Boxing Clever

Don't know who thought these might be fragile

A while ago I bought some pannier rails and couldn’t resist these when I saw them advertised. As you can see they are military surplus ammunition boxes, these ones apparently used to hold mortar shells, and should bolt straight on to the rails without too much difficulty. Once again, these were relatively inexpensive.

ammunition boxes, labelled

packing to hold the ammunition

I think that they will fit right in with the faux military look that I’ve decided on for this bike. They will need sanding down and re-painting, but once that's done I will have some seriously sturdy 30 litre panniers that are solid enough to double up and use as seats once I get where I’m going.
 

NATO issue

spacious, about 30L capacity

rubber seal makes them watertight

Getting The Sack

This large sack turned out to contain a replacement front mudguard (fender) that I had ordered from Ukraine.

I needed to replace the one that the bike came with as it was a cheap ‘universal’ one and the previous owner had simply bent some metal offcuts to make a couple of clamps to hold it in place rather than attempting to do it properly.

badly made clamps

I had thought about trying to re-use the one that I had, maybe trimming it down a bit and doing something better with the clamps, however, in the end I decided that I would prefer to replace it with the proper one for the machine if I could find one cheaply enough.

 This one came courtesy of a seller on German eBay and was supplied new, and in primer ready for painting.

As you can see it is rather solid and substantial and it is intended to sit quite high on the forks. I think that this is intended to prevent mud clogging the front wheel. There’s certainly plenty of space under there.

Boing Boing

Some more deliveries this week for my Dnepr rebuild.

First up, was this pair of second-hand rear shock absorbers that I had found on eBay. The seller was breaking a whole bike and these were listed with a ridiculously low starting price, so I stuck in a bid.  Luckily no one else was interested and I got them for about the price of a couple of pints of beer. One abstentious Saturday night and that’s them paid for.

new shocks and new rubber seals

Even though the original ones were quite rusty I hadn’t been intending on replacing them. I had found a seal refurbishment kit a while ago and was planning on just stripping them down, cleaning them up, and then rebuilding them. I may still do that, but in the meantime I now have some spares.

badly pitted with rust

These new ones differ from the ones I already have only in that they do not have the upper chrome shrouds. I believe that the factory used both types depending on the market that the bike was destined for, and I now have a pair of each.

chrome shrouds

Hardtail

I have to confess that I don't overly like traditional old-school choppers. I've never really seen the point to them, to be honest. While they may look great cruising down Route 66 in the USA, they tend to look cumbersome and unstable and somewhat out of place when trying to negotiate twisty A-roads and town centres over here. Or, maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, this 1971 BSA A65 hard-tail chopper was recently offered around for sale. I'm told it runs well, although it’s been stored for four years, and it might need new valve guides soon, hence the spare engine. However, it's also far too expensive for what it is.

Sorry. Not my cup of tea at all, I’m afraid.