Peashooters from Down Under

[c.o.]

After having seen photos of that great little Peashooter that sold in Vegas last week I stumbled across these shots from Australia and New Zealand. Maybe Tommo can provide further comments.



The next three pics are of G. Hockley of New Zealand. It appears as though he was a champion on the grass tracks as well as the beach. It looks like he liked to tackle the hills as well!!!







Frank Duckett from Australia



Tommy Benstead from Australia as well. Isn't that helmet great??? I wonder if it survived??



Some race results....





Images sourced from "Harley-Davidson" by Maurice D. Hendry

It's a great little pocket book published in 1972. I got it in a secondhand store the other day and it's the best 2 dollars I've spent in a long time!!!

[23JDCA 808]

This pocket book is available.
http://tinyurl.com/4jnqqcz

[Milrite]

Any peashooter photo's, the higher the resolution the better, would be greatly appreciated and would help immeasurably with my project. Please, if you have some to share, feel free to PM or email me..... Mostly looking for boardtrack, TT speedway or BAF/BA/AA pictures. I have found several on the web, but the resolution is not sufficient enough to allow for accurate scaling/viewing of several components in detail. Bonham's had some great ones of that Peashooter, unfortunately they were not available to download in full resolution. I did send a request, but have not had a reply.....
All the members have been a huge help so far, so thanks everybody for past, and hopefully, for future guidance provided!!!!

[Tommo]

Cory,
The first picture is a Pohlman one and taken in America. It appears in many publications.
The next three of Geoff Hockley are all taken in the Christchurch area and show 27 SM512 Geoff's Peashooter that Jones Brothers imported new for him.
27 SM512 is the only one Geoff owned himself so most of the photos of him are on that bike.
It's worth noting that he did ride some of the Factory bikes that Jones brothers had and there are pictures of him on CA12 and others.
The first two shots of Geoff are on Brighton Beach, Christchurch and the Hill climb photo is taken about 1929 on Mr Craecroft Wilson's property on the Cashmere Hills overlooking Christchurch.
The last two photos show Australian bikes and both look to be 500cc Peashooter's. To get the 500 motor into a 350 frame the tank and bottom tank rail had to be notched to give the higher motor clearance around the rocker gear.
I'm not sure what the title was for the Australian Helmet but the NZ equalivent was the "Chevolet Golden Helmet" presented by the Chev importers of the time and yes it does still exist.
It's taken me many years to locate it and at some time in the future I hope to liberate it from it's damp dusty box in a tumbledown shed in one of our major citys.
Hope my ramblings are of interest.

[c.o.]

Whoa!!! Tommo your ramblings are definitely of interest!!! I had a feeling you could supply more info on those photos. Please when you do get your mitts on that helmet will you satisfy curiosity with a picture?

Here's another one from New South Wales of a racer by the name of Frank Brown who was a champion of the 2 3/4hp class.

[c.o.]

Any peashooter photo's, the higher the resolution the better, would be greatly appreciated and would help immeasurably with my project. Please, if you have some to share, feel free to PM or email me..... Mostly looking for boardtrack, TT speedway or BAF/BA/AA pictures. I have found several on the web, but the resolution is not sufficient enough to allow for accurate scaling/viewing of several components in detail. Bonham's had some great ones of that Peashooter, unfortunately they were not available to download in full resolution. I did send a request, but have not had a reply.....
All the members have been a huge help so far, so thanks everybody for past, and hopefully, for future guidance provided!!!!

I'm wondering if there's anyone in your area that may have a peashooter to take a look at. Barry Brown would be the man to ask. If I find anything spectacular picture wise I'll be sure to post it for you to take a look at. Very cool bikes by the way. How far along is yours?

[c.o.]

Milrite... here's a couple links just in case you haven't already seen them..

http://www.yesterdays.nl/harley-davi...er-p-1108.html

Here's a shot from the Wheels Through Time museum ... http://www.flickr.com/photos/theshys...n/photostream/ I'm betting if you got ahold of Dale or Matt Walksler that you might get all kinds of info!!!

Check this one out Tommo!!! Another winged helmet but of a different variety!!!

http://www.defunctspeedway.co.uk/Joh...hotographs.htm

[rwm]

you want some down under speedway check all these out
http://justsolos.homestead.com/

[rwm]

here is a peashooter in hd
http://vimeo.com/5829747

[c.o.]

Well.... I was definitely digging the Peashooter and the Excelsior racer.... they had me for that long.... Thanks Rob!!!

[c.o.]

Hey Tommo,

I found this site from New Zealand that has photographic images from the late 20's speedway scene. http://tapuhi.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin...NR/PNRMENU.HTM I just typed motorcycle race into the broad search option and then found Harley-Davidson images and they popped up. It appears as though one can view the photos online but I can't seem to open them. Maybe you can have a look and see if it works for you.

[c.o.]

[rwm]

ebay has a 27 s for sale .it's overseas and 10g's

[Milrite]

I'm wondering if there's anyone in your area that may have a peashooter to take a look at. Barry Brown would be the man to ask. If I find anything spectacular picture wise I'll be sure to post it for you to take a look at. Very cool bikes by the way. How far along is yours?

Hi Cory;
Thanks for the response! I have been in touch with Barry, and near as I can tell, most of the stuff in this area is British. I beleive there is one fellow just a few miles from here, in Halton Hills, that I think has an extremely rare opposed cylinder Harley if I am not mistaken? He has posted on the forum recently, but I read an article about his bike in the CVMG mag. So far, the gracious members of the AMCA have been by far the best source of information. Even on the CVMG site I get nothing for the old Harley's, lots of Norton, BSA and such.
BTW, I spent some semi-memorable time high up in the interior at Dawson Creek back in the eighties. Good times chipping rocks and prospecting! And lots of other time on the northern QC Islands...squatting....then we got thrown off after a couple seasons! Cool place, they gathered everybody off the island during WWII and interned them, you may have heard about that, we got there.... plates still on tables, pots on the stoves....thats another thread completely though!
How far along? Well, in October I found the motor, carb and tranny that had been in my garage for almost twenty years. Now that I am completely hooked on old iron I have been picking up pieces.... a new set of Replicant tanks, an original set of tanks, short coupled frame with plunger type rigid front end, gearbox frame, springer front end, new saddle, a bunch of magneto's, complete generator and coil, handle bars and controls, hubs, rims, clutch, brakes and a bunch of other stuff. Couldn't decide wether to build a racer, a TT or to build the BAF. Decided on a temporarily incorrect TT with the goal of restoring it to a BAF. Obviously there are no parts for the BAF, but the TT can be built without defiling any of the major components and can be enjoyed on the street, untill the long process of accumulating BAF parts in near complete. If there is one thing that I learned here for sure, it is "do not defile original parts for any reason". Doubly so for original paint! Hoping to get some shop time over the next couple weeks to start fitting parts, and I will post some pictures when it start to look like a motorcycle..... Thats when I will really start digging for the nitty gritty info!
Thanks again, enjoy B.C.!!!! If I could have talked the old lady into it..... I would still be living in Whitehorse and vacation "down south" in Vancouver!!!!!!

[Milrite]

Hi Again Cory!
I have really high resolotion pics of the one at yesterdays..... unfortunately it too belongs to the not quite real deal category. I am 99.999% certain that I have the exact same frame and front end in my garage. Like the 27 TT on ebay right now, with a few members, a judge and what I consider to be an expert on these from Australia, we discussed this bike at length and it is not correct either. I do have some beautiful pictures of it though. I'll post a couple today. Nice looking machine though, personally, I really like it!
I'll upload pics to picassa and try the picture/url thing and see if they show up bigger than thumbnails!

Okay, that didnt work, but the link to the pics works!

http://picasaweb.google.com/milrite/...30449522808834