The Answer...

[Peg Leg Dave]

To a question that nobody asked: "Can we build a rotary engine motorcycle?"

A motorcycle that puts out high emissions at a time when high emissions two-stroke engines were being outlawed and was so complicated that the automotive type two-stage carburetor had five linkages to deal with problems inherent in the engine.

The Wikipedia entry goes into detail.

Suzuki RE5 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Greasemonkey]

Norton also built rotary engines for their bikes and you can even get a chainsaw with a tiny rotary engine.

 

[Peg Leg Dave]

Norton also built rotary engines for their bikes and you can even get a chainsaw with a tiny rotary engine.

Norton's was better.

Japanese motorcycle engineers seem to love making things not just complicated but needlessly complicated.

On my Yamaha motorcycle, instead of directly manipulating the clutch plates, the clutch actuator pushes a rod which pushes a ball bearing which pushes another rod that operates the clutch.

Then, they put the actuator lever under the rear cylinder. In order to replace the $7.45 oil seal for the actuator shaft, the engine has to be pulled and the rear cylinder has to be pulled. All this for a clutch actuator that could have simply been put directly by the clutch.

I have no one to blame but myself. I saw this before I bought the motorcycle and thought "Surely they wouldn't be so stupid as to build it that way." That is what I get for not doing my research before buying.

 

[Greasemonkey]

Norton's was better.

Japanese motorcycle engineers seem to love making things not just complicated but needlessly complicated.

On my Yamaha motorcycle, instead of directly manipulating the clutch plates, the clutch actuator pushes a rod which pushes a ball bearing which pushes another rod that operates the clutch.

Then, they put the actuator lever under the rear cylinder. In order to replace the $7.45 oil seal for the actuator shaft, the engine has to be pulled and the rear cylinder has to be pulled. All this for a clutch actuator that could have simply been put directly by the clutch.

I have no one to blame but myself. I saw this before I bought the motorcycle and thought "Surely they wouldn't be so stupid as to build it that way." That is what I get for not doing my research before buying.

I hope riding motorcycles isn't the reason you are called Peg Leg Dave. I have a black KTM790 and a 2006 Triumph Daytona 675 that we restored and my husband has a Ducati Scrambler 1100 and a Buell Thunderbolt, I've been riding bikes since I was nine, we had plenty of room in Texas, I actually started with a Honda monkey bike. Nice to know there's another biker on here. Talking of complicated we changed the cam belts on a friends Ferrari 355 and that's an engine out job.

 

[Peg Leg Dave]

The leg question is impossible to answer definitively.

I lost my leg to a tumor in the ankle that physicians believe may have been caused by injury to the ankle caused by my foot slipping off of a kick starter when I was stating a Suzuki 125 barefooted.

If so, I not only lost my leg to a motorcycle, but to a motorcycle that was not even running, much less moving.

I would like to one day get a Triumph twin of some sort.

Ah, an old Norton 750 Commando would be nice...