Rotary Owners' Club

Confirming Richard's comment about enclosed chains on Munch Mammut, mine has it. The rear axle isn't adjustable fore and aft, so chain tension is adjusted by a small idler and some linkages. The idler is on the "return" side, so it doesn't have to be able to absorb the power of the engine ...

I do have to admit I am not terribly impressed with the Florida DMV rules. They are terribly byzantine, and especially difficult to negotiate when there is anything the least bit unusual. They mostly understand new or newish cars bought from dealers. I do have a fairly good working relationship with...

I expect that it will. The engine was overhauled by me a few years after I got it. All the seals and gaskets were replaced, it is clean inside, slobbered up with oil, and ready to go. The parts came from RotaryRecycle, which is unfortunately now gone. I got everything I needed plus the workshop manu...

About 20 years after physically acquiring my Hercules, today, in the mail, I received a Florida title! As we say out here in the colonies, "Yee Hah!!" Florida had been giving me a hard time for years. They told me I had to write a certified letter to the last owner, but they wouldn't tell ...

Who has the right of way in Florida? Most jacked-up pickup truck with most long guns in the gun rack of the rear window. Worst beater, four mismatched tires, lots of dents and primer, at least one window covered with plastic sheeting held on with duct tape, leaves a smoke trail (helps kill the mosqu...

Umm, wonderfully reliable and dependable Lucas electrics? (Nomex on!) ;-)

David,I'm of the understanding that the brakes are Grimeca, and that parts are still available if you do some looking.I've also had little luck joining the German Hercules club. The website is firewalled and you need a password to get in. The last time I lost my password and requested another, I got...

A few (not many) years ago I had a friend visit an aviation convention in Moscow. VAZ automobiles was making an aero-engine conversion of their two and three rotor Wankels - design originally "borrowed" from Mazda, who complained about the total lack of licensing fees, USSR said "Da, ...

'Nother USA W2000 owner here.The injection pump seems to be a Yamaha autolube pump, and these are not noted for their great reliability. Considering that W2000 engine internal parts are pretty much unobtanium, I'd suggest you pre-mix. I'm told these motors like Rotella straight 30 or 40, sometimes W...

Well, lemmesee . . .The front forks are Ceriani, and parts are available, not easily, but they are available.I do have a manual for the engine, it came from the RE5 guy in Ohio, now sadly deceased. It can be copied, but there really isn't much in it. The engine is so dead simple it is amazing. Harde...

John, the 3.5 litre V8 Rover engine was a development of the Buick engine and was, I believe, an alloy block. Yes, it was a GM engine destined for Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, originally 215 cubic inches (3.6 liters), in the early 1960s. The three cars were essentially an exercise in badge engineeri...

327 cubic inches is 5.45 liters (60 cubic inches per liter). The same block became the current 350 (5.8 liters) and with some fiddling and a different crank can be opened up to 400 cubic inches or 6.6 liters. The 400 inch version can easily be tweaked to produce well over 500 hp and still be very dr...

My guess is an internal corporate war like GM, which had the engine numbers for the GM Rotary in the Dealer's catalog (as an Option), a new car designed around the engine and so on. Was it Ed cole who became CEO and finally killed the project? In any event, GM had the car, which now needed a V-8 to...

Here are the last two pix - this is a fixed (setscrewed) rotor. phpBB won't let me send more than three attachments per message.

Answer provided by Hans (in this group). He replied directly to me and sent photos.Frame #s 1,000 and lower are definitely at risk. The outer race (sleeve) is tack welded to the rotor and after enough heating/cooling cycles, the welds break and scatter bits of metal in the engine. The sleeve moves i...

Question - obviously the early bikes had the welded rotor. Did series production change to the bolted rotor (and if so, at about what year/serial number) or was the welded rotor used to the end?I'm wondering if I could use a borescope to look inside without taking the engine apart . . . I don't thin...

I notice in another W2000 related post that "the sometimes problematic welded rotor has been changed to the bolted rotor".Anyone have some background on this? Was the welded rotor used in earlier models and the bolted rotor in later ones, or was there a running change so that all the later...

Yes, I had noticed that the group has been VERY quiet lately . . . must be winter and nobody's riding (or fixing, or thinking about fixing, or thinking about motorcycles) or something.Well, I'm still alive here in Flori-duh and I check in every few days to see if anything's going on.With best regard...

If you area asking for the autolube pump (in fact, there is no other), you have a late production bike as I understand the earlier ones used pre-mix.I just took a look at mine and it looks suspiciously like the autolube oil-injection pump fitted to a mid-60s vintage Yamaha 250 (mine was a YDS-3), an...

FloridaMike here . . . back from spectacular computer crash, many bytes were deliberately harmed . . .As to Rotary Recycle closing in October, here's a proposal: If someone or a group of someones wants to buy the inventory and ship it to the UK, I have a large aircraft hangar that can serve as a sta...

I've been following the "progress" of rotary engines since the early 1980s.I remember buying an RX-7 engine out of a junkyard specifically to take it apart and see what was inside of it. My W2000 arrived in several boxes, it is now back together. I have Norbye's book and some other literat...

Old and air cooled . . . 78 thundering miles an hour, 1,500 feet AGL.

??????????????!!!If I am reading this correctly, do you guys over in Blighty have to tell the motor vehicle bureau that you've had some medical problem or other which might affect your driving ability?Incredulously,FloridaMike (where the ATM machines in the drive-thru lanes at banks are required to ...

Have a little experience with these . . . they are interesting, to say the least.First one was an older unit, only did lat/long, and you needed to reference that to a paper map. Once you did, you could say with some confidence "I'm here". Garmin 12, I believe, still have it in a box somewh...

This one is a little off the wall, but since the engine IS a rotary (but not a gasoline one), I beg your collective indulgence to ask here . . .Friend of mine had a chance to drive a Tesla Electric car (see, it IS a rotary engine, right?) and he wants one, oh man does he want one, holy mackerel does...

Congrats from the colonies on being done with this, and successfully. Take your time and enjoy being "cosseted", you'll know you are well when the missus hands you a "honey-do" list and a screwdriver and/or paintbrush. Good season to stay inside anyway, I'm told the weather sucks...

I think wev'e been down this road before re: "how quiet electric vehicles are" manufacturers will have to build in some noise,especialy for bikes,(if car drivers can't hear a noisy old Hog on open pipes what chance an electric bike exclaim,)rgds, J.B. Agreed. I had read about this situati...

Well, I'd say an electric motor is in fact a rotary, just not a gasoline powered rotary.In October of 2012, a friend of mine got me a pit pass at Daytona for the electric Grand Prix race. This is no small accomplishment - it is easier to get an invitation to speak to the Pope or to Vladimir Putin, t...

Hi and thanks for that.Replacing the smoothest engine around with one of the roughest wasnt the best of ideas IMOH...lol. And it would seem that lots of them have reaquired their rotatries or been fitted with Audi 4 cyl engines....which is probably the only acceptable compromise. So thanks for the ...

Hi Mike,In all my years of messing about with cars,bikes,trucks,construction plant,ect;I have never had a battery explode using jumper leads,(I supose this could happen if one connected a 24v from a truck to a 12v car or bike,but I expect a lot would bepend on how long they were connected smiley)rg...