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325 Or 340?


montaco
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Woody, would you care to comment on post no 3?. There seems to be a difference of opinion as to whether the Comerfords modified bikes had oval or rectangular section swinging arms.

Edited by montaco
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Nigel Dabster Posted Today, 03:35 PM

  Pretty sure its a copy, think the swining arm is modified original and the pivot point is definately forward

Just out of interest...........why do you think its a copy?

Heres a pic of a standard 340, so we can all play "spot the difference"!!

Martin

post-509-1144779010.jpg

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But how can you tell its a copy ???? What bits are making you think its a home brewed job rather than a "genuine" Reg May ????

To me,........ altering the swinging arm plates, swing arm shock mounts, top shock mounts & frame area, airbox, seat, side panels, and front pipe.....seem a bit more than the average bloke would take on.

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I think the oval swinging arm is the give away. I currently trying to get a picture or two of a mono shock Bulto that was regularly used in our part of the world, it was a home brew special.

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Well Diggler, you're bike has certainly got a discussion going now... :thumbup:

As far as I understand it, all 340 and white framed 250 Sherpas were built at the factory with the square section swingarm, as seen in the photo from Martin M. Commerfords supposedly took about 40 (??) of the last 340s and modified them using oval section swingarms - not sure precisely what else they did to the back end - they certainly weren't copies of the last version of Vesty's bike, maybe just the swingarm mount repositioned and shocks moved?? Don't know but Mr Renham will. I think Don Morely got it wrong in his Spanish Trials Bike book when he said these 40 were modified with box section swingarms as that is what they had as standard. A friend of mine has a white framed 250 that is a genuine and rare Commerfords conversion of a 250 with the oval swingarm. It's the only one I've ever seen and is very different from the standard swingarm - largely because it's oval.....

Back to modified bikes, just because a bike isn't a documented Commerfords conversion doesn't mean that Reg May didn't do it. Dave Hooke had his 340 modified by Reg May about 15 years ago but it won't be documented anywhere. So there could be other bikes whose owners took them direct to Reg to have them done long after his Commerfords days.

I have a 340 which has had the rear frame tubes bent almost vertical (a la Vesty) and the shocks moved forward significantly on the top and bottom mounts. A very neat alloy airbox has been made too. No idea who did it (not a Commerfords bike as I've checked) but it looks to be a neat job and although I've only ridden it around the garden, rear suspension feel is much improved over standard, which always felt dead to me on the Bults (so watch out Diggler as your 340 will have some competition when this one is done - if I can magically up my skill level that is..)

A last thought - I always found it interesting that the batch modified by Commerfords used the oval swingarm, but Vesty's bike used the standard box section - or at least it does in the pictures I've seen. Wonder why not oval?

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Mine was a reg may one and dave R may be able to confirm it or otherwise but from what I understand Mick Whitlock only did one batch of swinging arms say 50 or so? My other post shows the reg conversion by comerfords which was done utilising the whitlock s/a and modified top shock mount, where this differs from digglers is that the airbox is not modified at all, Vesty/reg modified his bike quite a few times and were not bothered about chopping an airbox about they had spares. In fact the most radical one (comerfords/vesty) had the exhaust exiting above the swinging arm and the airbox chopped about to make room for a silencer.

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post-795-1144827322.jpg

And another close up.

The bike is definatly not one of the comerfords 40 as verified by Dave Renham.

But the frame number is very close to the modified bikes, so he is not ruling out the posibility that it was a bike modified by reg around that time !

i.e. untill he discovers evidence disproving this, he will not rule out the posibility of it being some form of comerfords bike, there must have been some 'experimental' bikes before the 40 replica's were produced ?.

It may be a while before any proof surfaces as i am sure Dave has better things to do with his time than trawl through old pictures and documents for me.

whatever it is, I am well pleased with it !!!

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I think the oval swinging arm is the give away. I currently trying to get a picture or two of a mono shock Bulto that was regularly used in our part of the world, it was a home brew special.

Perce,

brilliant rider and engineer Clive Smith from Trawden converted his Bulto to mono in the mid/late 80's and rode it bloody well embarassing a lot of riders (in and around the Yorkshire centre) on more modern bikes like TY's,Betas,and Fantics etc,is this the same bike you are talking about? :thumbup:

Edited by 2fargone
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Slightly off topic I know but speaking of mono bults here's one made by a guy over here (sadly can't remember his name) I believe he made a few of these. This one was for sale a couple of years ago - wish I'd bought it simply because it's different.

Good post by the way Guy's. It's interesting to get the gos on the last bikes (I have a stock 198b that's the second love of my life)

Paul Mac

post-87-1144889866.jpg

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