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King Rickman |
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Dave , Both Cheney's are pretty much " as found " . The one with red fenders was the first one I found on ebay . It was missing the airbox , carb , side number plates ect , and very rusty . When I bought the bike , the owner told me of another one that was actually a part of 4 bikes , built by a local Honda dealer . I then tracked that one down . When I finally got that one , It was missing the foot peg assembly and had the misfortune of having the motor CUT out of it , but it came with an extra set of plastic number plates which just happened to be the ones for the 350 ! It also came with the cut portion of the down tube which I machined a slug and put it in the frame and welded it back on . . The guy I bought the 350 off of also had a 250 motor that had the little mods ( grinding ect ) that made it fit the frame . I can't be 100% sure but I would bet it was originally in that frame . So now I'm actually getting to the point of having 2 complete bikes . I emailed Simon Cheney to see if he might have the foot peg mount . I send him a pic of the one I have and he actually had one on the wall NOS that he had no idea what it fit ! It had the cable mount cut off , but I was able to replicate it from the other one . I also had to replicate the brake pedal with parts acquired from Simon . The 250 needed a pipe and I found a NOS , MCM pipe that I shortened and turned almost like the one Eric had on the bike tested in Cycle Illustrated . The 350 pipe was broken and welded too many times to repair so I got some 1 3/4 bends and cut out all the bad parts and pieced it back together and made the mounts . A fabricator friend did an exact copy of the airbox for the 350 , using the 250 airbox . The 250 has Erics hand made forks , the rear wheel is Rickman magnesium modified to be full floating , the front wheel is XL 250 Honda hub , modified and narrowed ( By Eric ) to fit the forks . The 350 uses a modified 74 CR 250 rear wheel ( narrowed and full floating ) and the front is AJS tree's that he machined to use allen pinch bolts and should have had Cheney modified AJS lower legs . Iv seen pics of another one that had the complete , Cheney modified , AJS forks . I'm pretty sure someone added the cr 125 forks and wheel because there stock and Eric tended to modify everything ! The XL 250 backing plate even has a custom brake arm . The 250 seat foam was pretty much eaten away , so it had to be reproduced and a cover copied from the 350 . I went threw many radiator hose books to find one with the correct size and bend for the carb to airbox hose . The 250 has regular Girling shocks and the 350 has gas Girlings . They both came with Preston Petty fenders that were pretty ratty so I found NOS ones . NOS period Barum tires , NOS Magura levers , NOS cables , modified using pieces from the old cables that he made . I made the rear brake cable adjusters a little longer so the peddle is under your foot instead of on top . Frank Melling complained in the article about that , and I could see why . All in all 2 of the coolest Cheney's ! Thanks , Doug
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