MADE FOR EACH OTHER
John Newson’s café racer is the perfect complement to its offbeat owner. That’s because he put together this unique mix of Weslake V-twin race engine and Norton Featherbed frame himself
Some people like to blend in with the crowd, while others like to stand out and be different. ‘Gypsy’ John Newson is definitely one of the latter – and that wonderfully extrovert character is reflected in his Norlake café racer.
John’s life is as vivid a mix as the Norlake – he has run classic bike shop Oxney Motorcycles in Kent for years, has his own fantastic collection of old twowheeled machinery, loves classic cars and is an avid music fan and DJ. When it comes to tunes, he’s into big-band swing, rhythm ’n’ blues, vintage jazz, western swing, boogie-woogie, old country, 1940s standards and early rock ’n’ roll. Oh, and he’s one of the country’s most respected teachers of Lindy Hop – an American dance style that developed in New York in the 1920s and was introduced to the UK by the GIS in World War II (by which time it was known as the Jitterbug).
As for John’s café racer, the Featherbed frame is a standard ingredient, but the power is produced by a very uncommon source – a Weslake engine. And not one of the four-valve single-cylinder engines the firm famously made for speedway, or the Rye-based firm’s eight-valve vertical twin engine that bike fans may be aware of – this one’s a bit more obscure.
It’s not common knowledge that Weslake produced a really powerful eight-valve, pushrod V-twin motor, using two 500cc speedway top ends. Only a handful were made, initially intended for grasstrack racing, but they have since surfaced in bikes used for drag racing, sidecarcross, road racing, roadsters and choppers.
John’s Weslake engine came from another Kentbased character – Jim Penfold, who use to race lefthand sidecars. According to information John has received since completing the bike, the V-twin was used
in Penfold’s British championship winning year of 1982 with Steve Dempsey as passenger. (The ‘left hand’ bit is important, because right-hand-mounted outfits are used in British 1000cc sidecar grasstrack racing, with the exception of the south-east of England where the races were run in the opposite direction!)
“I’ve had the Weslake engine a very long time,” says John. “I used to buy a fair bit of stuff off Jim – the first thing was a Norton-framed 650 Triumph outfit with a Shorrock supercharger. I only bought it for the motor which I used in my drag bike, ‘Belzeebub’. “When Jim quit racing, it must have been about 26 years ago [he would make a comeback, finishing third in the 2016 left-hand sidecar championship], he offered me a load of spares and this engine was included in the deal. I thought it would make a good basis for a special one day, so I stuck it on top of my filing cabinets in my workshop, figuring it would be bloody hard for anyone to nick! Thing is, I’ve no idea how I got it up there and it definitely wasn’t easy getting it down! Anyway, it sat up there for something like 20 years.”
The Weslake V-twin is certainly a rare beast – but no one seems to know exactly how rare. “It’s a mystery how many were actually made,” says John. “Having talked to several of the old Weslake employees who still live locally, some say there could have been 20 engines done, others reckon it’s as many as 40!” Various examples of the engine are documented on the internet – in grasstrack outfits, sidecarcross machines, straight-line sprinters, and even one in a chopper. Probably the most famous drag bike was Mick Butler’s, built in the 1980s, which ran low tens.
John says: “When the factory pulled the plug on the engine, Brian Valentine – son of Ron Valentine, who probably designed the original engine – was running his own engine business called BVR. He had done a single-overhead-cam, five-valve head for the singles [German tuner Otto Lantenhammer had already done an overhead-valve version of the engine with five valves]. “The FIM banned them because they were worried about rendering the four-valve engines uncompetitive. That was a kick in the nuts for Brian. So he built a road bike with a Featherbed rolling chassis for the fivevalver. The bike got mixed reviews and Brian walked away after that and became a computer wizard. “When BVR packed up, a new sandblasting company moved in. I used to go there to get stuff done. Then they sold up, too, so I bought the shot-blaster
and an old Harrison lathe that was sat unused in the corner. Turns out it was Brian’s old lathe, which was previously Ron’s when he was at Weslake’s. So I ended up turning up bits and pieces for my bike on their old lathe.
“Apparently, Brian built a selection of different V-twin engines – pushrod and overhead valve with five-valve heads. One turned up in a GSX-R road bike frame. Brian turned up at a V-twin custom shop open day recently – I didn’t want to hassle him, but I could really do with talking to him to get some more history about the engine.
“Roadstar in Dover have a grass outfit that originally had BVR five-valve heads but were replaced with Godden four-valve heads instead. I was struggling with some technical issues and so talked to Steve at Roadstar about valve timing and compression ratios.”
The inspiration to finally get around to using the engine was triggered when a Featherbed frame came John’s way, in rather sad circumstances. “My old mate Knuckles died riding his modern
‘IT’S A MYSTERY HOW MANY WESLAKE V-TWINS WERE ACTUALLY MADE’
Ducati,” explains John. “He was one of those guys with lots of projects on the go; we were close mates, so his widow said she wanted me to have a rolling Wideline chassis he had. I tucked that away, too, thinking the frame would be a great basis for a special.
“I’d always wanted a Norvin café racer, but felt it was just a bit beyond my reach – the engines are so expensive and pretty hard to come buy. So then I started thinking of putting the Weslake engine in the Norton frame, creating a Norlake. It would be a really fast V-twin café racer, all made in England – well, nearly all – and much rarer than a Norvin!”
What followed was a six-year project, something that John dabbled with between other bike builds and his busy lifestyle. “I just did bits and pieces when I had the time, but I kept a log and the build came to 517 hours in total! The first job was to get the engine to fit in the frame. I hand-made engine plates out of 10mm dural – they took 27 hours to machine and finish. The rule of thumb is to get the crankshaft journals in line with the wheel spindles. Then get the gearbox sprocket to line up with the rear wheel sprocket. Then get the clutch lined up with the engine.”
John completely rebuilt the engine, which has an 85.70mm bore and an 85.85mm stroke. John was told that when used on grass, running on methanol with a 14.5:1 compression ratio, it had made 117bhp. Steve at Roadstar managed to start it with the original high compression, but recommended fitting a decompression plate to make it more suitable for use in a road bike. “We took it down to between 8 and 8.5:1, but in fitting the plate it meant we needed to fit new pushrods,” says John. “It’s a pretty basic engine inside – a massive solid billet crank with huge journals. I wanted to get new big-end shells and went to a company called LCP in Ashford. Working off the numbers on the original shells, they came up with Ford Capri shells which were a bit too wide, but I linished them down to fit the crank. Antig Engineering in Gloucester came up with oil seals – they have top-end spares for Weslake singles and supplied me with the technical info to lower the compression. They even sold me some pushrod blanks which they had machined to the correct size – they’re about ¼in longer than the ones used in speedway,” he says.
The motor is fed by two 34mm Dell’orto carbs on inlet manifolds fabricated by John, who also designed the exhaust pipes. “I lobster-backed them, then ‘Sid The Welder’ did them for me. He said: ‘Bring them around when I’m not busy’. So I said: ‘When aren’t you busy?’ He said: ‘Boxing Day’. It took him seven hours. The lengths are identical on each cylinder. The silencer was designed by me and made by Bob at Maxton Engineering in Folkestone – it does a good job of making the bike louder!”
The Interspan ignition system that came with the engine was set to full advance, so John has fitted a Boyer electronic system. “I wanted something more conventional and accessible,” he says. “I saw Kevin at Boyer and spent two hours with him, working out what to use. He came up with two 650 systems – one for each cylinder, so there are two independent advance and retard systems. I had to modify the outside diameter of the housing of the backing plate and extended the slots to get the ignition to work.” The gearbox is a rare Quaife Q4 which John bought years ago for £200, knowing one of their gearboxes was always a good bet for a special – but not realising just how special the Q4 is. “When I sold Belzeebub to a guy from Ireland called Alastair, he spotted the gearbox on the shelf and offered me a grand for it without even checking it out. I told him it wasn’t for sale, but I thought it was just a regular Quaife. He said: ‘You don’t know what it is, do you? It’s a Q4 gearbox used for sidecar grasstrack, so it was beefed up with webbing inside the cases and much wider gears.’ Knowing that, I definitely wasn’t selling!”
One part missing was a stepped spacer to locate the fourth-gear seal. “I rang Quaife to order one, but they told me to ring Mick Hemmings. He told me to call Wasp. Mark at Wasp told me they used to make a lot of parts for the Q4 gearbox and had one spacer on the
‘I BUILT THE ENTIRE BIKE IN MY WORKSHOP, WITH NOT A CNC MACHINE IN SIGHT’