Tenere Vinduro Sidecar

[Colin Jay]

Tomorrow I will be heading 30km down the road to Tarlee to pick up this little beauty;



Yes, it incomplete and has no engine, no electrics, no ancillary equipment and the wrong wheels, but what can I say, I am a gluten for punishment.

Despite the  problems with it, it ticks so many boxes;
 1st its's a 34L Tenere (a 1984 model to be precise),
2nd its a sidecar,
3rd it has competition history, having been ridden in the 24 Hour Trial and numerous other Reliability Trials back in it's day
4th it has local history having been owned many years ago by a fellow local club member,
5th the price was right.

Fortunately the wife is working away at present and I will hopefully be able to hide it in amongst all the other fine motorcycles in my shed.

Unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to have it ready in time for Harrow, but I have made a deal with a mate and he has promised to swing for me if I can get it "read to ride" in time for our local club round of the SA reliability Trial Series in late September.

I will try to provide some regular updates on progress of the preparation and if we actually manage to make the event, even write a ride report.

CJ

[Tim754]

Neat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gippslander]

Really makes my day when I see someone get serious demented about an old wreck of a bike 

[popeye]

Well done and good luck with the rebuild, let us no what parts your looking for, hopefully we can help, I no 2 guys in Brisvagus with 84 Teneres......

[odd1]

Look forward to seeing it at Harrow let us know when your bringing it and we will make sure you will be able to get around the course.

[shelpi]

Excellent, it has landed in the right hands, all the best on the rebirth and will be watching with antisipation

[curly001]

Colin there's a cure for what you have !
Now find a brick wall(a solid pole at a pinch), face the wall and place hands on wall at shoulder height.
Start rocking forward, make sure to hit forehead solidly against wall.
Upon regaining consciousness repeat as required(when compulsion returns)
With time treatment required will decrease if used as prescribed.
Otherwise death is a possibility( when wife finds out what you brought)

[Simo63]

That is bloody awesome Col ... I particularly like the auxiliary fuel tank just in case the original one doesn't hold enough fuel

I also know a guy that builds XT/TT500 and 600 bikes and engines for customers purely on an ordered basis so might be a source of parts if you need any.

Cheers ad good luck with hiding it from the missus

[Simo63]

Otherwise death is a possibility( when wife finds out what you brought)

Listen Curly, Sandy is an awesome woman so I don't know where you get this irrational fear from

[Colin Jay]

I pick it up yesterday, and on the way home dropped in at Marrabell for the start of the 1st Rnd of this years Reliability Trial Series. I parked in the mud bath that was the competitors car park amoungst the sidecar riders from my club (Clare MCC) and before I got out of the ute could hear Fred Noble (950 KTM/Mefo) saying "Hey that's my old outfit!"

We all had a chat about the history of the old girl and everyone is please that it is going to be resurrected, with a lot of encouragement and pushing towards having it ready for the 24 Hour trial. That is way to ambitious, and I am sticking with my original plan to get is rideable for rally (non-competitive) class at the Clare round of the series in late September.

Once I got home and went through the "What the hell have I gotten myself into trying to fix this pile of crap" moment, I got stuck into developing a plan of attack. 

A good look at the sidecar chassis revealed that apart from the few cracks that I had seen on initial inspection, everything else is pretty sound. I will have to make up a new front lower mount as this is missing, but other wise it is just a case of tidying up some of the work that was done when the original nose was removed and the passenger crab rail fitted and re-skinning the body work.

At present the plan is  to get the rolling chassis sorted out, then assemble the 1992 XT600 (electric start) engine that I have and get that into the chassis and running. After that i will sort out the ancillary stuff like airbox, electrics and the sidecar body work.

I will be fitting a set of leading link forks that I made for my old Honda XL500 sidecar years ago, and as these forks still have the Yamaha mag wheel that I ran on the Honda fitted I have started to sort out the fitting of a similar rear Yamaha SR500 mag wheel into the rear swingarm.

Like all good plans I know that it will all go to crap and I will end up doing something total different, but hey, that's the fun of this game.

CJ