At this time I went down to the Sammy Miller museum for the 2nd time. I had been before but this time I went down there with the aim of closely inspect the frame numbers and the engine on Sammy's bike.
Well I arrived and found that the engine in the museum had absolutely no numbers on it at all.The numbers are usually by the rear motor mount. Up around the head tube of the frame, nothing. Then I found a frame number above the left foot peg which I know Bultaco sometimes did, but it looked a bit odd.
The numbers were upside down and they should have been the other way up. It looked like they had been stamped with quarter punches. I'm a technology teacher and saw this immediately. The size of the numbers was wrong. The number that had been put on there was almost the same as my bike but slightly lower, within 10 units. I went away happy It wasn’t the same as my bike at all. It was preceded by 7. I went away happy and thought I had the sister bike and that was that.Many months later, it was still gnawing away at me so eventually I decided to send off for a partial vin number check via text.The partial vin numberI received for 669NHO matched my bike and not the bike in Sammy's museum.
The last 3 digits from 669 NHO matched my bike. At this point I contacted the DVLA and explained the situation to them and they said that I should fill in a V60, which I duly did.
Another interesting special modification to my bike is the way that the spokes are laced up. Usually the spokes are laced from the inside out and the outside in so they alternate all of the way round. You would then see the head of a spoke and then the body. With this particular wheel you only see the heads. Obviously wheels are easily changed but fortunately I have these wheels. This was something else that pointed me in the direction to believe that this was the bike. Another point worth mentioning is the brake lining inside the hub. Normally the lining is smooth, however on this bike lots of little grooves have been placed in the linings to give lots of little ribs. I bet the brakes were very good, but the bike would have torn the linings up. The original Sherpa brakes were so bad that you could dowse for water so this was a significant improvement.
Were they machined out or were they filed out ?
They were very tiny and fairly uniformly done.
Were they machined out or were they filed out ?
They were very tiny and fairly uniformly done.