An email from an enthousiatic reader:
Dear John, with regard to the ES2 works racer as depicted in one of the previous blogs; you overstressed my brain! This wonderfull machine will be my next project! On a shelf in my garage I have an approx. 1929 drysump ES2 engine, a Sturmey Archer 'box with a positive gearchange mechanism fitted but without a kickstarter and a three stay frame. What's lacking is a proper petrol- and oiltank like the ones in the picture above. If any of the readers could help me with these parts this would help me a lot in realizing this project. Regards Rob.
...and input from Simon:
Here's a photo of the 1927 works Norton which won the Ulster although fitted with a standard gear box for the article. You can see the tank profile clearly and you can work out its size by scaling from some other part which you do know the size of' - for instance the front brake back plate which is 8 inches diameter. As this is a works frame and not a production one (although the rear stays have been modified from the TT version which bent in June...) one cannot be too sure of other possible measurements of interest like the length of the front down tube below the tank... was it the same as on the production frames or is the distance shorter because the tank mountings were lower...Don't use the front rim diameter as a measurement to work from as this was probably not a rolled edge rim of the sort we are all familiar with but the earliest type of wired on tyre rim which did not have a rolled edge and of which I do not have details of the actual diameter. Cheers Simon.
Please contact me when you have a petrol- and/or oiltank like the one depicted; also do contact me when you would like one for yourself, we may have a few replicas of these fabricated.