Covid 19 project update and learning from my mistakes...

I am happy to report that things are moving along quite well with the BSA;

I had a couple of minor hiccups that have now been cured, mostly in the fork department.  I don't have photos, however the originals were in horrendous condition.  I could not get the cups off by any method available and had to do minor angle grinder surgery!  Getting the fork tubes out was managed on one of the lowers, however I gave up on the second one.  Luckily I found an appropriate set of lowers advertised as 'BSA Chopper forks' and won them for $30.00 USD on Ebay.

They arrived on Friday and I was able to clean them up and paint them by Sunday.  I used some JB Weld epoxy to fill in some gouges and rough sections on the chrome.

I  also decided to clean up the C11 mudguards with a wire wheel and cut off the bad/bent metal.  By definition, this makes the bike a 'bob job' or 'bobber'.   Being a seriously low budget build, I have to use what I have and buy as little as possible.   Fortunately for me these C11 parts can be very nicely adapted to do the job!

The cut down front mudguard.  I kept the remaining piece (just in case)

a P/O made some indentations for the forks (they were awful)

Front and Rear (rear is a 2-piece part)

The big parts pile did come with a rear hub with an extremely worn down sprocket.  These are not the bolt on variety and are riveted to the hub.  The only way to rectify this problem is to have the hub machined and a new sprocket welded on.  This tip was courtesy of the aforementioned Elder Statesman during my last visit.  Down the road for sure, but big dollars I simply don't have right now.   Cruising the CVMG classifieds, I saw a number of  Triumph Trophy 250 parts for sale/free from a member in Toronto.  I asked if he had a rear wheel , he did (sans brake plate and shoes) and was kind enough to send measurements.  I brought my rear frame and it was a lovely fit.  As it turns out, the wheel is actually from a BSA C15 or B40.  It has a giant 4.0 x 19 Dunlop trials tire (Made in England) that has probably been on it for 50 years.  He let me have it for the princely sum of $20.00 so I was extremely happy.  We chatted and he showed me his lovely Trophy that was having some teething problems, sadly I had little to offer in the way of help.  Thank you again Bruce for the lovely visit and the wheel!

I began looking for a brake plate and bought an incorrectly advertised one on Ebay.  Fortunately it was only $19.00 and arrived in a few days.  I was able to use a couple parts from it, so I decided to keep  it.  Another Britbike forum member came through with a nice plate for $15.00 plus shipping.

Needless to say this has been merciful to my budget thus far.  Not having access to my US mailbox, I had forgotten how brutal shipping costs to Canada are.  Hopefully things will return to normal soon.

Back to the wheel.

I mentioned the rather huge tire on the back.  A while ago I was given a NOS Pirelli MT53 tire that can be used on front or rear.  This tire is 3.5 x 19 and should work out a lot better.  That being said, that rear wheel does look rather good and  it was made for serious business!  It is just too big for this bike.

This BSA has been an excellent exercise so far and has allowed me to hone my new approach to building.  I am now organized and fit everything on before I start spending serious money.  I clean up and paint some parts such as the frame, but that would have had to be done anyway.  The Cub wheel incident was the last straw and a turning point in how I do things.  I keep the garage as clean as possible now and put tools back when they are no longer in use.  Sweeping at the end of the work day is now routine behavior.

If I can make what I have 'in stock' work, the time to find out is now, rather than assume it will work later.  That has caused me expense and heartache in the past and often left me buying parts I will likely never use.   When I bought the Matchless, I should have taken what I had and fitted it together from the start.  Instead, I started sending things out for blasting and powder coating before really knowing what the plan was.  As I look back on seven years worth of blog posts, I can see my pattern of failure.  Buy a project, get completely entrenched in it, spend money, get overwhelmed, lose interest and sell for a slight loss or break even sum.  While I have certainly made money here and there, that was never my goal. 

Seeing is truly believing and hindsight is what it is.  I can't change the past, but I can certainly change the future.

Until next Time.....

Matchless update!

Matchless, I have not forgotten thee!

This is the final mock up of the G9 and an idea of how she will look, minus a couple surprise pieces!

My smaller forks and front end were removed and put on my friend's '49 AJS (which is coming along nicely).  Thanks to bike builder extraordinaire Goldy, (as he is known on many bike forums) I now have an excellent pair of conrods for the engine.  I am waiting on an extractor from England in order to replace the main bearings which I have at hand.

Some may note a different tail light and much smaller headlight from earlier configurations; I was playing around and this works much better with the overall look and feel.  By the end, I unconsciously built a 50's California custom street scrambler and I have no complaints!  My friend down the road (and one town over) provided me the alloy Tail light for free.  I installed a NOS Sparto lens I had been saving for a special occasion.  The headlamp (not the one pictured) is an old KD with a 5 3/4 Lucas lens.  The seat was bought for $20.00 on Ebay, and recovered with marine vinyl.  The front mudguard is an AMC item and came with the original haul of parts.  The rear is for a Royal Enfield Bullet.

I ended up sending the single side hubs to the '49 AJS and going with the full width wheels. I was very hesitant to do this originally as I didn't like the look.  They have certainly grown on me since.

I will attempt to document some of the rebuild and provide more detailed photos soon.  Project Covid has lots of updates as well, so stay tuned!

Until next time.......

Ironing out the niggling details....

In some regards, restoring a bike back to spec is easy.   By easy, I mean having definite guidelines and photographic references to follow.  Hard work?  Absolutely.  Once you have all the right parts however, it can be similar to building a life sized Airfix kit.

Building a custom bike or something from random parts can be much more challenging; Often the smallest victories yield the greatest rewards.

My latest victory was in the form of a tail light.  As trivial as it may sound, I could not find the right tail light/brake light for this build.  This had actually been driving me to distraction for the better part of two years.

I played around with a variety of different styles, finally settling on an original English made Sparto piece that I fabricated a lens for.

Close, but not quite.

It looked good and was very, very close to being right.  It just wan't right enough.

Back to the drawing board.

My criteria was fairly straightforward.  I wanted something that looked period, flowed with the bike and was functional.  I also wanted something unique and lighter than the Sparto unit.   To make life harder, I didn't want a repop item from China or India.  There is a cheapness to these items that always seems to let the side down.

Cruising around on Ebay, I spotted something a little bit different.  It was an NOS Lucas light I had never seen before, a model VT31.  There wasn't much online about it, just that it was used on bicycles and mopeds primarily.  The asking price was low, so I took a chance.

Rather than fabricate a backing plate, I decided to modify something I already had.

The plate is most certainly a DIY item, I have no idea what the off-set drilled holes were for.

The first step was to weld some plate on the back to cover the holes.  I then welded some steel washers into the holes and removed the plate on the back.  Next, I lined up the light in order to drill the mounting holes.

Then a little filler and a bit of paint.

Front 

Side view

I am really happy with the way that this turned out.  It certainly checks all the boxes for me with the added bonus of having lots of character.  Although hard to see in the photos, the light is actually adjustable so I can fine tune when the rear mudguard is in place.

Until next time....

Weighing my options....

Now that I am firmly determined to complete the Matchless twin by spring, the time has come to put together the engine.

While I did a dry fitting last year,  I didn't thoroughly measure the crankshaft journals, camshaft lobes or check for 'Ovaling' in the connecting rods.  The motor seemed to be in decent shape when I tore it down; I naively hoped that after a good cleaning and check of the oil passageways it would go right back together and run!

I decided to forgo this flight of fantasy and do the job properly.

I started by looking at the connecting rods I had and weighed them in order to find a balanced pair.

The pair that came with the engine weighed in at exactly 12.84 oz each.  Numbers 2 and 3 weighed in at 14.53 and 14.29 oz respectively.  Lonely number 5 on the end came in at a whopping 15.03 oz.

Interestingly, all Matchless/AJS twin con rods from 1949 to 1964 have the same part number, 014134. In the course of my research, I found a valuable snippet from the Jampot forum which explains the differences.

Early Rods for '49-'51 had a thin 'H' stem section and less material around the small end

Series 2 from '51- Had a thicker 'H' stem section however material around the small end is unchanged.

Series 3 featured more metal around the small end.

Series 4 featured even more metal around the small end.

Series 5 featured the addition of the chamfered shoulders. 

These changes would reflect the heavier load on the rods as capacity increased from 500cc to 550cc to 600cc and finally 650cc. 

Looking at the lightest pair, I would assume they are Series 2 as the 'H' section seems the same as the heavier units.

The stock G9 Crankshaft Journals are 1.625" stock, mine come in at 1.615 according to my micrometer.   This means .010 oversize bearings, fortunately I have a NOS set.

As I went to fit the series 2 connecting rods, I found that one side would move freely and the other would bind.  I attempted to flip the orientation of the rods to see if that made a difference, however there was no joy.  I then fitted the heavier rods and all moved well without issue, however the bearings didn't sit very tightly in the conrods.  The orientation of the later rods is easy to determine due to a chamfer on the shoulder of the rod which needs to face away from the center of the crank.

I did look on the shelf and pulled out a later crank which fit nicely into a nice set of  '54 AJS cases
I had bought a couple of years ago.  These journals also measure at 1.615" however one side has suffered from exposure and is now rusty.

The earlier crankshaft

Later Crankshaft.  Note the corrosion on right journal side. It looked much worse before a bit of WD40 and scotchbrite.

 All hope is not lost though as I found a great YouTube video demonstrating cheap, easy and effective crank polishing.  My next job is to measure the connecting rods properly, save the crankshaft and see what can be put together.

Will it work?  We shall see.

Until next time......

Battery Box/Tool Tray build

I confess that I didn't get a lot done over the Christmas break, however I did manage to accomplish several small jobs.

One of these items was the construction of a battery box for the G9 project.  The 1955 frame is a unique one in a few different regards, one being the off-set side mounted battery placement.

Rather than look for an original, I decided to make my own with some scrap lying around.  The box is a little oversize in order to accommodate (small) tools and mountings for my exhaust (more on that next post).  This will also give me more leeway when I eventually buy another battery.

It is always a pleasure to make my own parts, no matter how primitive they may be.  This is the freedom that comes with building a (mild) custom bike rather than a concours restoration.

I wasn't able to take pictures during the welding/cutting/grinding phase, but you get the idea.

The box has since been coated in black chassis paint, the strap came from a discarded Bell & Howell Filmo camera.

Until next time.......