Real Classic - October 2019 - Preview

ISSUE 186  OCTOBER 2019  £3.70

NORTON SPECIAL 

CZ CUSTOM!

Running, Riding & Rebuilding RealClassic Motorcycles

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DOUGLAS TWINS 

® ®S ‘

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WHAT LIES WITHIN

DOUGLAS TWINS 

NORTON SPECIAL 

CZ CUSTOM!

Running, Riding & Rebuilding RealClassic Motorcycles

ISSUE 186  OCTOBER 2019  £3.70

BACK FROM B ONE SLIGHTLY REVISED

BEYOND

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VELOCETTE KNS

REALCLASSIC 186: PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2019

RC REGULARS THE CONTENTS PAGE ...................................3 We have a CZ, two cammy Velocettes and three elderly Douglas twins! A fine confection for an unusual issue. We ran out of space and had to hold over the Horex until next month.

Not many magazines can say this…

50

WE’VE GOT MAIL! ...................................... 16 We always want more letters, even though we already receive more than we can print. We’ll try to make more space (somehow…) next time

CAMMY VELOCETTES...................................6

It would seem that vintage motorcycles are indeed a bit like London buses. You wait for ages for one to appear… and then three materialise, all at once. Odgie explores one man’s adventures with a trio of cammy singles NORTON COMMANDO SPECIAL................ 24

What do you get if you shoe-horn a 750 Commando engine into a featherbed frame that once housed a 350 single? Henry Gregson explains…

CZ 250 CUSTOM......................................... 32

When rebuilding bikes feel more like a chore than a happy hobby, it’s time to stop taking things so seriously and return to your roots.

Andrew Smith got his bike-building mojo back with an Eastern European two-stroke…

DOUGLAS TWINS....................................... 40

Finding a single Banbury-eligible vintage

ISSU E 182

SCOT T SQUIR REL  BSA FLATT RACK ER  MEGO LA! 

JUNE

2019 

£3.70

Running ,

DOUGLAS TWINS

ISSUE 186  OCTOBER



 NORTON SPECIAL

Running, Riding

2019  £3.70

Rebuild ing Rea lClassic

Motorc ycles

EVENTS ...................................................... 56 There’s always too much to do and not enough time to do it in! Enjoy the mellow mists and fruity stuff as autumn heads in once again

HARLEY-DAVIDSON MT350 ...................... 50

IT’S NEWS!.................................................. 58 News pages alert. Rare for us, but we hope you enjoy them

Take an ex-military 350 single with good tyres, great suspension and an electric leg, and make tracks for some of the most scenic green-lanes in England. Martin Peacock enjoys a delightful day in the Dales

READERS’FREE ADS .................................. 62 Very happy TP, with a smug air and a suspicious aroma of chocolate. Less ads than last time, but more chocs. How does that happen?

ELECTRICAL TECHNICAL ........................... 68

If you’re struggling to stop the sparks flying, Stuart Francis is here to help with wiring advice. Let there be light!

OLLIE’S ODDJOBS...................................... 90 In standard trim, the Kawasaki Z440 Ltd of the early 1980s is one of those motorcycles which history seems happy to overlook. But Ollie Hulme – equipped with a pith helmet and ray gun – has found the Z440 which time forgot…

BSA A65T REBUILT (AT LAST) .................... 76

Purists, look away now! A friend in need needs help indeed. Richard Negus has just such a friend, and solved his affliction…

PUB TALK ................................................... 94 ‘PUB went to the pub on PUB’ – well, it was the most appropriate way to attend the Bill Lacey meeting in Evenley…

ROYAL ENFIELD CLIPPER PROJECT ........... 84

Last month, Enfield enthusiast Stephen Herbert started to build a trials special from a partcompleted pre-unit 250 project. This time he gets to grips with its gearbox and electricals…

TALES FROM THE SHED ........................... 100 Frank’s been floating around the place, endless holidays, as usual. And at last he’s been put into a museum…

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He discovers not one, not two… but three premium Douglas machines

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WHO’S DONE WHAT REALCLASSIC is built from bits by Frank and Rowena of the Cosmic Bike Co Ltd. Chris Abrams of AT Graphics designs the editorial pages, while Mortons Media Group Ltd at Horncastle handle trade advertising, subscriptions, back issues and similarly complicated things We’re online at www.Real-Classic.co.uk TRADE ADVERTISERS for the magazine or website should call Helen Martin on 01507 529574, email hrmartin@mortons.co.uk EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES should be sent to Frank@ RealClassic.net or to PO Box 66, Bude EX23 9ZX. Please include an SAE if you want something returned or a personal reply SUBSCRIPTION INFO is on pg106. Call 01507 529529 to subscribe or renew or buy back issues SUBS QUERIES, late deliveries, or changes of address should be directed to 01507 529529, or email subscriptions@realclassic.net ALL MATERIAL in RealClassic is copyright its authors, so please contact us before reproducing anything. RealClassic is printed by William Gibbons & Sons of Wolverhampton. Our ISSN is 1742-2345.

THIS MONTH we’ve been reading PERFECT KILLER by Robert White (the best female FBI agent / serial killer thriller since Clarice and Hannibal); THE DARK SIDE OF THE MIND by Kerry Daynes (true life encounters of a forensic psychologist); SICK NOTES by Tony Copperfield (what your doctor is really thinking) and the RED SPARROW espionage adventures by Jason Matthews (the first is rather good, the second is surprisingly poor, and the third…). Also NORTHTOWN ECLIPSE by Robb T White (a remarkably engaging, very tough and bleak thriller – recommended!).

MEANWHILE AT THE MOVIES… we loved Bad Times At The El Royale (so much better than Tarantino’s up-itself Hollywood nonsense); were wowed by Free Solo (climbing very tall mountains with no ropes. Eek); romped through The Boys S1 in a glorious binge of badness (very explicit, for grown-ups only), and cringed throughout Hustlers.

Onto Goliath S2…

RealClassic is published monthly by MMG Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, LN9 6LZ, UK.

FROM THE FRONT Famously, variety is the spice of life. I’d not argue with that, and one of the many merry features we enjoy about this often odd magazine is the variety of machinery on view. This issue is no exception, which is also slightly wonderful, and it keeps our lives here in the office in a constant state of entertainment – also amusement, as you might imagine.

I opened a file sent to me by Rowena headed ‘Norton Commando’. I like Commandos, always have, always will, but sometimes I think that I’ve read enough stories about them. That’s not any form of poke at Nortons, either; I’ve read literally hundreds of stories about all the most popular machines from the more popular marques.

Before reading into the story, I looked at the pics – and gazed in wonder. Norton Commando? In what sense? It’s a special!

My interest level shot up, and I wasted a minor age increasing the size of the images on the screen as I stared in as much detail as I could at the special, trying to see how it fit together. You can see it further on. The sort of machine we rarely see on display at a show, but which is often parked up outside, where a steady stream of folk stare and wonder what, exactly, it is.

Next, a collection of Douglas twins drifted into view. I’ve never been a fan, have ridden very few, and have never really understood the appeal.

Until now. All three of the machines in the story are stars. In exactly my kind of condition. Paul Miles is famous for his beautiful, highly-polished machinery – how somehow glorious to read him enthusing about genuine, actual patina. Made my morning.

And then, oh, a story from Odgie. Camshaft Velocettes. What? Odgie’s fundamentalist approach to old bikes as applied to … cammy Velos? Really? Really. Aha! A typo: Velocette KNS? What’s that? It must be a mistake. But it’s not. I learn something every day.

And just in case that’s not enough variety to spice your life, I then found myself entirely delighting in the tale of a rolling rebuild – the best kind. The rebuild of a CZ 250 Custom.

Which is possibly as far from the world of prewar Douglases and camshaft Velos as you can imagine – except – except that this is a great bike, and a great story, and it sent my memory drifting back a thousand years or so to the time when I bought an MZ as a project. Didn’t last long; I understood that I didn’t understand the bike at all, and passed it straight on to another lunatic who transformed it from a pile of rusty boxes into an ISDT rep – a great bike, too.

And yes, I do understand that CZ and MZ are hardly the same, but the principle is – working

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bikes built for workers to ride to work, exactly like all of the most popular machines built in the UK. The most popular in terms of sales numbers, that is. I’ve never owned a CZ, although I have owned a pair of Jawas, one a single and the other a twin. One I liked so much that I traded it for the other, which wasn’t as good, oddly.

Variety, then; the spice of life. A friend recently told me that all old British bikes are the same. My, how I laughed…

Ride safely

Frank Westworth Frank@realclassic.net

THE NEXT ISSUE

RC187WILL BE PUBLISHED ON NOV 4th, AND SHOULD REACH UK SUBSCRIBERS BY NOV 8th

It would seem that vintage motorcycles are indeed a bit like London buses.

You wait for ages for one to appear‌ and then three materialise, all at once.

Odgie explores one man’s adventures with a trio of cammy singles Photos by Odgie Himself, Mortons archive

6 I OCTOBER 2019

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VINTAGE VELOCETTES

N

o matter how long we’ve been knocking around with old bikes, we never know everything. You investigate just one new thing and another whole world opens up… as a recent visit to my mate Brian revealed. There’s never an ‘ordinary’ visit to Brian’s. It was my turn to be showing off and I’d bobbed round to let him see the new race bike I’d just finished.

I pulled it out the van and we poked and prodded and made all the right sort of noises between us.

Then Brian says, in his usual conspiratorial way, ‘Here. I’ve got something to show you.’

We retire to his barn, and there sits a rather resplendent Velocette he’s just acquired. A 1929 KNS to be precise. I know very little about Velocettes, but I know enough to

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know I’ve not heard of a KNS before. So we’re looking at the bike and Brian starts explaining it to me, and then he compares it to his KSS from the same era.

‘Oh, which one’s that?’ I ask, and he leads me over into one of the darker recesses, squeezing past the sidevalve Triumph twin sidecar outfit (I kid you not), and there the KSS sits, propped against the barn wall, quietly emanating ancient charm and calm.

Then, of course, it being Brian’s bike, there’s a tale. It unfolds beautifully and I realise very quickly that here is another Tale That Must Be Told In RC. I love old bikes.

THE OLD KSS

‘It wasn’t long after we were married,’ explained Brian, ‘in 1963 on the day of the famous Henry Cooper / Cassius Clay fight.

OCTOBER 2019 I 7

What could be better than a single cammy Velo single? Correct!

Percy Good dman’’s reviised d oh hc engiine desiign use dry sump lubrication, with oil being transferred up the bevel drive train to the cambox at 12psi.

Left unused, oil inevitably slumps into the sump so check for an oil tap before you consider starting the engine

I saw a chap tr ying to bump-sstar t a bike in his driveway. I stopped, just interested to see what it was, and it was a Velo and the chap was pushing and pushing and the bike was doing nothing, apart from the occasional very loud bang from the exhaust.

‘So I gets out and goes up to him, and say something like you know, are you having trouble? And he glares and at me and it’s obvious I’m not really welcome. But I was young and undeterred, and I looked and there was gasket sealer everywhere, so I knew it had just been rebuilt.

‘I said, “I think you’ve timed it on the wrong top dead centre.”

‘And he says, “Well what would you know about it then?”

‘And I said, “Mmm, well, I’ve done a little bit with bikes. Get me an Allen key and a 5/16th spanner.”

‘He hands them to me and I whip the

In KTT competition trim, Velo’s cammy single weighed about 220lb. The roadster KSS, equipped with lights and the like, tipped the scales at 265lb

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A study in gearboxes. You can work out which is the racer. Top speed in racing trim may have been over 80mph, but 70-75mph was more normal for a roadster. With the close-ratio options in the three-speed box, first was good for 35mph and second could reach 60

VINTAGE VELOCETTES timing cover off, crack the magneto gear free, retime it to TDC valves closed, put it back together, and say, “Go on, try it now.”

He gives me a bit of a look but gives it a shove, and sure enough it roars into life.

“How the hell did you know that?” he says.

“Oh we’ve all done it”, I said, “You’ve timed it with both valves open, all that’s happening then is neat fuel is going down the exhaust and every so often the plug fires it. It’ll be right now.”

‘The bike was a MkII KSS Velo. He wanders

off inside and then he comes out, and he’s got a pair of Velo crankcases with the crank inside them, and he’s holding them swinging by the conrod, and he says, “Is this any good to you?” I could definitely make good use of that – and he gives it to me, just like that.

‘I thought this is all right, I can maybe build something out of this, a MkI cammy Velo bottom end. As a new member of the VMCC, I was lucky in parts being available from fellow members. A trip to Tony

Twycross got me a frame, and I knew Bill Page who was into KTTs, etc, so I went to see him and I got some forks, a front wheel, a cylinder head and barrel and a cambox in bits. I was slowly gathering parts but I was still short of a few things, in particular a back wheel and a gearbox, so there it came to a stop.

‘In 1964/65 I built a rigid BSA A7 for sand racing, later making it into a sprinter / hillclimb special, and later still lending it out to a couple of local lads, John Manly and

THE EARLIER KTT Brian mentioned the KTT he owned previously; KTT #534, registration FG 9764, and it turns out there’s a tale there too...

‘I owned my original KTT in 1956. It was a very special bike, it had a great deal of modification. The engine had lots of extra external pipework and, at the bottom of the crankcases, a square hole had been cut and an extra sump screwed on with BS screws.

It meant the oil drained into it before being scavenged and of course that reduced any chance of oil drag.

‘I got into a dice with a chap with a brand new Triumph 650, the first swinging arm framed ones. He reckoned his bike was fast so we arranged a few laps of the Perry track, the outer perimeter of the runways when it was quiet. He only lasted one lap and pulled

in, the Velo was that quick.

‘When I got called up into National Service in 1956, I sold it a young lad called Nipper Oldfield, with the proviso that he kept it in very good order for my return. Nipper let another lad have a ride and he crashed it. A bolt came out of the rear mudguard strut and the guard dropped down and split the tyre completely into two separate halves. The resulting puncture brought the lad off on the cobbles at speed and all the forks were bent alongside the engine.

‘Nipper was persuaded to sell the wreck to a bus driver in Liverpool whose Triumph had blown its engine and he wanted to Velo lump to replace it. Thinking about it now, there weren’t that many KTTs around then. I got to wondering if the rear wheel and gearbox that came out of Eddy’s Triumph/Velo sprinter were actually from my original KTT? The gearbox is number TT 1944 (or possibly TT i944). Hopefully somebody might know if it relates to engine KTT 534? I would dearly love to know. Maybe the engine still survives out there somewhere?’

The KTT when Brian had it. The cambox went back to Velocette for a rebuild but they hadn’t a MkIV camshaft so they fitted a MkVIII. Which in turn meant Brian purchasing a paired MkVIII exhaust for it. Note also the extra external oil return piping, and the carefully milled out front mudguard stays!

Brian’s first cammy Velo was a KTT. Here it is at Altcar races in 1950, with Bill Pasco from Liverpool aboard and probably Denis Parkinson following

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Notes from the back of the photo. After Velocette rebuilt the cambox, the engine was still noisy. It turned out to be the big end, so Brian had it replaced, and ordered a new oil pump from Velocette. Not a cheap item, a total of £8.6.0 for the oil pump – £4 for the gears themselves, and an extra £4.6.0 for selecting pairs that meshed together perfectly...

A somewhat younger Brian working on the KTT engine; showing the extra sump and associated pipework

OCTOBER 2019 I 9

These machines would originally have been fitted with an Amal carb set up for a 50/50 mix of petrol / benzol

Webb central-spring forks were fitted with B&D friction dampers and provided superlative steering for the period

Eddy Prythich. They had it a season each, Eddy being the last. He did some sprinting with it, did fairly all right, and then he bought himself a Triumph, a proper sprint bike. It was a bit of an oddball thing, with a Triumph pre-unit and a Velo gearbox and rear wheel. I instantly recognised both of them as MkIV KTT, as I’d owned one in 1956. I said “That’s a bit of a waste you know… that’s a genuine Velo KTT gearbox and rear wheel.”

After that I didn’t see Eddy for some years. Eventually he turned up at my door to say goodbye as he’d got a job abroad.

I wished him luck and thought that was that. “Remember those Velo parts?” he says.

“Well, here you are, this is to say thank you for lending me your A7 all those years ago.”

And he’d brought the Velo gearbox and rear wheel. That was a great stroke of luck, because that’s pretty much all I was missing.

‘I made a start on the Velo over Christmas 1991/92. Everything had been stood for

While the racer sparked via a BTH magneto, the roadster uses a Lucas magdyno. Which forces a somewhat strange inlet tract

some years by this time. I went to pick up the old biscuit tin which had the valves and stuff in and everything fell on the floor: the bottom of the tin had rusted away! I laid everything I had out on a blanket and took a photograph of it, everything was in little pieces. I scraped all the old paint off the frame with hacksaw blades and brush painted it with Tekaloid 6. It was all pretty much the stuff I’d had sat for 27 years, apart from the tank, which I’d only had two years. The one I got off Bill Page had been modified for long distance at Brooklands, and was a thing much more of purpose than beauty... Six weeks later I had it all built and painted and finished. And do you know, I took it out and it started first bump, just like that.’

To this day the KSS is still a bitsa, all Velo from various years and models, but that adds to its charm. It isn’t a shiny restoration using a plethora of aftermarket or

7” drum brakes were adequate for their era and the machine’s mass. These days…

In 1930, the well-heeled customer purchasing a KSS would spend £62.10 on the machine itself and an extra £5.5 for Miller dynamo lighting.

This particular machine uses Lucas equipment, however

Delicious detail: the racer has lockwire, even on the magneto bolts and rocker adjusters!

10 I OCTOBER 2019

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OCTOBER 2019 | 11

remanufactured parts, it’s a 30-year story that starts with being handed a redundant bottom end for doing someone a good turn, original parts collected over those years using contacts and knowledge, put together the way we always used to build bikes in the days before the internet (or even many autojumbles), using what we had around or what we could swap or trade or were simply given because, at the end of it all, we all love seeing bikes built up and running rather than parts gathering dust in sheds. And amen to that.

(Economy Sport, would you believe?), KCR (latest cambox and strengthened rockers), KTP (twin port – slower than the single port and not exactly a success), KN (Normal) and the KNS (Normal Sport), both of which received a modified and stronger big end with 13 rollers.

Leaving aside the various Marks over the years (anything from Mkl up to MkVIII in

THE NEW KNS

The legendary K Series (K for Kamshaft, according to many sources) is quite rightly viewed with some awe; an overhead-cam engine built way back in the early 1920s, and most people will have heard of the racing KTT (TT replica) model. Perhaps lesser known is the fact that the cammy motor powered quite a number of variants – KSS (Super Sports), KS (low compression KSS), KT (T for Touring), KTS (Touring Sports), KE (Economy – yes really) and KES Even Velo’s roadsters looked like racers, as seen in this truly handsome KNS. Normal Sports indeed…

12 I OCTOBER 2019

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The original Lycett Aero elastic adjustable saddle was 28 inches high – affected by fitting different size wheels as tends to happen to improve tyre choice in modern times

VINTAGE VELOCETTES some cases), the differences between all the various models are considerable, not just in state of tune for racing / sports / touring, but also frames, forks, seats, tanks, mudguards, pretty much all the cycle parts, engine design improvements, and the range also straddled the era from hand-change to foot-change gearboxes.

Brian’s KNS features lighting by Lucas mag/dyno instead of the more usual Miller dynamo being sited in the front engine plates and driven by the crank on the primary side. This in turn necessitated a long, curved induction manifold.

That truncated, black-painted silencer might look like a home-made muffler but in fact it is the correct style for the time, neatly tucked in for maximum scratching

Keeping young. Brian shows the way, helped by his KSS

Velo’s all-brazed frame was considered ‘the strongest fitted to any 350cc motorcycle’

A brace of Velocette camshaft singles. Each has a lot of tales to tell…

‘The KNS was introduced for the rider who wanted the racer/sporty look without going to an out and out Super Sport,’ says Brian.

‘The KNS normally had 20” or 21” front wheels (although mine has grown 19” ones somewhere in its life), narrow mudguards, no rear carrier, and a slightly lower compression ratio to enable it to be run on ordinary pump

petrol rather than the 50/50 mix of benzol, so in general it still looked like a KSS.’ Interestingly enough, as we pulled out both bikes to photograph them, Brian realised the frame numbers were only 50 apart. So with Lord knows how many adventures and escapades between them in the intervening years, the KSS and the KNS have ended up in close proximity, as they originally must have been some 90 years ago...

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TAKEN FOR A RIDE What’s it like to sit astride a 1920s cammy Velo? In the late 1970s, VMCC founder Titch Allen shared his experiences with the breed…

‘Blindfold and with ear plugs, anyone with a mechanical feel can pick out an ohc engine from a pushrod one. The engine can be revved and revved without blowing up. It was a new dimension in motorcycling. I had ridden machines as fast with steering as good, engines as quiet, but never before had I come across all these qualities in one mount. Plus it was the indefinable cammy feel.

‘The clutch action at the handlebar is finger light because you are only lifting half of it. Until it has done one complete revolution, turned either by the engine or the motion of the machine, it will not lift completely. So expect a moment’s delay while the clutch sorts itself out.

Adjusted correctly it is a beautiful clutch;

out of adjustment it is a brute.

‘It’s difficult to convey just how smooth a good cammy Velo is. It’s much smoother and quieter than, for instance, many modern four-stroke twins. A deluxe cammy 350 roadster from 1928 was smooth and silky with a moderate compression ratio and comparatively heavy flywheels. Apart from a pronounced but not unpleasant whine from the camgear bevels, it was remarkably silent.

‘Steering and handling are beyond reproach; even the characteristic rear wheel hop seems lessened by the 3.25-inch tyres on 19-inch wheels. The feel is

Velo’s narrow crank ohc engine underwent much development between 1924 and 1950, but this is its first incarnation. The cam was driven by a vertical shaft using Oldham couplings and bevel gears; bore and stroke of 74mm x 81mm gave 348cc

14 I OCTOBER 2019

altogether lighter, more responsive than with the more common 21-inch front wheel. But I missed the reassurance of the more positive feeling imparted by larger diameter rims with smaller section boots.

Yet steering is so neutral that cornering is automatic. No need to consciously lay it over or lift it up.

‘There is satisfaction in changing gear neatly by hand. The action is light and, for a crash change, reasonably crashproof. The gear lever is nicely placed.

The front brake is very powerful for a vintage stopper, the rear one not so.

It needs a heavy foot and then works smoothly; there’s no danger of the sudden grab and lock up.

‘The machine looks and feels tiny.

Nobody unused to vintage lightweights could believe that a bike capable of cracking along in the 80s could weigh so little and go so well. It just punches away with great gusto. Second gear wafts you up to a cool 60 and the engine has got plenty of punch to carry on the good work in top. The overall impressions are the effortless steering, the solid cammy feel and the incredible smoothness of engine and transmission.’

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OCTOBER 2019 | 15

RC readers write, rant and rattle on...

Summat to say? Send your comments, hints, tips, tales of woe and derring-don’t to: RCHQ@RealClassic.net

RUDGE RACER

I must mention the good people at Rickman motorcycles. I have recently bought a Honda CD 250U with a Rickman fairing from the 1980s. Unfortunately the screen was homemade and too short to be much use.

Despite it no longer being listed, Rickman still have the moulds and were able to supply a perfect new screen at a very fair price. Lovely people!

Keith Rimmer, member

Could I shed a little light on the Horne Rudge admired by PUB in RC184? This could be a restored version of the bike raced in the 1956 Junior TT by Jackie Horne, whose father had a motorcycle business in Scotland. I served my National Service in REME attached to the Royal Signals Driver Training Regiment where Jackie was a motorcycle instructor.

His fellow instructors included works supported riders Arthur Lampkin (BSA) and Peter Fletcher (Royal Enfield). Our camp really was a nest of motorcycling talent including the famous White Helmets.

L/Cpl Dave Bell

ARIEL OILING RC184 brought back happy memories of my first big bike, a 1956 Ariel Huntmaster. It was just like Doug Walker’s but scruffier and less original, as working classics often were nearly forty years ago.

Ariels of this period have a dodgy feature in the oil tank which very nearly caused an engine breakage. Beneath the filler cap lives a circular cup which guides the returning oil into the gauze filter below. It holds a permanent puddle of oil which I mistook as a full tank when checking the contents in poor light, and narrowly averted disaster. I later met someone who wasn’t so lucky.

When I rode my Huntmaster up the driveway of my girlfriend’s house, her father met me with a huge grin of approval and recounted with affection stories of the Ariel motorbikes he had owned. Sometime later, when Jim was my father in-law, he told me how he nearly missed the ship he was serving on when his Red Hunter seized solid. On the way to the dockside the engine ran dry, even though he’d checked the oil tank before leaving and he was sure it was full.

Dumping his Ariel in a farmyard, he jumped on the back of his brother’s bike and boarded his ship just in time and learned an expensive lesson. I wonder if other Ariel owners have been similarly mistaken?

On the subject of BSA bush main bearings, I eventually rebuilt the Huntmaster engine at 70,000

16 I OCTOBER 2019

Thanks for the info – we checked on iomtt. com and indeed there’s a whole page with photos dedicated to the Horne Rudge, built by father AG and son AJ. Apparently, Jack raced the 250 Rudge several times at the TT and at the NW200, Ulster Grand Prix and such, and won the Scottish Championship aboard it.

Rowena

miles. This was the first time the engine cases had been parted, and I found that all three plain bearings equally worn by a colossal (!) eight thousandths of an inch, yet it had kept going. The FH uses the early BSA A10 crankshaft, which I am sure could last twice as long If it were protected by a disposable cartridge filter to supplement the primitive tea strainer in the oil tank.

Bob Murdoch, member Huntmasters are really good bikes; gentle characters and a delight to ride.

Wish I still had one!

Frank W

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