PS mixed issue sampler - last updated Jul18

YOUR BIKES, YOUR WAY
Unmistakably Magnum rear end, minimal
Motogadget switchgear, magnesium engine
covers, and below, a full house Kettle in the sort of
chassis 96bhp deserves
“I’M NOT NORMALLY THE BEST AT
FINISHING THINGS, BUT I TOLD
MYSELF I’D HAVE TO DO THIS ONE
PROPERLY DOWN TO THE LAST NUT”
TONY’S ADVICE
1. Whether it’s the amount of
time you think something will
take, or the amount of money you
think it will cost – double it.
2. Trust specialists to get things
right in their own time. Nobody
appreciates being hassled when
they’re in the middle of a job
(whether it’s yours or someone
else’s). It pays to be patient.
3. If something doesn’t look right
when it goes on, it’s not going
to look any better later. All that
happens is you’ll say to yourself
‘I wish I’d changed that’. Change it
or all that’ll happen is you’ll regret
it later.
CB900s and Laverda Jotas. No Kettles in a
Magnum 2 – until now.
“I love that ’80s endurance look,” says
Tony. “They were the first proper specials I
saw and such beautiful pieces of
engineering.” Those first glimpses of
Magnum 2s gave him a taste for specials
building too.
“My mate had a Suzuki RM250
(motocrosser, although you’d have called it a
scrambler back then) and he’d blown his
motor. I had a DT175 engine lying around
so we put that in it. It was all the wrong way
around really, ideally you’d have put the RM
engine in the DT, but it was a good learning
process,” he says. “I wish I’d kept that bike.
But then we all look back and say that about
all sorts of things.”
This Magnum Kettle is likely to be a
keeper though. Two years in the making,
Tony went flat out to make sure he got
everything perfect. “I’m not normally the
best at finishing things,” he admits. “But I
told myself I’d have to do this one properly
down to the last nut.” To all intents and
purposes he’s got it all spot-on. But the
uber-perfectionist inside him still can’t rest.
“The radiator hose through the fairing is
something I’d change,” he admits. “But I
can’t think of another way of doing it.” By
any standards, if that’s his biggest problem,
this bike has got to be existing on a higher
plane than most Magnums.
Take the electrics, traditionally a problem
area on many specials, or at least a part of
the build that’s least appealing to the
majority of builders. Not Tony though. He
went the Motogadget route for switchgear
and wired the whole lot in himself, routing
the ’bar switch wiring internally through the
clip-ons. And the wires are tightly clad in
black braided nylon too. He couldn’t have
done it more properly if he’d tried.
Tony took his time and only finished it two
months ago. “The engine alone took nine
months,” he says. “I don’t believe in
harrassing specialists. The people who do
things properly do them at their own pace.”
Worth the wait though. How about 96bhp
and 72lb.ft of torque at the rear wheel. “It
was putting out 102bhp but we decided to
knock that back a bit on the ignition curve
for the road.”
The power unit is a 1972 GT750J engine
worked over by BDK Race Engineering in
Ashwellthorpe in rural Norfolk. And they
truly went to town on it: O-ring head
gaskets, downdraught carb inlets, lightened
crank, meticulously matched porting job,
RGV250 alternator, magnesium side covers,
Zeeltronic programmable ignition,
70 Practical Sportsbikes
Practical Sportsbikes 71