My Ancillotti's

[Kjelle]

Hi all!

Brass_Machine asked me tell you guys more about my bikes... Well, it started a little more than two years ago, when I found an ad on one of the smaller Swedish ad-sites... "Husqvarna 250 motocross bike for sale", but no picture of the bike, as the seller had 2 bikes in the same ad (the other was, probably, a small Japanese bike), so I mailed and asked for a few pictures

This is the first he sent me...
When I got the mail with the picture, I saw that this is no Husqvarna, so I went into my rather extensive library on the computer, and searched for a while. I found a picture from an Italian site, that matched this... It turned out to be an Ancillotti, probably a 125 from 1977-78. I posted a few of his pics on the Italian forum and got the same answer, so negotiations ensued.

It turned out that the seller was around 15 years old, and was willing to sell or trade for a good soft air gun. Now, I don't like to put those things in kids hands, so I checked what a thing like that would cost and told him that I would pay him that amount (850 SEK/€85), and he accepted! Now, I live in Stockholm, and he was/is in Mora, 320 km away! A few weeks later (in fact, exactly 2 years ago today), I loaded my son in my car and off we went!

I told the kid I would come with my tools, so I could disassemble it myself, but the damage was already done...


This is the stubaxle, it holds the sprocket/brake drum to the swing arm.

As he had no clue how to disassemble the rear wheel from the arm, he pounded the stub axle with a hammer, and when he found out how to take the rear wheel off, the damage was well done, the axle was mushroomed, and wouldn't come out, so he took a saw or an angle grinder, and cut out the swing arm!!

This was just the beginning of the damage done by a series of rather non-mechanical minded owners...
Someone had cut off almost all brackets for the rear fender, and the tank bracket in front of the steering head. Also, some previous owner had lost or broken the front engine-to-frame brackets and made some new from 1/4" aluminum (original is 3 mm steel).
Somebody lost or damaged the dry clutch parts, so he MIG welded the hub to the cage

And to top things off, they had welded extentions to a set of moped shock absorbers!


In the end, it was a frame with wheels, tripple clamps, and not much more. But the wheels were really good, polished rims, tight spokes, undamaged hubs, and best of all; straight and round!

Now, I hope the pictures come out right and small enough to fit within the rules!

More to come later, I have to go to bed now working day tomorrow!

Kjelle

[foozer]

It'll keep you busy. Spent years  redoing the Putt Putt in my avatar. Last time I road it I blew a crank bearing, not a good idea to ride hard a 40 some year old toy Found another crank, new pistons and such. have not started it yet since the repair last year.

I just cant resist the Go baby Go! plus have to mix up fuel for it has no hardened valve seats, so some real tetraethellead and what they call gas now-a-days keeps me close to home.

Fun projects tho, better to restore the old iron than trash em.

Robert

[jim]

the abuse of previous owners!

you do have to wonder what they were thinking!

[MrFluffy]

Interesting, theres all sorts of mad little european companies, although it does have the look of a old aircooled DT175 motor, is it a yamaha motor or one of their own?
Ive seen that level of abuse before sadly, and it is always smaller bikes. 50cc or field bikes are "fixed" by a series of owners as their first bikes and each in turn does their fumbly first attempts at learning things. Mopeds on the road are always a series of disasters in bodge form too, when I used to work in a bike shop that broke a small amount of bikes for parts we'd always groan at the arrival of a very used tiddler into the shop, wondering what bits we would have to unbolt with the angle grinder...

[Swarfing]

You will always find that this is where people get the first experience of a left handed thread 

[BillTodd]

It turned out to be an Ancillotti, probably a 125 from 1977-78. I posted a few of his pics on the Italian forum and got the same answer, so negotiations ensued.

I seem to have a vague recollection of those machines (my brothers were very keen on motocross in the 70-80s so I got to see a lot of MX machinery)

Is that an Austian Sach engine ? (a lot of bikes used them back then)

Bill

[madjackghengis]

I have to say, there is nothing in the damage done which I have not found in many of the bikes I've bought or traded for, and in truth, I find getting them that way is cheap, while getting one which "always got dealer servicing", often has hidden problems done little different than those displayed, but well hidden inside, and not providing one with leverage for a better deal.  I have long lived above my means by getting things second hand, third hand, and "heavy handed with a hammer" as the most remarkable "assets" of the deal.  I've also turned down some deals where the owner did such damage and thought it was no big deal and didn't affect the value at all, wanting full price as if it were ready to ride.  In the end, all my best deals were from people who didn't know how to work on their machines, and did so anyway.  I've bought a lot of guns that were disassembled for cleaning, reassembled wrong, and couldn't be taken apart without special knowledge and tools, and got them at ten or fifteen percent of their actual value.  I'm always up for something that's been worked on by owners. mad jack

[Kjelle]

Bill, and MrFluffy; That is a Hiro engine (CCM used them in the late 70's in 125 & 250 sizes). It.s pretty advanced for the time, with a DRY clutch (like the most expensive road racing bikes at the time, and Ducati works/NCR bikes), primary kick starting, stuff like that. Motoplat ignition with external flywheel (complete with light coil, if you wanted to make into an enduro bike).

Foozer and Mad Jack, I haven't continued with this project, as the damage is too great to everything but the wheels, frame and triple clamps. I'll show you some more;

This is what I found when I had disassembled the front fork... Magnesium sickness! Mag and dirt and water had conspired to eat away the magnesium above the locking ring (that holds the seals) and the inner fork legs were bent around 1/4" at the point they enter the lower triple clamp. Also, below the seals, there is a bushing to keep the inner legs straight, that is worn...

There was no seat or tank with the bike, and while I could probably source a seat from Italy (at approx €200), the alloy tank is almost unobtainible. I'll settle for a normal steel tank, but those are also hard to find...
http://s646.photobucket.com/albums/uu186/KjelleB/ has more pictures, and some comments from me
It's not a dead project, I haven't thrown anything away, yet. It has taken thee back burner to another project. I'll show you more in coming posts, but first, a picture from a flyer, showing what it looked like from the factory in 1977;


Kjelle

[Kjelle]

Now, I have another Ancillotti, this one an enduro, also from '77. This one was bought via an ad on Tradera, the Ebay partner in Sweden. I found the ad, but before I could raise the money, the auction had ended, and I thought it was the end of it... But I mailed the seller, and it turned out that the deal had fallen through. So I asked how much he wanted. He was willing to sell it for the starting bid of 3500 SEK (€350), which I jumped on. This was just a couple of months after the first one...
This is what the pic in the ad looked like;

The seller had it as "Hiro 125 MX/enduro"... He lives on a farm about 200 km from Stockholm, and Me and my son went down there to pick it up. While taking the forks out, this happened;

I thought at the time, it was due to cracks in the top nut, but it turned out to be the triple clamp/stem being bent (remember the almost pristine triples on the other bike? Yep I used them on this one)
This one was in much better shape, but some earlier owner had spray bombed it black, mostly matte.


What is it about black paint, that attracts mechanical nincompoops?

My caption for this is "Never take a bike apart when you paint it! It's a waste of time... Not."

In fact, except for normal wear, the only thing broken is a front engine mount (and also on the white one, exactly the same place)and rear brake shoes, and missing the carb to air box rubber and air box door!
The cylinder was worn, and had a scratch in the chrome (but not as bad as the white bike).
I'll end this post as the last one, with a picture of what it looked like back in the day... But it was availible in white, blue, yellow, and red (with red frame). Mine should be red, but this is the best picture I have found. It's exactly as mine, except for the color


Kjelle

[Kjelle]

To make a long story short, since I bought those two bikes 2 years ago, some things have happend... I used my fathers garage to store them in, among his woodworking stuff, mostly working outside during summer. The garage is (was) heated to between 5 and 10 degrees C. Here is a picture of the progress so far;



Last November me and my wife bought the house from my parents, as they didn't have the strength to maintain it anymore. No work has been done to the garage yet, my Father will have free rein of as long as he can, with me helping to clean and organize it during the spring. I will probably keep it as my woodworking shop as long as he can keep up his work, and use the little one indoors as mine, but keep the larger parts out there. I need a woodshop, as we are remodelling the property bit by bit, both in and outside, including the garden.
I have hope for at least finishing the complete frame, with everything but the engine done, this summer...
Tomorrow, I'm leaving my newly found micrometers to that prototype shop, for checking and calibrating!

Kjelle