Ok so I have some more (cheap) bits for the CS3 project(s)
Major purchase was two very good rims - from an RD200 I believe. They were only a fiver each (on Ebay).
The snag was the seller (understandably) didn't want to post them.
So, before bidding, I contacted the seller to ask if he would post them if I sent him a box and arranged the postage etc. I did this before (successfully) for a Hillman Imp silencer so thought it was worth asking.
He said it was fine so next thing was to try and work out how big a box to send
One of the rims still had a tyre on it and I asked if he would take that off, to make posting easier, but he was reluctant as he thought he'd damage the rim.
After a bit of Googling tyre sizes and guessing weight I made a box up which was just within the size-limits for Evri and sent it off to him. Also incuded a roll of gaffer-tape and bubble-wrap. It was £5.86 to send the 'empty' box.
It was between Christmas & New Year when he got the empty box and I was ill (for over 2 weeks) and not earning a penny but had to keep things moving along so I paid for & printed off the return-label and posted that to him. That was another £9.28
It all arrived a few days later and I sent the guy another £20 for the hassle (he had to drop it off at a local shop). I weighed the package when I got it and it was around 12kg which is good as I paid for below 15kg (that's the heaviest they'll carry).
Anyway I am really pleased with them. The chrome is in pretty great condition and will clean up nice. In the pics it looks weird due to the flash and indoor lighting. looks a lot better in real life.
Having a quick look at the rims I could feel a slight bit of damage to the lip of the one without the tyre. I'm guessing the guy realised he'd done that stripping the first wheel so with the second he just cut the spokes - presumably to get the hubs rebuilt with new rims and spokes. I may ask him....
I also checked before ordering that the CS3 rims are same size front and rear (which they are). I know the rims have a date-code on them (year digit followed by month letter) and these seems to be 1975/1976 but I'm not 100% sure on the the 3-digit (design?) code you always get on these Takasago rims after the date-code. From memory on all my other rims it's usually 101 or similar but one of these rims has 261 on it which doesn't look familiar. I can't see any difference in them side-by-side. It's mb something to do with the angle of the spoke-holes
You may ask what I'm using these for . Well many, many years ago when I got my CS3E project I decided I'd build a whole new bike from NOS parts. One of the first things I bought was NOS front & rear hubs (174). Years later I found good used wheels for the project so the NOS hubs never got built into wheels.
When I bought the V5'd CS3 remains last year there were 2 wheels with it. They are
pretty rough but could still be used. However seeing these good rims on Ebay for such a low price now gives me more options.
All-in the rims have cost £45.14 (plus tape and the cost of a stamp)
2 good used rims and a tyre for £10 (before postage etc)
chrome difficult to photograph at night indoors but they look good to me
1.6" x 18" March 1975
1.6" x 18" August 1976
Pirelli Mandrake
100/90 18 about same as 3.25 or 3.50 NB before anyone offers helpful warnings about instant death using old tyres I am well aware of this
So that was very long-winded but I got a few more bits from Japan for the spare bike....
A few posts back I mentioned I bought the wrong side exhaust-pipe/header. Well I got its partner, from same seller. I also got the CS3 top-yoke and the handlebar clamp from him. Keep hoping he lists the silencers & forks
As usual everything was £8 so it cost £24 all-in and the shipping was shared with other parts (for my RD125 and AS3).
I break down all those costs on another thread
https://www.aircooledrdclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=57179.0.
I'm actually starting to wonder if I'm going down the correct route getting all CS3 bits for the V5d bike. I'm getting really into the idea of making a sort of CS mongrel with it. That would be CS3 frame etc but with YCS1 tank and seat and a CS5 front-end. These are the parts I got and I really like the old YCS1 tank/seat combo so why not use them and the CS5 front end would look quite sharp. I think I'm going to have problems finding all the YCS1/CS3 fork components so might be better just to use the CS5 parts. I wasn't sure if the triple-trees etc would be interchangeable but I see that they use the same size oil-seals so the legs must be same diameter so putting CS5 legs into CS3 yoke should work or I could just use whole CS5 front-end.
Anyway it's food-for-thought and here are the rest of the pics
some more CS3 (CS2E) bits from Japan
the other side exhaust-pipe
top-yoke
handlebar-clamp and bolts
