Loss of Oil - alternative method....

[Mike Gott]

Elsewhere, I have noted that my '41 W/NG had to deputise for my NH on the Annual rally this year thanks to a last-minute problem with the '57 bike. The W/NG had been laid up in the back of the garage waiting for a re-bore and general freshen up at the time, but rose to the occcasion and carted Louise and me plus luggage up from near Bolton to Heysham for the ferry and onto the Island without grumbling. Once there, it performed really well, the only problem being higher oil consumption than envisaged resulting in a trip to a bike shop in Douglas where I managed to buy an expensive 5 litres of monograde in a plastic container. We were in B&B, and I ended up leaving said container at the rally site. Not having room for it on the bike with our luggage for the ride home, Allan Simpson was volunteered to take it back to England for us in his van, and I would collect it at the next Lancs Branch meet.

Come that meet, I was still with the W/NG and the plastic container was transferred to the near side canvas WD pannier bag for the trip back in the dark to our home on the western end of the Pennines. After a spirited run back, I pulled the bike onto it's stand while I opened the gate of our back yard. Then I looked at the bike, sat there in the moonlight, 30 minutes short of midnight.

The pannier, together with the oil and the tool roll that was in the bottom of it was, quite simply, not there anymore. For few seconds I gazed at the void in a state of shock. Then quickly I put the bike away, locked up, then dumped the bike jacket and helmet, grabbed the car keys, and shot off in the Fiesta to re-trace my route. About five miles out, just over a canal bridge at Red Rock, about a mile outside of Wigan I spotted a small pile laid on the other side of the road. Parking up, I took stock of the disater area. The oil container had literally exploded on impact, and the pannier, a seam of which had split, was well soaked in it. These panniers had been a gift from Lester and had originally been on one of Bob Brassington's Ariels, so I wasn't going to give up on it, so it went into the boot. My tools had obviously been run over a couple of times but were basically alright if a little slippery. I rescued what I could and finished up by hand scooping some sand-like dirt from the verge onto the remains of my £27.00 worth of oil on the tarmac. Back home, my last act was to clean the oil from the controls (including the pedals) of the car before going for a shower. I was covered in muck and oil.

The problem seems to have been caused by some combination of the Y-strap (which goes over the panniers and is fitted to the pannier frames by D-rings) losing one of said D-rings combined with the 75 year old stitching on the pannier failing under the strain of the heavy oil container being bounced around in it on the unsprung back end of the Ariel, though it still took the pannier with it on it's fatal tumble.

The pannier will recover. My spark plug spanner is now twisted like an old-time barley sugar but will still work. Of my oil, all that remains is a hole in my bank balance and a faint mark on the road at Red Rock.

Mike

[steve.clarke]

That's not bad for a 75 year old pannier thats probably been overloaded many times with compo rations and ammo in it's service life.

[Steven.Carter]

Its bad enough leaking oil the normal way but great to get the tools and bag back.
I'd say most things that I've lost off the back of my bike I've got back. I even got my sat nav back two weeks after loosing it on the M3. A breakdown recovery driver was passing by and saw the light from the screen and stopped. Somehow he found my number in it and rang me. Couldn't believe it!

[Mike Gott]

An old friend - no longer in the club or with bike - was riding down Barton Street, a Roman road in Lincolnshire, on his W/NG when he felt something hit his left leg. Stopping, he realised that the dynamo had fallen off. Returning to where he'd felt it leave the bike, he scoured the verge and surrounding area but he failed to find it. Siezed by a flash of inspiration, he returned home, collected a spare short dynamo to which he tied a white plastic bag, then returning to the site of the loss he dropped that one overboard too. Genius! Obviously it would end up near where the first one had landed ............. only he couldn't find that one either. To the best of my knowledge, they're still there, wherever that is.

Mike

[Steven.Carter]

He forgot the long peice of sting. Now come on, your pulling my leg? thing is, it could be true!

[paul.jameson]

Its the Brassington influence which did it I'm afraid Mike. I remember him strapping two bottles of milk to the carrier of his 1938 rigid one day. These were bottles with just the aluminium foil tops. After a couple of miles, the tops had failed and the back end of the bike was covered in milk. 5 miles later, he had a rear wheel puncture, probably not caused by the milk.

We may laugh but he was one of the very greatest AOMCC men ever, and by far the biggest contributor to the overall character of the Club today, in my view.

[Bob.Murphy]

Sometimes when things fall off bikes they are destroyed instantly . . . . Sometimes not.

In 2007 I was with a group touring Morocco, we were mostly on the big BMW 'GS' bikes, me on my 1150 GSA others on the 1200s. We were advised to drink at least 3 litres of water a day, so we all carried large plastic bottles of water.

Four of us were on an empty desert road having a bit of a 'hoon'. The posted limit in Morocco is 80 KPH but we were doing about 90 MPH. As we rode down the straight desert road I noticed the guy in front had a 3-litre bottle of water held to his carrier by a single aerolastic - and the bottle was starting to slide out sideways .

As it got to the edge of his carrier I thought "there is about to be a big splash", but I was wrong. The bottle hit the road sideways on at about 85MPH and proceeded to roll down the road, keeping pace with the bikes. I couldn't believe it. Eventually it hit a stone and jumped off to the side, through some rushes into a drainage ditch. I didn't stop.

That flimsy plastic bottle must have travelled nearly a quarter of a mile at high speed without exploding - Amazing.

Nothing to do with Ariels or W/NGs - sorry.

Bob.

[nevhunter]

I repaired a dynamo that fell out of the top of the magdyno recently.( Not one of mine) Did itself a fair bit of damage, tumbling end for end down the road. Nev

[Steven.Carter]

Thinking about it, wouldn't it be a good idea to put our mobile number on our bags, there are honest people about and would love to get our stuff back to us.
Steve

[Mike Gott]

......Now come on, your pulling my leg?........it could be true!

Oh yes, it is. I'll withold name but he was a member of the Lincolnshire Branch who lived in Louth and he was on the way to a British motorcycle shop in Laceby near Grimsby when it happened. Metal detectorists should go to the area near the junction with the Barnoldby-le-Beck road and Barton Street. Anyone who was in the Lincolnshire Branch in the 80's will probably work out who it was. I do have a photo of the W/NG somewhere, but I'll have to locate and scan it in before I could post it. It'll be interesting to see if it has a dynamo. It didn't have lights anyway. A few enjoyable rattles around the Louth area on it are probably to blame for me having one now.

Mike

Update: Found the photo, wife Louise is making up for the lack of stands, she was 19 at the time. The 2015 version can be seen in a post on the W/NG photos section. The owner is stood behind, partly diguised by a matching (with the bike) balaclava. c.1983 (as is the haircut). Anyway.............................