-SG- Every now and then we hear from Juris on progress with his 1917 WW1 Big Four - known as 'Old Soldier!' Recently he has been working on the silencer and his texts and photos follow on:
"We have made good progress on the exhaust system of the old soldier. Had to order 3 metres of thin wall pipe 32 mm in dia for the straight exhaust pipe from the UK as our local suppliers said that they cannot import thin wall tubes for fear of smashing them in transport. Have made tooling and pressed those silencer end caps on our hydraulic press. Please see the photos. They came out reasonably well. The good news is that I also need them for the 1927 model 17C and for my 1927 french "Monet Goyon" 4rc4 — racer with 350 cc Villiers 2-stroke engine. This bike has huge baloon tyres and I had only one option for replacements — to buy clincher automobile tyres and I need to cut more grooves in them to make them suitable for a motorcycle. I used Trimagard black phosphating paint from Trimite ltd and put the parts in a stove at 130 degrees for 1/2 hour. thus the semi-matt finish is weatherproof and will not rust."
