Here's a picture of the guy (Rollie Free) in the picture above getting started off. Wearing nothing but a bathing suit he set a record of 150 mph in 1948 on the salt flats. CRAZY. In comparison a spread out free falling skydiver typically maxes out at around 120 mph - I did that once and it felt like my cheeks were going to fly off!!
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The search for better hill climbing ability has reached fever pitch. This morning after doing all the comet clutch tweaks that youtube had to offer along with a very expensive custom made rear sprocket, I decided to tear a page from some early lawn mowers and other vintage power equipment and ad an auxillary belt tensioner. This tensioner keeps the v belt deep in the front groove and inhibits the belt's ability to climb to a 'higher gear', all the while providing a much larger area of 'wrap' for less belt slip. As my rpms dropped on an incline, the centrifugal weights would relax their grip on the belt, adding to my woes. The tensioner is just for the hill climb and by pulling the lever back for normal road use, the CVT action of this comet type clutch is resumed. I have always tried to keep these videos on the short side, but this won't surprise any of you that it ran 13 minutes. I just hope someone searching for this info will come across this in the future. You might wanna pop some corn...
A year from now if I survive this madness..... Speaking of madness, I went down to the shop in my jammies at 5:30 this morning as I woke up with a great vision of tank shifter linkage. there are two well placed pivot points in the left downtube which were engine mount attachment points. Basically small tubing welded crossways through the down tube. I threaded them for 3/8-16 bolts. I may bolt a triangular plate into these holes and a pivot on the tail end of it to move the shifter aft. I continue to utilize old ford parts whenever I can. Today it's a V8 valve train 'top hat' that sits inverted into a valve spring (rotator type ?)I used as a spacer in a pivot. For my shifter, 20 years ago a friend brought me a really cool forged steel lever that is probably a bit too heavy, and need to get it cheery red for a few bends. I also have a big truck push button parking brake lever with a quadrant and pawl at the bottom and somewhere a crash box shift lever with the thumb trigger below the knob to lock it in once the belt is correctly tensioned. oh wait it's operated by the Left thumb!Since you have the one and only, that 45 MPH would be a record. Then you have a year of fiddlin to adjust some things and break your record.
I also went to Bonneville once, in 1972. Mary and I had made a big 2 week loop of the west, seeing everything we could, starting with Glorietta, New Mexico where we attended a Baptist Convention. We then saw the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, travelling north to Utah, where we saw the salt flats and a little of speed week. I remember a diesel-powered streamliner that was trying to break a record, maybe the same one that you saw. We were driving my nearly new '71 C.... pickup, with a home-modified camper/topper, which we camped in. On the front of my pickup I had built and attached a motorcycle carrier to fit my '72 Yamaha DT-1 250cc enduro. It was a little of a challenge to load and unload, but I was 20-something and determined. Our travels included Coral Pink Sand Dune St Park, near Moab, Ut., which I enjoyed on my dirtbike. A fellow was there riding his 3-wheelers, tho and offered me a ride on a Honda 250X I believe, and it was awesome in the sand! The thinner tires of my dirt bike didn't get nearly the traction of the fat-tired 3 Wheeler. I'll never forget the difference, I was amazed. We then travelled north to Yellowstone and Cody Wyoming, before trekking home to Kentucky. We travelled about 5500 miles in those two weeks! Great Memories.
