Prelude: Jim

In June of 1972, Larry Christopher Jr., Jeff Ross, and I took a long motorcycle trip through the Midwest, West, and Canada. Jeff had just graduated from high school, and Larry and I weren’t much older. Larry and I each had a 500cc Suzuki Titan, and Jeff piloted his 500cc Kawasaki Mach III triple. Jeff and I are going to describe that fun trip we took nearly a half century ago. But first, we thought you might like to learn a little about our history with motorcycles and our love of two-stroke engines. If you want to skip all the historical information, turn over to page eleven or thereabouts. Our Canada trip story begins there! Thanks.

Motorcycle Beginnings: Jim

I grew up in Stanfield, Arizona, about ten miles west of Casa Grande, Arizona, during the 1960s. My dad ran the cotton gin in Stanfield. I learned to ride in the desert and on backroads. My first machine was a homemade minibike. Dad and I made it out of electrical conduit and water pipes. We bent all the tubing ourselves to make the frame. The tires were from a go kart. We put some kind of sprockets on it and used an old 3 HP Briggs and Stratton engine. My minibike had almost straight gearing. I had to push it and jump on the minibike to get it going. Man, that was something. Those little minibikes had pretty much perpendicular forks—no rake or slant—so it was hairy hauling a** across the desert on that thing! There’s an interesting back story to my minibike.

Back in the 1960s, one of my uncles had a 1/10 mile go kart racing track over in Ontario, California. Those karts used a Clinton two-stroke A490 motor—racing two-strokes which burned white gas and castor oil. They made 2 ½ horsepower at 7000 RPM. He also had a few karts with the much tamer Briggs & Stratton four-stroke motor. Some of his go karts had mounting plates for two of this Clinton engines. They would really haul! A couple of things happened to unfortunately put him out of business. One of his customers, a young girl, was pretty badly injured in a wreck, and her parents sued. Also, somebody bought the property next door and opened up a miniature golf course. They started complaining the howling two-stroke noise and the smell of burning oil was bothering customers. I guess he finally had enough. Eventually, my uncle sold out. We actually got two karts from him: one with the Briggs engine and one with the Clinton two-stroke. Dad and I put the Clinton two-stroke engine in my minibike, which would go about 60 mph with the Clinton engine and tall gearing!

As I became a little older, I acquired a nifty Honda 50 step-through. I was about 12-13 years old then. Later, I had a Honda 55. I horse-traded them both for a Suzuki Hillbilly 80.

A Suzuki Hillbilly

I remember going to the Suzuki shop on Apache Blvd in Mesa, Arizona, off and on, to pick up parts. I rode that little bike for a few years. We’d change the gearing periodically for better hill climbing or dirt roads or whatever. I also had a Yamaha 80 Trailmaster. Eventually, I burned out a con rod bearing in the Hillbilly. I picked up the stuff to rebuild the engine, but I don’t know if it ever really ran again. I eventually traded the Hillbilly 80 and the Yamaha to a guy who worked at the cotton gin for an interesting 1956 Chevy convertible, which had an Olds 394 V8 for a motor. The car had a push button starter with some issues, and the wiring under the hood and dash was burned up. I had to install a separate toggle switch to turn the ignition on and off. The ragtop was messed up, too, but I finally made the car presentable and running.

I had a Harley Hummer for a little while. Picked it up as a weird basket case: a six-volt electrical system 165cc two-stroke. Practically a rigid frame when I obtained it from the seller. The Hummer had some springer type forks for the front end. Crazy enough, the Hummer was also fitted with Goodyear Super Eagle tires, the kind which were sort of square on the bottom. I think the Hummer was some kind of restoration project which never got completed. And the bike didn’t run. I remember gas was always dripping out of the worn-out Tillotson Montana MT carburetor. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t fix the worn-out carb.

But I managed to get the machine running and rideable. I had to be pretty creative. I used some felt gasket material to make homemade gaskets for the engine cases and an old aluminum bake pan to cut out a head gasket. I even used a standard paper handheld hole punch to make the holes in my homemade gaskets. I used some Copper Coat gasket sealant on the gaskets. When the original owner saw me riding the bike later, he didn’t give me much credit. Apparently, he was kind of embarrassed since he couldn’t get it to work.