Royal twin

Over the weekend I went to Victoria to visit the island. I had not been there since I was 18.
It is beautiful.  Took the ferry to Nanaimo and drove to Duncan.

I had a mission in mind. When I bought the small chrome Enfield Bullet back in August the guy who sold it to me said he had imported 2 of them from India when he came back to Canada. He kept the chrome one and sold the black twin to his brother in law. When the brother in law decided to sell his machine he called me up.

So I went to Duncan to pick it up.

It is the standard old style of bike.  It shifts on the right, has points, and drum brakes.

You can tell it lived in a wet climate because the cases are powdery and the chrome is a bit rusty,
But overall its a solid little bike.  And it runs like a top.

Not sure what the plan for it is yet.  I will keep you posted.

Data East Secret Service

Found a pin on Craigslist here in Surrey BC.  It was a Data East Secret Service.

The playfield looks pretty good and it is from the same era as the Playboy - I can swap boards and some other parts.  Which is good because it doesn't run.

I had a good rapport with the seller but I always cringe when they tell me "it doesn't work but I think the problem is....".  Why didn't you fix it then?  I always lowball at that point. 

And it turns out the seller of this game was wrong.  He thought transformer.  The power board isn't working.  I swapped in the Playboy board and the game fired up immediately.  I'm going to try my hand at trouble shooting and repairing the board.

But the game looks cool and I think it will play nice.

Here it is in all its glory.

More pins from the USA.

I really enjoyed fixing the Amazing Spider Man pinball machine I picked up. It was a nice chance to get to tinker on a project. The layout is really old looking and captures the comic styles of Ditko pretty well.  I think I will be keeping it for a while and slowly returning it to restored condition.

I caught the bug for pinballs though. And started looking to expand my collection. Shortly before the long weekend I found 2 machines for sale in the US. I called and set up times to go look at them.

I left Friday morning right after shift at 2am and drove to Portland. The first machine was a Data East 35th Anniversary Playboy. It was made in 1989.

The machine was in good shape but not running so I picked it up on the cheap. The board had fried but the previous owner had bought and installed a new board. I figured I could get it running. It took soldering in a new power supply pin and some work on the switches in the playfield.  But it works, and is hella - fun to play.

The second machine was a Williams F14 Tomcat. Super fast game - #94 on the top 100 pinballs made listings. The guy selling it owned a company that supplied pins to bars. He seemed like a good guy and I paid an ok price for the game, figuring I could sell it later if I didn't like it. It was missing the red white and blue lights on the top but had LEDs in the play field. Super bright. It plays 100%

P.I.N.B.A.L.L.

The safety work I am doing in Vancouver is on the Expo Line for Skytrain.  While we were working one of the Skytrain employees mentioned to me that he had a pinball machine he wanted to sell.

Upon review it turned out to be a Gottlieb Series 80 Spider-Man.

I bought it - Duh....

Moved it into the townhouse with the help from my friends.  It is heavy.
I bought the machine being told it was working.  But I never actually plugged it in at time of purchase.  Ooops.

Because it wasn't working.  And for arguments sake lets just say maybe it got jostled a bit in the move and that's the reason.... Whatever.

So I bought a digital multi-meter and sourced the issue - turned out to be the power board.  I took the board in to John's Jukes here in Vancouver for repair.  But once the board was back in the machine other problems surfaced.  So I bought a board from Flippp.fr
Once that arrived and was installed the game fired up and worked electronically. 

I repaired the pop bumpers with boards from RottenDog.com.  And repaired a kicker bracket.

And, finally, it plays correctly.

It is a lot of fun.  Quite a bit older and thus slower than new games it none the less has a certain charm.  I'm unlikely to sell it quickly so I don't mind the parts and work that has gone into it. 

I also found I enjoyed the process of repairing it.  I may look for a few more pinballs in the future.

Yay! A new hobby.......

Royal Enfield - From India with Love?

I was cruising Kijiji and found a gentleman in West Vancouver who had listed a 1965 Enfield Bullet for sale.  The pictures of it looked good so I called and drove over to take a look.  He was a police officer who had bought 2 Enfield motorcycles in India and had brought them back with him when he returned to Canada.  He kept on and sold the other to his brother in law.

I don't know about you but I enjoy finding a sale that happens easily.  The seller seemed genuine.
Once I had made the purchase he pulled out a bunch of spare parts for me, including 2 spare gas tanks. Wow.

His brother in law showed up while I was loading the bike and told me all about his Enfield, the intricacies of ownership, and how much fun it was.

So now I am the proud owner of a 1965 Enfield.  It's 350cc, kick start only, single barrel, shift on the right, points and condenser, drum brakes, old school fun.  The bike wasn't running so I need to get it repaired. But it should start with a little work.  I just need to find the time.

In case you are not keeping score I now have 3 bikes in the garage.

Triumph Thruxton - Yamaha R1 - Enfield Bullet

Triumph in the family

While in B.C. in May, 2013 I found a 2012 Triumph Thruxton with low km.  I always liked this particular model so I decided to pull the trigger and buy it.  Here's a shot of it at the dealership.

 

 

So I added a Triumph to the stable and now have 2 bikes in the garage in B.C.

I rode it quite a bit and even did a quick trip to Seattle.  A bit different because it has no windscreen but overall I would say it has some great charm and fantastic curb appeal.

Back at it - New Location, New Attitude, Same Old Junk.

So I had a lot of life changes in 2012.

I went to work in Esterhazy Saskatchewan on a short term contract and was away from home quite a bit.  Then I got shipped to Prince Rupert B.C. on another contract and was away from home more.  The Rust Bomb and all my bikes sat for a year because I literally was not around.

I sold Project Retro in 2012.

The rest of the projects are sitting in the Edmonton garage waiting for me.  The Rust Bomb has been outside under a tarp. 

Fast forward to 2013.

I moved to Vancouver B.C. to continue work on another contract that should last for a year and a bit.  It is a temporary move and I have a place in Cloverdale.  Luckily it has a garage.
I brought the 2004 R1 with me.  I finished getting it to look like Rossi's MotoGP bike.

I will continue to update the blog now that I am settled.  And I have a few other projects I am doing in BC that I will document as well.

I will say that my life right now is excellent.  I am really liking BC and the place that I am in is fantastic.  The garage is big enough that I can still do a bit of work on bikes. I can't do any really large repairs like I can at home in Edmonton. But I can tinker.

 The Rust Bomb will have to wait.  But I will get back to working on it when I can.