Egli/Vincent

Fritz Egli is a Swiss frame builder. In the late 1960s he took the most powerful motorcycle engine available at that time, the 1000cc Vincent V twin from the 1946-1955 and put it into a frame of his own design. He made about 70 of these Egli-Vincents before moving on to build custom frames for all of the major Japanese brands as well as race car frames.

Today the Egli-Vincents are a collector bike and a number of bike builders have built replicas.
I'm doing likewise, although my frame strays a bit from the original Egli.
I'm using SS 316 tubing, all .065 wall except the steering head and swing arm pivot tube.

Starting point was to machine up a steering tube to fit the bearings and stem for the front end I'm using (2003 GSXR 750) and cut appropriate shapes into the top spine (4" o.d. tube about 18" long) which is also the oil tank.
All welds and some cuts are done with an Everlast 205 multifunction.

Why dont you post a picture of the original design and a rendering of your updated design if you have one? I for one would like to see it.

Where would you get a Vincent engine today ???

Black Shadow or Black Lightning ?

Cheers,
Rivets

Here is a link to a Godet Egli-Vincent. http://www.motopp.com/upload/104s10w.jpg

Patrick Godet builds these to order in France. He has the blessing of Fritz Egli. Actually, I think Patick's version of the Egli is a bit prettier than the original, maybe a bit more sleek.
Patrick uses all new parts for the engine.

I'll be doing the same except I will use a number of key parts supplied by Australian Vincent Hotrodder Terry Prince. Terry offers a 92mm top end kit (stock is 84mm) with his own high output heads and will build stroker cranks to order. He has built me a 102mm stroke crank(stock is 90MM) so the engine will displace 1360CC. The engine will be tuned above the level of the Black Lightning, plus have the extra 360CC.

For build purposes I'm using the 1000cc engine out of my 1947 Rapide.

I have a drawing of an original Egli, but will do my own full scale drawing of the frame I'm building.
I'm still working on the back end of it and will probably do some experimentation with the geometry there to get suspension progression.

Glen

I'm going to follow the Egli design where I can, but build the back end more like an original Vincent except use a mono shock from a GSXR and fit a big back wheel and tire.

this means I will need to shift the engine from standard position some in order to get the chain line right.

Here is the spine all welded up (tig) The purge worked well, back side of weld is silver.

The spine or upper frame member fits onto the GSXR front end like it was made for it!

I guess it was made for it.

I had to make some special head brackets from billet aluminum. The Vincent was the first bike to use the engine as a stressed member of the frame. The engine just hangs from the top spine by the head brackets, there is no lower frame or cradle. Egli followed the original Vincent quite closely with his design but lightened things up some.

The originals were in cast iron, so these aluminum brackets will shave about 4 pounds off and shift the engine 1.25" to the right so that the chain should line up when using a much wider than stock rear wheel.

impressive work man!

thanks presure2.


Here it is with the top spine lined up over the head brackets, mounting tangs to follow (to connect spine to head brackets)

I got a bit further with the bike this week and also had an interesting repair job come in.

The first picture shows the item I'm repairing. It's part of a large bakery machine and is made of cast iron, so I'll stick weld it with nirod. It'll need preheat and post heat to be a successful repair.

The second photo shows a couple of SS "thread spools" I made on the lathe. Thesec will get welded into half circle notches that will get cut into the lower rear frame tubes. The spools will take the rear lower engine mount bolt (next set of photos will probably show that area)

The third picture shows the front engine mount tang made and tacked in place.


Glen

lookin good so far dude!

progress report:

pic 1 is the rear top engine mount tang. There will be one of these welded to each side of the top spine or oil tank. A bolt goes through these and the head bracket to make the rear top engine to frame connection. The hole in the tang gets slotted because the Vincent engine expands when it gets hot. For this reason the through bolt gets fully tightened then backed off 1/4 turn (lock nutted). I thickened it up in the area of the bolt hole because that is the way an original Vincent looks in this area, even though most Egli builds didn't bother with that detail.

pic 2 shows the start of fitting the 7/8" od x .065 wall tubing that forms the rear part of the frame.

pic 3 shows a bit of wooden jigging that will hold the seat rails in place.

pic 4 shows the fit of the coped out tubing. I did the cope cuts on the milling machine by measuring the angle with a carpenters bevel square, setting that angle on the mill, then making the cut using a 7/8" dia. hole saw and lots of coolant.

Glen

I finished fitting the small dia. thin wall tubing and then removed the frame from the engine for final welding. There is a temporary brace fitted where the engine sits. This should keep dimensions correct.

The small tubing is 7/8" OD .060 wall. I found it challenging to weld the saddle joints neatly. Good thing the fits were OK or it would have gone badly, I'm sure!

Glen

wow, incredible work and talent. are vincent motorcycles your main motorcycle passion or just motorcycles in general?. I was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident by a hit and run driver I love motorcycles and I still ride a quad. Tried a dirt bike but trying to find something to pull up next to and lean against is pretty hit or miss last time I tried it I made the stop perfect next to a tree but..... I fell away from the tree and with my leg stuck under the bike I got burned pretty bad. Anyway I digress Keep the pictures coming looks like a sweet bike you got going there.

thanks Don. Vincents are my main interest but I'm also interested in other old bikes and dirt bikes as well.

Very sorry to hear about your accident.

I Am more into sport bikes a still have a few parts knocking about. I may tinker around with trying to convert an older GSXR 1100 I have into a Can-Am Spider clone. Major obstacle would be the grears cause it's not legal for a paraplegic to operate a street legal vehicle in California unless it has an automatic transmission. and I would also need reverse. That would now lead me into unknown territory. I also have a few Suzuki RGV 500's That I would love to convert ( 2 stroke V4 goodness ) I have 4 complete engines and half a dozen frames, fork sets, Marvic wheels ect . The Great Thing About This Idea is I don't have to touch anything from the tank back, just gotta find the right bike to do it with.

Pipe dream most likely but who knows.

My Mom is a recently retired aerospace Metal broker so I still have the connections with the owners to go dig through their rems for aulm, mag, ti ect. That is my next project replace the mild steel heavy frame of my power wheelchair with a custom alum or Ti one and shed 30 lbs.

good luck to you and hope to see more progress from you on your project soon, it's inspiring

Pipe dream most likely but who knows.

A friend of mine has a Canam Spyder in bright yellow. He is about 350 lbs and wears a bright yellow and black riding jacket. When he is on the bike heading toward you it looks like a giant Bumblebee is coming at you!

I finished the welds on the forward portion of the frame and reinstalled it on the engine.
I think of it that way because the Vincent engine is actually a stressed member of the frame, it's crankcase does the job most double cradle frame lower portions do.

Now it's time to figure out the rear frame member and suspension geometry. I threw together a wooden disc , axle and temporary swing arm made of some rusty old tubing.
I know what I want the wheelbase to be, so that means the swing arm length is a fixed number. The location of the shock pivot points at top and bottom are completely variable so I'm in for several hours of trial and error.
I'm searching for the right combo that gives 5.5" of rear wheel travel in a progressive manner, that is, I want the wheel to lose mechanical advantage over the shock as the suspension is compressed.

Glen

Lookin good ... I dunno something about the way that motor is just hanging there scares me even though I know it's actually making the whole thing stronger. that purple front wheel has to go though LOL

yep the purple is ugly.

I'm thinking the wheel treatment is going to be powder coated satin black for the wheel centre and raised centre part of the rims then polished aluminium for the remaining outside flat portion of the rims. Where the black meets the polished aluminum I'll apply a 1/8" wide red stripe. This treatment is to pay respect to the original Vincent which had chrome wheels with black wheel centres and a thin red stripe where the black met the chrome. The centre portion of the al. tank, the fenders complete and the rear cowl will all be the same red, probably Ferrari Red.

The Vincent was considered the first "frameless" design in that the engine did the work of part of the frame. This lightened the bike up a lot. The Egli frame is connected to the engine in the two top locations plus the struts at the rear of the spine go down to connect at the swing arm pivot location, so in that way it is more rigid than a Standard Vincent which only connected to the spine frame in the two top locations.
I agree, the Vincent idea looks a bit unusual at first, but that was Vincent, they broke the mould in every way. They also broke the speed records at the time and still hold many records!
To this day the record for World's fastest unfaired motorcycle is held by a Vincent.

can't wait to see more, there is a show on a channel here called HD Theater . The show was called cafe racer ... loved it. found some pictures that maybe you could comment on. is this the look your going for minus the mods and updated parts?

Attachment 1251Attachment 1252

Still gotta love the spoke wheels :D