Restoration of Eldee (1)

When I was restoring Eldee (1) Les was still not talking motorcycles, and flatly refused to have anything to do with it in the early stages – giving me very little help putting the scattered (and burned) engine parts together, and replacing lost bolts and fittings.

When almost completed his thoughts changed and he visited Melbourne to look at progress, and took the OH Cam box home with him, checked it over, reassembled and returned it. He visited again for the first start up.

Les wasn't happy with the 'farmed out' fancy pleated seat cover! The tank colour was originally a powder blue. I matched the green from a small patch on the underside of the badly burned and melted alloy tank – not knowing that the many coats of clear varnish that Les had originally applied had deteriorated from the heat of the garage fire at Hamilton (Victoria) many years before into a yellow coating that changed the colour to green!

The remains of the fuel tank, which had contained alcohol at the time of the fire, including the filler cap was melted almost completely away. Les had built the original tank of course! The carburettor body had melted off as well as the front number plate, guard and supports, and of course the seat and handlebar controls. The rear wheel was missing from the machine – it was lucky to have survived the blaze at all!

The real disaster started when the remains were given to the owner's son for the children to pull to pieces – only the gearbox was still in one piece when they finished!

The rebuilding of the fuel tank of the Eldee was at one point considered as a full replacement project. It had been badly burned and melted, Les's handcrafted item being no match for the garage fire (and residual alcohol fuel), that had partially destroyed the top and front half of the machine. Even the alloy racing filler neck and cap that Les had sourced new, had suffered, the cap melted beyond repair, and the neck itself slightly damaged and distorted – but recoverable!

So there came a time when only the fuel tank remained untouched, and after some time sitting and looking at the remains, I decided that it was a challenge that I just had to accept, mainly because I wanted to retain as much of Les's workmanship as possible!

The first step was to cut it all apart and remove any aluminium that had suffered too much. At first, the bottom and inner section was left as it was, but it soon became apparent that these sections would have to be removed, and I would have to start from scratch, repairing the main section, and then replacing the bottom and inner last. Next step was to recover the filler, and so a new cap was sand cast, using the old melted one, 'dummied up' as a pattern, and then the intricate shape was remachined, and fitted to the old filler neck after a minor welding repair to the hinge area.

New aluminium sections were formed, the general bottom shape being retained by nails driven into a sheet of heavy plywood – each section was roughly panel beaten and welded into place as work progressed. The inside sections are seen in place in the photo taken on the grassed area, but this was merely checking progress and the parts are not welded together.
Eventually the new outer sections had been beaten to match Les's original contours, and the bottom and inner panels were replaced. Welding was done by gas, and quite some difficulty was experienced where Les's old welds and burned contamination were encountered, but amazingly the finished tank proved to be fuel tight after a couple of my bad welds had been cut out and rewelded.
It was with some considerable satisfaction that the tank was mounted on to the restored machine and fitted perfectly – the tank is retained on a slab of foam wrapped over the top frame tube, and held down firmly by two rubber 'thongs' and formed aluminium hooks.