After many months hard work, Brian Mayes finally concluded a long and painstaking restoration of the GM depicted below and such was the quality of his work, we decided it more than merited exhibiting on these pages. [no images avail]
In a summary of his work, Brian tells us:
The machine was a wreck when I bought it from a grass-tracker in Droitwich, but I have traced the GM (LT) engine number through Trevor Hedge and it had been purchased new by David Walsh.
One mudguard was marked "Paul Bentley" and the frame/handlebar covers carried the name of Paul's sponsor, a local oil company and Renault agent, so the Godden frame was most likely to have been Paul's.
The bike has original Dunlop wheel rims (these are no longer made) and I found an original unused saddle in a box at RTN racing in Ipswich. The original saddle was totally beyond resuscitation. Tommy Nicholls also helped with the respoking. I couldn't save the original Dunlop speedway tyre.
All metal has been polished and/or chromed by Heritage Chroming. I managed to take the whole machine apart and reassembled it spreading the work over 18 months when time allowed. I learnt many restoration tricks and am an artist with methylated spirits, emery paper and a toothbrush.
Silkolene sent me some transfers and their products saved the clutch cable. The engine is a runner.
The machine represents a speedway bike stopped in time of the early eighties when of course the GM (LT) was a World Championship engine.