Having decided to
keep the Swallow sidecar but sell the outfit I extracted my spare sidecar body
from the depths of the garage. This is a Streamline Regal which was given to me
at the Kiel Rally a few years ago. I had travelled there with Rex in my van
with our two Panthers, both M100 rigids, in the back. From Poldi’s house in
Osterholz-Scharmbeck, outside Bremen, we all rode up together to the campsite
at Falkenstein on the side of Kiel Fjord and enjoyed a wonderful rally. Back at
Poldi’s we loaded the bikes and I was then presented with a sidecar body in
flat-pack form. This we slid on top of the bikes and brought back to England.
As usual with
old sidecars I found that the frame was badly rotted, particularly the floor of
pine boards though the steel skin panels were in good condition. Most of the
fabric lining and the seats were also reusable. With a new floor of inch thick
plywood and the frame repaired the panels went back on to make quite a
presentable child/adult sidecar.
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| Loosely assembled Streamline Regal |
|
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| Frame repair underway |
As I already have two
swinging-arm Heavyweights I had always intended to pass this one on when it was
finished. A buyer has already turned up locally. At the viewing the bike
started first kick and ticked over steadily. We have agreed a price just for
the motorcycle without the sidecar. Now I am removing the sidecar chassis and
replacing the leading links with a set of standard Panther late-type telescopic
forks, luckily I already have all the parts to hand.
To complete the chassis
for photos for the Blog I had robbed my other chassis of its mudguard and
needed that back. I had a batch of five made in glass fibre; they turned out as
a lovely job each one indistinguishable from a steel mudguard unless you tap
it. These were popular and are now all sold. The new mudguard was moulded in
black and didn’t need painting. I fitted steel straps at the fixing points and
it has completed the chassis.
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