Classic Dirt Bike Issue 42 Spring 2017

SPORTING ACTION FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY AND ABROAD

Dirtb bike e TEAM GREEN EEN CLASSIC

#42

ISSUE Forty-two Spring 2017

ALL TRIUMPH BSA // PROJECT IT // BSA VICTOR // MAGICAL MATCHLESS

#42 M

Kawasaki get serious

TOP OF THE FORM Husky in the classroom AN HOUR WITH...

...THE BANKS BOYS

TECH C TALK Tanking up

CLASSIC ASSIC MXdN

PLUS TEAM ACTION IN NORTHERN IRELAND ALL TRIUMPH BSA // PROJECT IT // BSA VICTOR // MAGICAL MATCHLESS

Contents 03 In Balance

The seed of doubt, once planted, grows in to the absolute certainty of an error and the only recourse is to check.

06 News, views and reviews

Our regular look at what’s happening in the off-road world, events to go to, series updates, perhaps a book or DVD or two.

18 You need…

… a big Matchless. Once the mainstay of the trials world, the big single was relegated to a supporting role when lighter bikes gained reliability.

Events

22 Super Profiles

Take one stunning bike, do some indepth research and write it all down here, in our Super Profile bit. When BSA went Triumph.

41 Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe!

As CDB is subscription only in the UK, you’ve either subscribed, nicked a mate’s copy or seen us at a show. If it’s one of the latter two… subscribe here.

52 Dicko’s view

More from the all encompassing eye of one of the off-road world’s most senior journalists. Always thought-provoking, always interesting… what say you?

10 Class of 1970

62 Team action...

27 That was the year…

…in Northern Ireland for the Classic MXdN...boy was the action good.

How to 44 King of the IT crowd

Assembly progresses as a problem is solved and more information comes the editor’s way.

48 Dirt Products

Got something to help the off-road world go faster, keep their feet up longer or remain more on time in an enduro? Tell us, we’ll put it in this bit.

50 Tech Talk

If only I had an alloy tank I’d be faster… better… cooler. Rarely mistaken for the King of Cool the editor does have a Triumph with an alloy tank now.

Setting his stall out, our new columnist tells how he got to become a noted MX author and what floats his MX boat.

72 Dirt Talk

What are you talking about in the CDB world? All sorts of things as it happens, bring it on we say.

82 Moto memories

Remember TT Leathers’ Vystram suits?

Oooh the world was colourful in the Seventies.

Features

54 Sporting world

A selection of events to brighten your winter from Brit bikes in Japan and France to traditional events in the UK. We went there, where were you?

61 ’cross words

It was all going on for Husqvarna in 1970 – top in MX, movie stardom and riding high. A young lad was smitten by a model kit of the 400 Cross… …that the press got a hold of the ISDT team bikes for a pre-event tryout. Their sketch artist went along too, oh if only we could afford sketch artists these days.

34 Lean, mean and green

Take one ex-works team Kawasaki, add a bit about the company’s early MX forays, talk about the work needed and hey, it’s an SR400 feature.

On the cover Our cover shot is of works Kawasaki rider Christer Hammargren riding the actual 400cc Kawasaki featured in our story on page 34.

The shot, expertly coloured by our design team, was taken at the 1974 British MX GP.

On the contents page Our Class of 1970 feature Husqvarna takes pride of place in the window of a classroom, quite apt really as Husky taught the world an MX lesson.

66 An hour…

…with the Banks family, MX through and through with three generations all making their mark.

76 Dazzling the opposition

It pays to take time to do a job right and Roger Simkin’s Cheney Victor is a shining example of this credo.

Legend 400 Cross 10

Class of

1970 a lesson, When it came to teaching the MX world class.

Husqvarna’s 400 Cross was top of the Words and pics: Tim Britton

You need a...

18

You need s s e l h c t a… Ma

e k i b s l a tri alise it, but a big re ’t n o d ly b a b ro in You p is what you need four- stroke singlew and the AMC version your life right no handsome. is pretty damned

Checking it out Peter’s bike is a nice tribute to the works riders of the day and in Mick Andrews we have a works rider of the day who was part of the AMC team with Jackson, and remembers his bike well.

Mick was keen to put Peter’s bike through its paces and jumped on it and looked as if he’d always been riding it… as he had with the Yamaha, two OSSAs and a 325 Sherpa earlier.

Taking the Matchless round his test sections, Mick was soon back suggesting a few little tweaks and adjusting the carburation.

S

urely everyone must know the story of how the upstart lightweight bikes came along in the Sixties and knocked the big bangers off their seemingly unassailable perches? Yes? No? Well, it wasn’t quite like that as the smaller bikes had been there and thereabouts for a few years, and in the end it was the foreigners who did it for all the British machines and relegated them to the sheds and outhouses before the pre-65 movement took hold.

Nor indeed were the riders of the bigger bikes blind to the need to carve an ounce or two off their machines, and Gordon Jackson’s legendary 187 BLF SSDT winning 350 AJS was reckoned to be, at 225lb, lighter than a C15 BSA. When someone builds a bike to use in pre-65 trials, it is rarely a catalogue correct model. In actual fact, to ride a catalogue correct bike in modern pre-65 trials would be an achievement in itself. Rather it is the

works machines which are looked at, which is all well and good, but even in the day not everyone could handle works machines.

There is a famous tale of one trials superstar trying Gordon Jackson’s super trick short stroke bike and declaring it ‘unrideable’, yet Jackson won on it. Hand-built for the Kentish lad’s style, AMC realised few riders had Jackson’s skill and instead carried on with the long stroke model.

In AMC’s defence, even other members of the works team preferred the older, long stroke bike, and when 187 BLF went to Gordon Blakeway as his works bike, AMC had

settled on using the older barrel overbored to take the short stroke piston to make a 410cc machine – most of the AMC trials bikes were 350cc.

The one in our feature is a 410, owned and built by Peter Lockwood and pictured at a test day with Mick Andrews. It displays many of the classic works tweaks which AMC sanctioned for Jackson, such as central alloy oil tank mounted between the rear engine plates, alloy brake plates, lighter sub-frame and high-level exhaust, along with alloy wheel rims. Peter’s bike wears a conical air filter where AMC used a rubber sheet to cover the

Mick Andrews was part of AMC’s works trials team in the Sixties.

19

Peter Lockwood’s version of AMC’s big single is pretty neat and tidy, much like the works bikes of the day.

It takes dedication to prune even a little weight off what is potentially a massive bike.

High-level exhaust with an alloy end can is shorter and lighter.

Fuel tank is actually glass fibre and light.

Matchless colour scheme is understated and clean.

AMC’s Teledraulic forks are as good as Norton Roadholders.

How’s it done?

Doesn’t everyone use folding footrests these days?

carb mouth as they felt a filter could become clogged and spoil the carburation. Peter has also mounted his footrests much further back than would have been the norm in the Sixties and in order to have maximum kickstarter movement a modern cranked one has been fitted.

If you’ve never ridden a well sorted big single, then make friends with someone who has one, beg a ride on one or somehow contrive to sling your leg over the saddle of a traditional machine. Then, back the throttle off, let it plonk and I’d be surprised if you didn’t agree you need one in your life.

An alloy oil tank, settled between the engine plates saves weight.

The older longstroke barrel, in alloy, can be bored out to take the short stroke piston.

Making a 350 into a 410 just needs a few parts and Don Morley’s excellent book Classic British Trials Bikes goes into greater detail than there is room for here.

Basically, the short stroke model’s piston is fitted into the old long stroke barrel and hey presto – a 410. Don also detailed how to build your own short stroke 350 using the last AMC Norton-based engines. He said at the time that the short stroke would be more difficult to ride but I suspect modern tyres would go a long way to combatting the bugbear of the short stroke… too much power to find grip unless you have the throttle control of a Jackson.

Super Profile 22

SSUPER PROFILEE

A works TriBSA Words: Tim Britton Pics: Nick Haskell

T

o perform well on the world stage was always the aim of the UK’s motorcycle industry throughout its existence and the International Six Days Trial was tailor made for this purpose.

When it was launched in 1913 the idea behind the event was to showcase what ordinary, or lightly modified machines could do and as such our home industry embraced it. Gradually though, the focus of the twowheeled world changed and motorcycles became leisure vehicles rather than transport, but the UK industry soldiered on with lightly modified road bikes for the national teams. Or at least they did until the mid-Sixties when things had to change.

In effect the home industry was BSA Triumph and it was their supported riders who made up the teams. Good though these riders were, they were often handicapped by their machinery, but they still put up excellent performances.

Though still fielding machines based on production bikes, the UK team for 1966 had some good kit.

The thing is, within the industry existed the wherewithal to create machines that could perform well, Jeff Smith for instance was still at the top of the world and for 1966 he was the reigning world champion on a BSA Victor and Triumph’s unit twin engine could easily slot into this chassis, as John Giles proved. Why didn’t the team consist of bikes built to this ideal? Company politics is why. BSA was not keen to see its chassis fitted with a Triumph engine nor was Triumph all that happy about the suggestion its bikes were inferior to BSA. The point was both makes were under the same ownership and surely that was the main thing? Hmmm well… As each factory continued to try and scupper the project it seemed common sense had gone out of the window. One of the biggest bugbears for the BSA guys was the weight of the Triumph engines and that the cast iron barrels on them would distort under hard use. Triumph

was adamant that the barrels couldn’t be cast in alloy.

In scenes worthy of a spy movie, BSA called Triumph’s bluff when it cast alloy cylinder blocks for the unit twin engines after Meriden said it couldn’t be done.

Then half the blocks vanished between the two factories. Triumph countered by presenting the ACU with fully refurbished machines from the previous year’s ISDT at the secret test day when BSA had claimed there wasn’t time to rebuild its bikes. The situation was becoming farcical and a threat by the ACU to hand the whole issue of team bikes to Greeves seemed to make each party grudgingly see sense. While neither side seemed happy, the project did move forward with BSA producing three hybrid Victor-framed machines with Triumph engines – they’d promised nine – and Triumph supplied the rest of the machines from the previous year’s team bikes.

Britain in the ISDT Great Britain has quite a successful record in the ISDT, with 16 wins in the Trophy class or at least in the period covered by this magazine. There have been some very close second places too and additionally the UK teams adhered to the spirit of the competition – using lightly modified road machines – for far longer than other teams. Coincidentally, the UK has hosted the event 16 times during the same period too, though the wins and our hosting don’t match… The UK were involved in probably two of the most famous ISDT escapades, the first being the epic dash from Austria on the eve of the Second World War, the second being using three almost standard BSA 500cc twin A7s to win gold medals in 1952.

The faster maintenance tasks can be completed the better in ISDT competitions, things such as Tommy bars mean no time spent fishing for spanners.

There are plenty of fixing points for a decent bash plate.

A multitude of oil lines and also a chain oiler to drip lubricant onto the rear chain.

By the mid-Sixties air filters had become much better than before.

Triumph’s unit twin isn’t as light as BSA’s singles, though alloy barrels do help lower the weight.

On the face of it slotting a unit twin engine into a Victor frame isn’t difficult but there are issues of chain length to sort out, as depending on whether the dampers were compressed or extended, the chain was either way too slack or bowstring tight. With time being tight these issues were resolved and the three TriBSAs that were built performed well and the one in our pictures here was ridden by Arthur Lampkin. It is surprisingly non-trick really, being the off-the-shelf Victor scrambles frame fitted with a Triumph swinging arm and its qd rear wheel.

Up at the front end are Victor forks and a front wheel with the single sided brake that has the adjustable fulcrum slot so the brake shoes can be centralised. A Gold Star pattern alloy fuel tank, alloy front mudguard and stainless steel rear guard – for strength – and

scrambles-style seat complete the ensemble for the chassis.

Engine wise, as well as alloy cylinder blocks, the rest of the internals were to Triumph’s Daytona specification, providing performance and power aplenty. In order that the generator could be checked without pulling off the whole primary case there was a window cut in it and a cover screwed on.

A massive breather pipe was fitted to the primary case and vented to the rear of the bike it allows pressure to escape and not force oil out of the engine. In recognition of the possibility of a rider having to navigate past fallen competitors or through some serious nadgery terrain, the bottom gear was lowered to give the clutch an easier time. As per BSA’s desire, the exhaust system was high level on the left hand side to prevent it

A front brake from BSA’s Victor MXer is light and works and has a knock-through spindle instead of a clamp fixing, so more time saved.

27 Norton’s Dominator-based machine looked exceedingly heavy but was a reliable performer.

ow d n i Shopto w the

World

The ISDT often showcased future developments in our industry and proved they would work too.

Naturally the press were there.

Words: Tim Britton Pics: Mortons Archive

Compare the Norton to BSA’s almost gazellelike 500 single.

Archive 28

T

his is a little bit of personal indulgence on my part here... and I suppose I ought to apologise for that.... but it’s probably obvious to regular readers that the archive here at CDB is an extensive place, and not a little dangerous.

‘Dangerous’ because of the content and the subtle way time vanishes – you see, I’m a sucker for the line drawings produced by the likes of Lawrie Watts in The MotorCycle and MotorCycling in the days before computers when technical artists had to sit down at a drawing board and produce images from sketches they’d made and notes they’d taken in the most oddball of circumstances.

These line drawings have a section all of their own within our normal archive where the original images are stored in art folders. The danger comes when looking for the drawings in a feature such as this 1952 ISDT test. It is so easy to become distracted… which is why the archive feature for this issue is a little older than we’d normally go.

You see I was looking for something else and the cross reference threw up the ACU organised test of potential team members for the 1952 ISDT. Once the drawings were laid out several had date references, so it was an easy job to find the MotorCycle edition they’d been used in and cross reference it to the MotorCycling back issues. To digress slightly, the basis of the archive is the back issues, images, glass plates, machine files and brochures used in

The MotorCycle since 1902. There are some MotorCycling images too, but due to a storage disaster many years ago involving damp, most of the MotorCycling stuff was turned to mulch whereas the MotorCycle material was stored higher up and survived.

Luckily we have the back issues and a repro department which can work wonders…

Anyway, looking for the feature inspired by the drawings soon brought to light that the 1952 ISDT in Austria was set to be an interesting one for a number of reasons, and as winner of the International Trophy contest for the previous four years great things were expected of the British teams.

The event would turn out to be a much tougher one than expected and the UK teams were not the only ones who suffered mechanical failures, accidents and organisational disasters. The weather and atrocious conditions put those on larger machines at a disadvantage as their power could not be used to make up for lost time.

For UK team riders who did manage to negotiate certain extreme sections of the course and maintain some semblance of time they found these sections would be scrubbed as many other riders didn’t make it. Normally reliable machines such as the factory Triumph twins suffered gearbox problems... and the list went on.

There was some silver lining though, as the 1952 ISDT was the one where three standard BSA A7s were used as a club team

“

...due to damp storage most of the MotorCycling stuff was turned to mulch. Luckily we have the back k issues and a repro department which can work wonders…

BSA was testing its new swinging arm frame.

”

Part of the ‘club’.

Both of the then-top magazines took a slightly different approach to reporting the feature in that MotorCycle featured the teams and machines in one three page report, while MotorCycling had four pages in one issue and followed it up with a spread test of four team machines. To put that last bit in perspective, imagine being invited to an F1 pre-season test to watch what went on then be allowed to take away a Mercedes, Williams, McLaren and a Ferrari to try them out yourself…

For the ISDT factory comp departments made components slightly more accessible.

Project IT 44

Kingof the IT crowd

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Put two off-roaders together and the first question from either is generally “What’ve you got on the go at the moment?” This is often followed by “You’re doing a WHAT!?” Occasionally it is “Oh, one of those…” but more often it’s “You must be mad”. You choose which of these statements is applicable to us as we head into Act Seven of the ‘King of the IT crowd’.

T

o be honest I thought I’d be riding this IT465 by now but hey ho, that’s the way things go sometimes and unlike our last few project bikes where spares have been plentiful, the IT range has gaps in it. Okay, people are working to fill these gaps but it can still be a long process to source bits but there were enough bits to make a rolling chassis for the International Dirt Bike Show stand.

The IT promoted quite a bit of interest on our stand and a few people did say they’d got bits and pieces left over from their own

rebuilds, including a lad who reckoned to have a replacement lower front curve for the exhaust pipe. If you’re reading this… still interested in the pipe…

One of the bits taking forever to source was the small bearing on the end of the selector drum. In the bearing world that one doesn’t have a particularly hard life, unlike a wheel bearing, which spins whenever the wheel moves, this selector bearing has to move when the gear pedal is pressed and, as such, is not noted for wearing out. But our engine has suffered a bit through lack

of maintenance and the… well I was going to call it oil but that would be stretching it a bit… sludge in the gearbox casing had done its worst and even when still on the shaft, the poor bearing felt rough. Once off the shaft and rinsed through in the parts washer to get all the crud out it didn’t feel any better, even soaking it in oil didn’t mask the roughness and I stopped kidding myself that it could be reused. I had to convince Nick Scott at Motoduro that this bearing was worn out… he thought I was joking “…but it never wears out?” Ours has…

The story so far... …why is it the one bit that is unobtainable is the only bit needed to progress a project? No, I don’t know either, but the bit turned up and progress was made.

What doed? we ne

45

Exhaust system Various rubber mounts Time Genuine twistgrip rotor Special fasteners Gearbox shafts and cogs seem in good order.

Cleaned, inspected and lightly lubed ready for fitting.

A parts washer is something we all should have in the workshop.

Assembled for Stoneleigh

Once the bearings were all in the workshop I could lay the cases out, warm them through and drop the bearings in place.

Once upon a time a gas blow torch would have been used to heat the cases up but these days a hot air gun is a safer option, even if it may take a little longer to work. The old test method of once spit bounces off the metal being heated is still a good indicator of when the cases are hot enough. Once up to temperature and with the bearing still cold it will be an easy job to press it into the hole without resorting to any hammers

and drifts. Once the bearings are in, leave the cases to cool, though I suspect in a professional workshop things might be a little different, as they have to earn a living rebuilding things, whereas I’m doing it in an amateur way.

While the cases cooled I laid out the gears and selector drum and referred to the manual and the stripdown pics to see where everything went. The cogs on these shafts are held in place by a series of circlips and it could be easy to lose the sequence they’re on their shafts so I took plenty of pics and

The old cases with the new bearings, so I know where they go in the new cases.

referred to them as the cogs went back on.

A visual inspection of the cogs and shafts showed they were okay, no chipped teeth or anything like that and once through the parts washer they were rinsed and dried, then oiled and were ready to go back into the case. Most motorcycle engines have a particular assembly method suggested by their maker and it makes sense to follow this, as life will be easier. In the case of the IT465 the right-hand case is laid flat and all shafts and the crank are inserted into it, then the left-hand case is fed over the top.