessive. For instance, on the Cafe bike he machined his own titanium axles to save ounces of unsprung weight. He also custom builds fly rods with specific characteristics for specific streams.
To give an idea of the work involved here are some "before and after" photos of one of those Hondas.
Plenty of unseen interior motor work done as well. Transformed to better (much better) than factory new.
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I've done it a couple of times myself (photo of my little shop a few years back when I was in the process of rebuilding an XT500 Yamaha thumper)...never again...way too much work, time and money. And I'm not the engineer that my little brother is...he actually enjoys doing things like taking the crankshaft out of a car to re-balance it...just for fun! And the only bike I'm nostalgic about enough to even attempt a restoration on would be a Honda CB160...the little machine that got me through high school. It was my second bike, bought brand new in 1966. Its long gone but I still have the sales receipt.
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- Location
- Southern Vancouver Island
Good work on the bikes folks, but can y'all do this? 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWlujDKZn_E
As fer the Steyr Scout, they are a well thought out unit that be accurate enough for many folks.
They now come in 6.5 CM. Pity they don't make the buggers in .358 Win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWlujDKZn_E
As fer the Steyr Scout, they are a well thought out unit that be accurate enough for many folks.
They now come in 6.5 CM. Pity they don't make the buggers in .358 Win.
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