This is my other project bike, a 1960 Ariel arrow cafe racer. Not to everyone's tastes I know but its old, British and unusual so what's not to love? If anyone's interested I'll post some info on the specs and modifications. Mark
BASTID!!!!!! Now I really do feel old!! One of my mates at school had a Leader with all the excess bits taken off it. A neighbour had an Arrow with spannies and a similar tank and seat unit to yours. Quite well tuned it was - 10:1 squish heads and a judicious bit of porting if memory serves. Loud and fast .... and so was the bike (allegedly 90mph plus - allegedly!)! Good luck with it, and beware the brakes ... or lack thereof!
Sorry gents its been a busy weekend and had a good day out at the Stafford classic bike show today. The arrow has a rebuilt motor using a Fahron modified crank with Yamaha rods (I think), Faron ported cylinders runing Suzuki gt250 X7 pistons and 30mm mikuni carb. Wheels are 18 inch instead of the standard 16 inch and the front is laced to a honda CB160 twin leader brake/hub whilst the rear uses a GT 380 Suzuki item. So hopefully the brakes should be reasonable (ish). Whilst 90mph would be nice I doubt it will handle well enough but we'll see. More to follow when I dig out the paperwork. Mark
Reet up my street, had a race arrow project a long time since. Remember going to St Albans fer race engine and Honda twin leader. Brilliant, more please. One sold on Evil bay last year and I was soooo close to getting it. Also bought Ariel Leader fer £100, so many bits!! Never finished either, too busy riding my Bonnie I think...
Thanks for the comment's, when i can find them I'll post some pictures of trial fitting different fairings but really couldn't find one I was happy with. I tried various fairings and dummy tanks including ones for small ducati's but I didn't want it to look like I was trying to make it look like something it wasn't, so in the end I ditched the fairing idea in favour of a Manx style fly screen in order to show more of the elements that make the arrow design quirky. For those that don't know the arrow tank is only a dummy, fuel is stored in a separate tank within the frame, mass centralisation before there was a name for it, some people do fit traditional tanks above the frame but I'm not going to. Instead im modifying the outer shell of a fibre glass tank to fit the wide frame and fit it with Ariel badges and rubber knee grips and use a paint scheme based on original factory options. Mark
The tank I'm using but the was before I shortened it and shaped it to sit over the frame, seat is for a guzzi cafe racer
