Here's a story from Bob Brennan, who worked with E.C. Birt at Precision Cycles long ago when the Earth was young. It shows you how much mechanical know-how dirt riders use to have, in order to have a fast, reliable dirt bike. Now riders don't even clean their own air filters. Anyway, here's how it use to be.
I think these pictures were taken at the '70 Viewfinders GP but I am not sure if it was Bay Mare that year or one of the other places, I ran it 5 years and can't remember where they all were. Anyway, this was a first run with the Sachs after the porting, and carb (27 Del'Orto from the Carabella 125)..... The really neat machine with the reed valve on the cast aluminum cylinder came later, I don't have pictures of that machine, this one was a real scooter but heavy.
Because we had Sachs and Zundapp engines running George at Hercules had called the store and asked me to let John R run my Sachs, they would let me run a Puch of theirs. They wanted John R to ride a Sachs because Preston Petty was coming to the race.
Hercules's problem was they had no crank seals and all the dealers including us were out too........... For us, I had read through the MCS catalog and found the 7X20X30 dual-lip seal was used in some Yamaha front wheel hub.... I called MCS, up the street and found they had the seals in stock so I bought 500 @ 36 cents each for our inventory... the Sachs price was about 10 times that, I sold them all at Sachs retail we never again ordered Sachs//Zundapp but from MCS and I don't think anyone ever knew we had double-lip seals in our engines instead of the single lip originals.
Well George learned I had seals, called and wanted to know where I got them, I would not tell him and was forever surprised they had not thought of checking USA bearing /seal houses. What I did that call was tell George I would send him 50 of those seals provided he would order the Sachs 125 military cylinder for me. He got John R's bike rebuilt and a few weeks later the new Sachs cylinder came in......... I don't remember what that cylinder cost me but it was cheap and supposedly at Hercules price. It had to be cheap because of what you were paying me... hahahaha!
Remember that cylinder was cast aluminum & sleeved while it was exactly the same physical size and shape as the cast iron cylinder, exact same mount bolt pattern and measurement, IT FIT DIRECTLY TO THE CASES.... new cylinder 4.5 lbs ... the cast iron cyl 14 lbs.
What a finished machine it was, remember I had it on the stand there in the store for a while..... and I don't have a single picture of it but:
We fitted a Dale Herbranson reed assembly and ported the cylinder and we used a single Dykes ring piston. Carburetor was 27 Del'Orto square slide from Carabella 125 although i did use a Posa Fuel 30mm a couple times at Saddleback, that was a fun setup and looked really trick too! Stripped the chasis and had it Kal-Garded replaced the rear hub with Penton and set up a full floating brake... laced on Barrani rims with stainless spokes Arnaco shocks.
Those super light but super tough 4130 thin wall handlebars with black plastic levers and a plastic 1/4 throttle grip filtron pot filter, white plastic CZ coffin tank, white plastic fenders (not Petty, but the really good looking Puch replacements) the high pipe by who else...... Precision Cycle & do you recall that it was ME who suggested using the micrometer for the 'P' in the logo after you decided the name.
The original Sachs weighed 200 lbs (all steel and cast iron) ... the finished trick weight 178.
When we moved here(1974) we rented a house for a year and the guy who owned the house spotted the Sachs..... I rode it some evenings at a nearby park and he came over to watch it run, it was one fast doggy like he had never seen....... He asked me if I would sell it and I said I would but could not set a price because of what it was so we dickered about for a month or so and one evening he stopped by, got out of his truck and said, "If you can't decide a price, how about a trade/" He was holding a Belgian made Browning 3-inch mag 20 ga. shotgun that was just pristine. I said maybe but not for just the Browning, what else.... he brought out a Remington 742 auto .243 Winchester, I said still not enough........ he added a case of 20 ga bird (dove season was a couple weeks away) and 6 new boxes of Remington .243 Winchester. I looked him in the eye and said, "I don't think so, the Sachs is unique, great fun to ride and i just might want to race it again......... You won't believe this but he reached into his pocket and counted our 4 $100 bills and said that was his limit. Without saying a word I reached for and handed him a pair of Arnaco tiedowns ....... the Sachs was his.
Oh, he said he was going right away to ride it and I told him that if he had never ridden a Sachs that he needed to take it easy and learn the transmission shifting because he could break it easily. About an hour later he stopped by the house, he had broken the key....... I laid that sucker on its side and did the key replace for him and said that was the end of the free maintenance, never saw him again about the bike. And the shotgun, I recently had it looked at ......... $1250 dollars .... I have never fired it, it is like new and it is nearly 40 years old now, I still have the Remington 742 too.
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