Rickman and all things Metisse.

rickman metisse triumph mark 4 500cc 4speed 1970

Same bike as above ?

Looks like it to me too

Yes, one of a batch of 100 Montessa MX that went to Steens in 1971.

MRD on Ebay UK.

That oil filter looks vunerable sticking out the side like that.

Don’t tip it over.

This Guzzi blogger from Bristol posted up some pics of a friends Metisse Harley from MRD, this is how Pat French built them in the late 90's. The guy still has it which is great to hear. I sent him some pics of mine, see this original on older posts.

http://motonero.blogspot.co.uk/

Looks like this MRD Metisse trained guy is still going......
http://www.mojomotorbikes.co.uk/aboutus.html

Evening all, this is my newbie first post.

That is indeed a MkIV. Mine was built by Pat French in 1987 and lugged for a Yam XT550 motor. It is Oil-In-Frame. A great Metisse combination I did 160,000 happy miles on. The motor is now officially dead and there don't seem to be any low mileage replacements out there. The XT600 won't fit (chain alignment issues), so I'm in the process of importing a Triumph T100A motor from the states as a replacement.

I don't know about cracking at the steering head as I never used the bike for off road humps and jumps, but mine is still fine. Pat french told me he used 7-3-1 tubing rather than 5-3-1 so maybe that helps. I suspect anyone managing to crack the frame at the head may not have had strong enough springs in their forks for big jumps and bottomed out big style.

Thanks for posting the hi-res photos, very useful for a close look at engine mounts etc.

Great thread, I've really enjoyed reading through it and looking at all the bikes. Lot's of missing images though, our thread curator should copy them as soon as they're posted in case the third party hosting disappears.

I have the narrow steel trials tank but would love an enduro tank if I could find one. When I took my frame to Pat French for renovation many years ago there was one sat on top of a cupboard in the workshop. I tried to get him to part with it but he couldn't as it was a customer's. I had to get off and push to the next filling station many times and took to carrying a 5 litre plastican in one side of my saddlebags on longer rides. Doing that nearly cost me my life on one occasion - a story for the eventual Rickman UK meet-up, when it happens. I've seriously considered widening my tank to make an enduro replica, but I'm reluctant to butcher original kit. Maybe I'll fit a different larger capacity tank and keep the original in dry storage.

Here's the steel tank on my frame with an empty-cases Triumph 500 motor sat in to check whether the T100A will sit happily there. Looking good so far. I will need to move the lower front engine mounts to the other side of the downtubes. The rear is fine. Looking at the scruffy blue bike JagLite posted images of on the previous page, Rickman didn't bother supporting the bottom engine mount, which means the engine can sit as low as possible in the frame.

Note that the MkIV frame has a much heftier steering tube and bigger diameter frame tubes than the micro Metisse frames which had the cracking problems near the head.

Bigger engine into littler frame - not so easy.
This Micro has some headstock bracing by the look of it.
Original article reproduced here

Hi Tallbloke,
Glad to have you join the fracas

I got your PM and replied, then I logged in and found your post here.
I don't know anything more about the blue bike posted last page but I believe it was the same one sold on eBay (I forgot to check and see if it sold).

Rickman Motorcycles has the enduro (desert) tanks, give Adrian a call.
He would also have the engine mount plates and fasteners if you want to buy them from him.
http://www.rickman-motorcycles.com/parts-and-prices.php

If you buy the mounting plates and fastenings you could bolt them to your engine in the frame, and that would locate where you need to weld the mounts on the frame.

The tank on my Rickman was a bit small for street use, but there were gas stations everywhere back then, so not really a problem. My Micro has all the mounts removed as someone was putting a unit 500 into it...I saw it half done...then years later I got just the frame, tank and seat. I had ridden it years earlier as an original Micro. All the small unit Triumphs have been snapped up for Classic Racing, so something else will have to go in it.

Thanks JL, I'll check out Rickman m/c's next.

Motu: Well, yes. That's why I resorted to finding a good, complete Triumph T100A motor in the states. Which I did, for £620. But...
Trying to organise shipment is a nightmare. It's looking like it would come to £400 + import duty + VAT - too rich for my blood. Unless anyone knows a better way?

Who'd have thought finding a 30-40ish horsepower dry sump motor at a fair price would be so difficult?
I had a close look at the GS500, but it won't. quite. fit. Unless there's room to carve lumps out of that sump....

It's a moment of despair. Maybe I'll have to try to rebuild the XT550 engine with its worn out everything inside...

I had thought of putting a Suzuki DR650 engine in a Rickman frame but Adrian talked me out of making that mistake.
I put the DR engine in the frame when it arrived and had a good laugh at the impossibility of making it fit.
No way, no how, without chopping the frame up and making lots of new frame tubes.

I also thought that finding a used Triumph 650 engine would be easy.
Hah!
It took 2 years to find one that wasn't absurdly priced by the time I got it to Alaska.
I was fortunate that a local Britbike collector/restorer saw my advert on Craigslist for an engine wanted listing.
He agreed to consider selling me a suitable engine core after meeting with me.
He said he never sells parts, he only buys them but he would give me an engine for what he paid for it, $700.
It needed a rebuild from the sump tube out so it ended up costing me about $2,500 ready to run (doing the assembly myself)

Have you seen the build thread I have here for my bike?
If not HERE it is

So, before you start adapting another engine, make sure it will fit in the cradle, the chain will clear the frame, the carb/intake will clear, etc.

p.s. I think you mentioned that you can't see some of the pictures, do you not have the Photobomb patch downloaded on your computer that allows you to see all PB hosted pictures?

When I had my Metisse in the mid '70's the small unit Triumphs were considered girls bikes, and I could get engines and parts easily. I also had a Cheney which took the same engine. Living in a world of old British bikes in the '70's, I was a bit stunned when I (and my friends) were swept aside by the restoration boom and high prices. The same thing happened with XS650's...enjoying riding and picking up cheap parts for the bike nobody wanted, and next thing every one wants one, and will pay stupid prices for them.

Well I've managed to half the shipping cost with UPS by getting the motor delivered to commercial premises nearby (a little BMW dealership at the end of my street), instead of my home address. So there's a wheeze worth sharing. Game on!

JL: I fully expect the engine will need a lot of work, but at least I'm starting with a complete and pretty much unmolested one. It has been sat unused for 20 years though. Fingers crossed it hasn't taken too much condensation damage internally.

Motu: The MkIII frame has more room for motors like an XS650. My MkIV limits the viable choices dramatically. The XT motors are dry sump but the 550's are rarer than rocking horse poo and the 600 won't align for the sprockets. T100A it is. I had a unit Tiger90 for a year after I passed my test so it ticks the nostalgia box for me too (bought and rebuilt a crashed Commando after that).

My brother is pretty good at brazing so I think we'll tackle the re-lugging ourselves. I have two foot-square pieces of 1/4" Dural on the way off ebay to make engine plates with. Just need some little offcuts of suitable manganese steel to make two triangular lug plates to double up the top front mounting with now.