Honda-SOHC

Those Indian's with the RE engine are very rare.
I think the story is Floyd Clymer (of the Clymer motorcycle manual fame) bought the rights to the Indian name. He wanted a suitable engine for his new bike so he went to Royal Enfield who had just begun making the new Interceptor 2 motor and as their own bikes were not selling well they sold him the engines. Mr Clymer died soon after the bike went into production and there were a lot of RE Interceptor 2 engines sitting on the dockside waiting to be sent to the USA but of course the project was now dead. Rickman bought a lot of the RE engines and fitted them to the Rickman Interceptors, valuable and rare bikes now and normally finished in orange.
Mr Clymer also bought up a few Velocette Venom Thruxton 500 engines prior to the Indian RE project. The Velo engines were fitted into a bespoke frames designed and manufactured by Italjet.

Well done John, looks a treat. Enjoy the summer running it in👍

I worked for London Transport for nearly 11 years in Romford. 3 years as a conductor, then passes my test in a RTW with a pre-select gearbox. One of my best ever jobs.  The final 28 years of my working life I was a coach driver.  Attached (hopefully!) is the actual bus that I leant and took my test in.  (RTW 62)

Nice bus Micky. My brother part owns (and drives a 1948 vintage RT in London Country colours). Working for LT you probably used to buy 'Griffin Home Sales'. This was food made at the LT Croydon food factory. They used to sell tea bags, sausages, huge shortbread biscuits the size of a side plate with a Griffin stamped in the middle. My ex-wife's sister had her wedding cake made there. All gone now in the name of privatisation and 'efficiency'.

Routemaster buses........Back in the distant past of 1983 when I was a coach trimmer I worked at Chalk Farm bus garage in north London for a while. We used to operate RM's on the Number 24 bus route. London Transport was formed in 1933 and it celebrated it's 50th anniversary in 1983 with a transport gala at the Chiswick Bus overhaul works.
Considering we had RM1933 on our bus fleet at Chalk Farm we decided to restore the bus and to enter it into the gala. We spent a lot of our own time restoring the bus, I retrimmed the seats and replaced all the mauve rexine material used to line the interior of the bus.
We painted it in the colours used by London Transport in 1933 and took it to the gala where it won first prize and it became our show bus and only allowed into service during the day.
The photo shows the finished bus at another show.
Anyone who collects die cast models may be aware of a Chinese company called Sun Star, they brought out a model of RM1933 in its 1983 colours. My brother bought one for me on my 60th.
RM1933 sold a couple of years ago for £58,000!

I can tell you are unhappy Ken.
I didn't read all the thread I think you are referring to, well I read the first couple of responses but as I don't have a 500/550 it wasn't really relevant to me so I didn't read a lot of the replies and I was on blackout for a while as up in Scotland attending a very good friends funnel so wasn't really in the mood for forums etc.
Anyway my advice would be to let whatever has happened wash over, it just isn't worth it and you have bigger battles such getting back to full health and planning the workshop.
When Roo gets his router hopefully we'll see him back posting and really annoying you🙂.
All the best.
Dave

Welcome along and enjoy.

Good to hear Roo is doing well loved up (with the lady friend and obviously his VFR).
We tried to meet up at the Calne bike show a few years ago, we were both there but the phone signal was appalling and when one of sent a message where to met up the other one wouldn't get it!).
I know he struggled to get internet where he was following his split with the long haired general as he used to call her. He brought me back a tool box from the US for the TL125s I restored for a mate.
If you do see him Ken ask him to post on here👍
Lovely polishing by the way, absolute craftsmanship. My advice would be to build your workshop first though before taking on other peoples polishing as once you do they'll be no time to build it!

Welcome to the forum Adrian. It goes without saying you have been gifted a fine motorcycle 👍
I agree with Ken about the spiraling restoration costs nowadays and having restored three 400/4’s over the past 10 years I can safely say costs for everything have risen three fold during that time. The last 400/4 I restored cost over £1k just for rechroming.
If you do go the restoration route keep as much of the original parts as you can and especially bodywork such as mudguards, handlebars, light rims. Oh, and repaint it parakeet yellow, everyone knows they were the fastest 😉.
Lots of advice on here, we've all been through the pitfalls. Enjoy the rest of the summer on the bike and keep the revs up!