New Addition

As mentioned on Norrie’s blog I collected another bike yesterday. This is the Ukranian-built Dnepr MT11 that I mentioned in an earlier post.

I’ll gloss over the actual trip to collect the bike with Norrie and Terry along for company/help, except to say that it took practically all day and that I was exhausted by the time I got home after midnight. I have never driven a van for the best of 14 hours before and hope that it’s a long time before I have to do so again.

Today, I had a good look at the machine in the cold light of day and confirmed what I’d suspected yesterday. It’s not in as good a condition as I had been led to believe, with a number of quite badly bodged repairs apparent, quite a lot of  obviously non-standard parts, and the wiring looks to be a bit of a rat’s nest. However, the engine runs and actually sounds quite sweet,  which is the main thing. Everything else is fixable.

What it would have looked like originally before it was converted into a military lookalike. The 'Roadster' model from importers Neval in Hull, UK featured a dual seat, kicked up pipes and fibreglass body panels.

I think that I’ll strip the whole bike down and do a complete rebuild and overhaul before putting it back on the road. I've discovered that most parts are readily available online and the prices are fairly reasonable. I’ve downloaded a couple of useful parts books and manuals to start the ball rolling.

I’ll try and include updates once the project actually gets up and running. For the moment, it's all about working out exactly what I need to source and what end result I want. Although the original bike was marketed as a 'Roadster' (see photo above) and I have the original tank and bodywork, I think that I’ll stay with the military look as it’s fairly easy to replicate and olive-drab paint can hide a multitude of sins.