This is my Blog following the restoration of 2 RM6 Raleigh runabout mopeds, one from 1970 and the other from 1971.
Both are royal blue, one is in shocking condition and the other is tatty to say the least.
Cost £195 for shocker and £147 for tatty.
Oh so now i have names for both.
1970 is called Tatty
1971 is called Shocker.
Two things i learnt on the first day and they are very important are, GET A SERVICE MANUAL, the second is, GET A PARTS MANUAL, i'll leave it at that and let the story unfold.
This is Shocker
My 16 yr old son Christopher was over from South Africa so i thought it a good time to teach him about bikes and let him get dirty hands.
The front wheel, rear wheel and engine were all seized solid so i started to gradually strip Shocker apart, the front and rear wheel bearings were so loose you could wiggle the shaft about 5mm each way, left right up and down.
The engine was totally seized up and no amount of whacking, pushing, pulling, diesel, WD40, petrol Bla Bla Bla would loosen it so off we went to my Old school buddy Colin Wilkinson who owns a garage in Wainfleet to use his brain, large vice, tools and garage to evict the piston from its home, after copious amounts of hellin and slewin (and effin of course) it finally met its match and decided to leave the sleeve.
The condition of the engine was bad, very bad indeed. The crank big end bearing was seized solid as was the little end bearing, gudgeon pin and rings, both left and right crank bearings were seized solid.
It must have had a total engine seizure and by the look of it he must have been doing 100 mph at the time, OR it had not been garaged (sometimes known as a barn find) but leant up the side of a shed with no protection so that the wind and rain had seeped into every orifice imaginable over the past 30 yrs.
The Pulley wheel looked pretty bad as you can see from the photos and without it nothing turns so i set about a solution.
More to come.
