Sears Roper Trail Tamer rebuild

[oldcarcbx]

An h50 is the larger 5hp similiar in size to the h60 and h70 typically found on snow blowers, Rupp tt500s and other early Rupps. An hs50 is the smaller size engine similar in sized to an hs40 /h35 and so on. That is the difference.

 

[markus]

So I was correct, the 5hp label in the catalog picture was misleading. No such thing as a round head hs50....from the factory.

Thank y'all for responding.

Yea, I dunno what the deal was with the H50 not being available for photo's you do see them in the later catalogs, One of the wishbooks shows a pic of the tankless frame, chain/jackshaft driven, early '70 HS powered, but the description is for a 5hp, TC driven bike.

 

[oldcarcbx]

The bike with "5hp TC "set up is the SR5 shown on a catalog page posted in the Sears sales literature/brochure section in the media section of this board. I was wondering about this too, I thought it was just me.

 

[markus]

It’s good to know the first few years of HS50 motors never had round blower housings. I always wondered that... would the Hs50 not work with a 32517 flywheel?

It will work, there are other things that have to be used in conjunction with not just the flywheel. as "O" stated stated some guy from FL does them all the time Soon as that guy gets through this living hell of helping his 75 year old mother close on a new home down here and relocate her and all her stuff into it from her old place a few hours north of here, he hopes to get a couple built for this year and show what gets done. I need to build one for a bike I built and and some to sell, will be replicating a first version HS50 mini bike specific version as well (just got all the stuff I was hoping to find for that) so I can show all the little changes that went on so can better identify engines and parts.

 

[Dadrider]

Nice build cfh. While we're on the subject of sears trail tamers. Was that red two speed model really 5hp or just labeled as such because I have never seen a small frame 5hp tecumseh with a rounded top shroud....other than some sleepers built by some guy in Florida whose name starts with an M.

Small frame hs50 rounded shroud not h50 big block which were rounded.

Somebody lemme know. I've wondered this for years.

After reading your and cfh's post and looking at the 2 pictures of the Sears Roper 4 and 5 hp mini's, the engine that was in the 5 Hp 2 speed I bought NIB, is NOT the engine pictured in those 2 pictures. 40 + years since I had the Roper means I don't remember the block and part numbers but after all the work I did on it, and disassembling the motor to replace the rod with my dad, The mini I had did have a larger block black shroud and block engine than what is pictured.

Also, the engine on mine did not have a kill switch on the front of the shroud. It was a push button switch on the left handlebar by the grip. I do remember you had to hold the button in until the engine came to a stop or it would fire back up.

The hand brake on the left handle bar went to a brake band that was on the jackshaft. It, I think went around the 2nd speed clutch drum, but why am I thinking there was hub on the jackshaft that the band went around?? Where Roper mounted the cable on the bracket over the entire assembly was a real hassle to work around.

My mini also had a rear scrub brake, left hand side pedal.

I was the first owner of my mini, pulled it out of the box after getting from the Sears Loading dock in Gastonia, NC or a Rainy May Wednesday night. I stayed up until I got it out of the box, put oil and gas in it and started it up. The throttle cable was so far out of adjustment that the engine would barely rev above idle. It would just engage the clutch to drive the mini maybe 1 or 2 mph. I had to push it with the grip turned wide open to get it to move.... I should have took that as a sign, but no, I had to keep it and plow right into the world of Sears and Tecumseh.........

It helped me to become the mechanic that I finally became years later.

 

[Dadrider]

In the 1971 page, the engine looks to be smaller in block and overall height that the engine in my mini.

In the 1972 page Mini's #1 and #2 look at that angle, to have the physical engine size that mine had. It pretty much filled the vertical space of the frame from mounting plate to top of frame near the gas tank.

The 1972 page Mini #3 looks to have a smaller block engine as far as height of the engine that I see.

Hope this helps.

 

[frankj7888]

A buddy of mine bought a 1970s Sears Roper/Trail Tamer project a while ago, and gave up on it. He bought it because it had the reciprocating motor/rear suspension thing. Also this particular model had front suspension and a Comet 20 torque converter with jackshaft. Also the remote mounted gas tank and disc brake set up. As far as Ropers go, probably as advance as they made. But the project got over his time allotment, and he wasn't going to get it done.

So I took on the project. The biggest problem with the bike was lack of wheels. He had some random 6" front wheel and a 5" rear wheel. They were not original, and I'm not even sure how they would even work. He kind of knew this too, and had bought a pair of Azusa 10" wheels for the bike. Some Ropers did come with 10" wheels, and I am partial to 10" wheel bikes too. So I thought I could make this work.

Another problem was the front suspension. The stock chrome springs were wasted, compressed to nearly nothing, and ready to break. So I used a new pair of standard front fork springs as available from OldMiniBikes (ordered with new cups.) They are longer then the originals, so had to re-mount the lower cups in a new position to make it work (and maintain geometry.)

Another thing I did was to move the rear shock mounts. On original Ropers the shocks are basically vertical. But with the 10" wheels (and the new rear disc brake setup), this was not going to work. So i did a more conventional shock mount position. It increased the swing arm angle a bit, but overall I liked how this looked. And it would enable me to use a DB30 doodlebug style rear disc brake set up a lot easier (more on that later... remember no original rear wheel, so no original rear wheel disc brake rotor.)

Here's the bike mocked up with the Azusa wheel, just to see how it would "sit":

outstanding, i'm about to start my project, can you give me any heads up info on the jackshaft....would buying the universal froma place like OldMiniBikes work? thanks