The “Re-Worked” theory is something I had considered. I wasn’t aware there was a lot of theft in the past; but it’s certainly not hard to imagine.
This particular specimen was fairly stripped down when it was discovered in a chicken coop, by my father in 1983 in Goshen, Utah, USA. At that time it didn’t have the following parts:
Fuel tank
Oil tank
Mudguards
Toolbox
Saddle
Battery or battery case
Headlight
And much more
It had been turned into a chopper, with the original girder forks being extended and welded, and it appears many of the original parts were long gone. My uncle is a motorcycle mechanic, and set to getting it as back to normal as he could given the available resources.
I think Trevor is probably right, a later war or postwar replacement crank case, the two examples shown above are over 15,000 apart so very unlikely to have been done in the factory in such a similar way.
Has anyone seen this before. It's a Flea that Mark Mumford is restoring for a friend. I think it's from the 1000 from the last batch that were canceled by the WO. Ron
We still don't know what the RW abbreviation stands for, but I have now found four data plates (3x1959, 1x1960) referring to this RW, which must have been a military workshop. It is currently still unclear where this workshop was located (BAOR - West Germany or UK).
I have run some of these numbers through the keycards and the numbers on the rebuild plates appear to be engine numbers rather than frame numbers as the rebuild dates often seem to be after the disposal of the machine?
For the following numbers the key cards show
92934 02YE58 sold off (Allies CR?) 1953 Engine rebuilt 1959 (card 560b)
96377 05YE28 sold off Antwerp 1971 Engine rebuilt 1960 (card 568b)
108654 10ZC39 sold of MELF (Middle East Land Forces) 1955 engine rebuilt 1959 (card 467a)
85610 not in the key cards but rebuilt 1959 after the key cards were created
I think Trevor is probably right, a later war or postwar replacement crank case, the two examples shown above are over 15,000 apart so very unlikely to have been done in the factory in such a similar way.
Rob
I think Trevor is probably right, a later war or postwar replacement crankcase, the two examples shown above are over 15,000 apart so very unlikely to have been done in the factory in such a similar way. But we can change it nowadays with Ebillwizard and it's easy nowadays for us.