BSA B21
ROYAL ENFIELD BULLET
ISSUE 163 NOVEMBER 2017 £3.60
HONDA AUTOMATIC!
Running, Riding & Rebuilding RealClassic Motorcycles
SUPER SPORTS 650 Seriously rapid Norton
BSA's Last Banger
MotoGuzziMadeGood
Working Class Triumph
WHAT LIES WITHIN
6 BSA B50SS.....................................................6
BSA B21.......................................................54
BSA’s beefy B50 is impressive enough in standard spec, but Ace Tester Miles has outdone himself with this example – perhaps the ultimate unit single…
Ride, restore, repair or revitalise? Sometimes you can do all of these things at once but, as Richard Jones discovers, riding without restoring isn’t always straightforward…
NORTON 650SS...........................................26
Everyone loves 650 twins. Everyone loves Norton’s featherbed frame. Frank Westworth tackles a thorny issue ROYAL ENFIELD BULLET .............................38
Lifelong British bike enthusiast John Lines needed an inexpensive old bike to see the sights of Blackpool, and a 1950s Enfield single fit the bill. Then he discovered that he also needed some sparks… HONDA CB400A..........................................46
Steve Hodgson was looking for a classic alternative to the modern super scooter. He found it in the form of Honda’s automatic for the people…
REALCLASSIC 163; PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER 2017
RC REGULARS THE CONTENTS PAGE ....................................3
Just look at what’s in this issue! Is it even possible to be more remarkable?
BMW R75 .....................................................62
Over a quarter century and some 45,000 miles, Ian Caswell has refined and revised almost every aspect of his BMW 750 airhead. He reveals which upgrades have proved invaluable, and which mechanical gremlins you’d do well to avoid…
WE’VE GOT MAIL! ........................................14
The customary eclectic collection of opinions, considerations, discussions and recommendations EVENTS ........................................................78
Out and about in the windy season
TRIUMPH T120R..........................................70
The oil-in-frame 650 Bonnie can cost half the price of an earlier T120R incarnation. But does that mean the later model is only half as good? Paul Henshaw takes one for a quick spin to find out
READERS’FREE ADS ....................................90
MOTO GUZZI SP REVIVAL...........................86
This month PUB enjoys a ‘meals on wheels’ service from Australia, visits the Kop Hill hillclimb, and realises that she is beset by having too many projects on the go…
A few interesting machines this time, including one of Frank’s old motorcycles… PUB TALK ...................................................108
Many old bikes apparently ‘just need recommissioning’. But what exactly does that involve? Nolan Woodbury returns a laid-up 1980 Spada 1000 to the road, and suggests techniques and tips to help revitalise Guzzi’s two-valve big twins
TALES FROM THE SHED .............................108
Busy busy busy. Winter draws on, winter wheels get prepped for the big soggy time ahead!
BSA TRACKER PROJECT ..............................96
In a tale of two tanks (or possibly three), we discover that fortune favours the man who builds bikes out of rusty old leftovers. Mostly. Odgie’s A65 needs a petrol tank, and the Cosmic Supply Co does its stuff
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P114
TODAY & SAVE
WHO’S DONE WHAT REALCLASSIC clattered into action this issue, fired up by Rowena Hoseason and Frank Westworth of The Cosmic Bike Co Ltd, and Mike Baumber, Kelvin Clements and rest of the Mortons production team at Horncastle Heaps more bike features are posted throughout the month 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 pg114. 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 the LUCIFER graphic novels (heavyweight literary stuff ); THE MAN WHO DIED (delicate Scandi noir); HOW TO REMOVE A BRAIN (silly snippets of medical mayhem); CHANCE (a clever and complicated Californian psyche-thriller); FIRERAISER (excellent Scandi guessing game), and CERTAIN SIGNS THAT YOU ARE DEAD (same author, Torkil Damhaug, same series, read by accident out of sequence). MEANWHILE AT THE MOVIES we’ve seen heaps but nothing beats BLADE RUNNER 2049. That might actually be the best movie of everness. Certainly Harrison Ford’s best performance since… birth. Wows RealClassic is published monthly by MMG Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, LN9 6LZ, UK. USA SUBSCRIPTIONS are $58 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI. 54921. Postmaster: Send USA address changes to RealClassic, Motorsport Publications LLC, 715-572-4595 chris@ classicbikebooks.com
FROM THE FRONT It always feels somewhat churlish when I decline the opportunity to ride in company. The truth is that I much prefer to ride on my own, and always suggest to friends that we meet up at a convenient hot spot for a drop of tea, coffee, prune juice or whatever tickles their throats. Hence an abiding and no doubt tedious familiarity with OK Diners, Little Chefs and indeed layby ‘coffee’ halts. I rode in lots of organised jaunts – usually club runs and the like – for many years, and although they were always an entertainment of sorts I rarely actually enjoyed the experience. This isn’t down to my being unsociable. Simply that I prefer to ride at my own speed and in my own rhythms. The latter is important – at least to me. I have a way of riding honed by desperate formative years misspent in the saddles of a weary stream of motorcycles which boasted hardly any Go, precious little Stop and nothing in the way of Grip – tyres were made of sterner stuff then, and were rarely improved by a decade or two of disuse. So I learned to ride in a very old-fashioned way, accelerating and braking gently and taking wide lines around corners, slowing down as little as possible and leaving plenty of escape route for when the tyres began to slide. Which of course they rarely do nowadays, but old habits die hard. And in any case, I enjoy riding at my own pace and on my own, rather than trying to second-guess some maniac who brakes hard for every corner and scorches off into the distance as though rocket propelled. And we won’t even mention those who ride even more sedately than I do – plainly they’re on medication or something. However, even old dogs can be taken by surprise. I’d asked for a test ride – a decent duration please – aboard a modern machine, a machine I’m considering for next year’s guaranteed heatwave riding season, and not in any sense sensibly priced. The salesman revealed that they preferred their test rides to be accompanied, and I have no problem with that, I simply suggested that I ride in the cardigan and slippers way rather than the technicolour leathers and aero helmet
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style, and would prefer it if my new riding companion rode at a sensible speed. My, how we laughed. Off we went, me struggling with an entirely unfamiliar riding position and control positioning, my companion mounted aboard a vast touring behemoth complete with fairings, panniers and the like. After a succession of industrial estates and suburban dreamscapes, we hit the country roads and the pace increased. Out across the wide open, windblown (this was gale month) Somerset levels, he was sticking to all speed restrictions apart from the national ones, which were apparently flexible. He rode excellently, positioned himself perfectly for every junction, every serious bend, signalling his intentions plainly and going Very Fast Indeed in places. It was a brilliant ride. I would have happily followed him for miles more. We shared a faintly embarrassing moment of hand-slapping elation when we got back, and Rowena was entertained by my idiot grin. What fun! What an effective way to sell a new motorcycle! Maybe I should ride with others more often? Hmmm… Ride safely Frank Westworth Frank@realclassic.net
THE NEXT ISSUE
RC164 WILL BE PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 4th, AND SHOULD REACH UK SUBSCRIBERS BY DECEMBER 8th
BSA’s beefy B50 is impressive enough in standard spec, but Ace Tester Miles has outdone himself with this example – perhaps the ultimate unit siingle… Photos by Paul Miles / RC RChive
6 I NOVEMBER 2017
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BSA B50SS
L
ike you, I’ve been enjoying the regular ‘Tales From The Shed’ updates over the last thirty years as Frank effortlessly fettles a BSA unit single. But, when the opportunity arises to try one that’s actually working, it seemed the right thing to do. We are aware from FW’s exploits that they neither start, nor stop, can be rusty and oily at the same time, quite a feat and if, by chance, it ever actually starts, bits will fall off. Then again, there’s always this one instead. Introduced as the 250cc BSA C15, way back in 1958, itself the child of Turner’s 150cc Triumph Terrier, the unit single was to become a mainstay of the Birmingham Small Arms company right up to their demise in 1972. During that long production run the basic concept had been tweaked and manipulated, shoehorned into a variety of chassis designs and stretched in capacity up to a full half litre, culminating
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in a super sports model wholly deserving of the hallowed name Gold Star. Quite a journey for a machine with such humble beginnings. Hold on a minute, did I just write ‘Gold Star’? Did they really dare to associate an overblown commuter with one of the most iconic machines ever built? In bored and stroked form, the 441cc single proved a potent weapon in motocross and logic suggested a full 500 might be the power unit to replace the ageing and heavy Gold Star engine and gearbox, but the original design had reached the end of its development with the 441cc Victor. Bottom end failures were commonplace, so the motor was completely redesigned with a three bearing crank, new rod and oil pump. The subsequent 84 x 90mm, 499cc single produced a healthy 38bhp in B50MX form, just two horsepower down on the Gold Star and in a much lighter package. But fourstrokes were dying in motocross, smoked out by the stinkwheels. Racing’s loss was our gain, however, and in 1971 the BSA line-up included three B50 variants: an off-road MX, a dual sport B50T and the stunning street-
NOVEMBER 2017 I 7
An astounding amount of effort has gone into producing what must surely be one of the very best B50s on the planet
Apart from the rather larger top end, one of the instant identifiers of the 500 single is the hefty engine breather: that big piston displaces a lot of air as it travels downwards
Well? Is It? Is it really worthy of the Gold Star moniker? What do you think?
scrambler B50SS you see on these pages. The B50 was festooned with Umberslade innovations (really) like engine oil kept in the frame, rather than a tank, new fork design and 8� conical hub braking, as well as needle roller swinging arm bearings and superb snail cam adjusters for the final drive chain. The resultant 34bhp single weighed a mere 141kg and promised to be far more than just a tarted up commuter. Even so, is it really deserving of the Gold Star name, or were BSA by now doing anything they could to drive sales, including shamelessly plundering their heritage? The builder of this very fine example really wanted to find out for himself and purchased a relatively unmolested example in stock condition. As an engineer working abroad for long stretches at a time, he found himself with a lot of time to ponder upon the shortcomings of this two-seasons-only model and to consider any upgrades or refinements that might improve the reliability of this, the last BSA single. And improve it, he did. Intolerant, as only engineers can be, of oil
leaks, poor electrics and general unreliability, he set to building the ultimate BSA single. It retains a broadly standard silhouette, but has been blessed with every conceivable proven upgrade. Scouring the unit single forums, for both road and racing, the decision was made to rebuild the motor. All the mating surfaces were machined absolutely true, casings were polished and the internals replaced with proven products from Carrillo and Hepolite. The entire valve train was upgraded and additional breathers installed. A full flow oil filter and an OIF frame modification to allow all the oil in the frame to circulate freely helps with cooler running. The electrics received similar treatment, with a bespoke loom, relocating essential items to less exposed positions, replacing every bulb and holder with vibration-proof
LEDs and the fitment of multi-function electronic instruments to replace the mechanical speedometer. Every nut and bolt became stainless or was re-plated, while the replacement for the rot-prone exhaust was ceramic coated black to obviate future painting requirements. Eventually, he had a beautiful, almost stock-looking, oil-tight BSA with fully working, reliable electrics. What’s left? Oh yes, starting it. The unit singles were notoriously difficult to fire up, even when brand new, let alone nearly half a century on. Out went the points and standard carburettor, to be replaced with a Tri-sparkk ignition, lithium battery and Amal Premier concentric. Refine it all on a dyno and you should end up with the ultimate BSA unit single. It certainly looks nice, sitting on its (optional) centrestand. There’s no choke fitted, so starting involved a tickle, easing well over TDC then kicking through without
8 I NOVEMBER 2017
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BSA B50SS
Despite their unenviable reputation as endlessly awful starters, Ace Tester Miles found kicking up his B50 to be easy
OR HOW ABOUT…
Following the demise of BSA, the surviving brains of the British motorcycle industry must have thought they were on to something as 1973 saw the release of the Triumph TR5T Adventurer. It retained the essence of the B50’s OIF chassis, complete with cam adjusters, but the long-serving unit single had been replacement by the equally ancient Triumph 500 twin engine, in detuned form. Now held in high regard by collectors, the later twin is mostly inferior to its singular cousin. At 159kg, it’s nearly three stone lardier and the measly 30bhp propelling this dessert-loving sled is some four ponies less than the B50. Styling wise, they are very similar, right down to the different (yet somehow equally ghastly) exhausts. To
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some extent it comes down to whether you prefer the engine characteristics of a single or twin, where brand loyalties may lie and whether your starting technique is sufficient to cope with a halflitre, high compression single, or not. Personally, I’ve yet to encounter a version of a bike that’s both heavier and less powerful which I prefer to the original. Lightweight and potent – the Gold Star way!
NOVEMBER 2017 I 9
Many are those who deride the large, heavy, black and very effective silencers. Others applaud them, possibly for the same reason.
touching the throttle. It started first kick, just like that. Even more of a surprise was the idle; it ticked over as steadily as a fuelinjected four. The featherweight clutch and slick gearbox hinted at few problems and a pre-flight electrics check confirmed that even the indicators were working! I switched it off. I started it again. And again. Keeping to a strictly local route and planning only to stop at the very top of steep, bump-start friendly hills for photographs, I ventured out. The ‘Goldie’ proved a lusty
and willing performer, albeit one without the heavy flywheel punch of a real Gold Star (there, I’ve said it). One thing I’d change was the final gearing, however. The engineer had fitted the largest front sprocket available in an effort to reduce vibration at higher road speeds. That it does, but too often I found myself either screaming the engine in a low gear, or lugging through a high ratio when coming out of many corners as I blasted down a twisty road. Notwithstanding, this is a perfect bike for tight, sinuous roads.
With its comfortable, commanding riding position and torque laden throttle response, the biggest single was in its element. Find a fast A-road and 70mph is quite possible, but much over that and vibration became intrusive. I stopped for photographs and admired the valley far below. ‘Never trust an engineer’ is my motto. Ten minutes later, with a hot, but still impressively oil-tight engine, I kick started the bike again. Nothing. I tried again, still nothing. Recalling this modern Gold Star
Two treats in this pic. First comes the excellent and efficient cam method of rear chain adjustment. Simple, effective and very easy. It’s almost impossible to get the wheel out of alignment. Second, observe the large and useful oil filter. It is impossible to filter oil too much
Aftermarket electronic dials replace the chronometric originals, and the light and switch array on the MCH66 headlamp is interesting too
As well as the rumour that the B50 can be tough to start, there’s a similar rumour that they can be reluctant to stop. The (in)famous conical hub, complete with 2ls brake. Some work very well, others less so
10 I NOVEMBER 2017
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BSA B50SS
WHAT THE PAPERS SAID ➤ AT THE END OF six hours we had
covered a total of 417 miles, for an average of 69.5mph, including stops. If we hadn’t lost time when we ran out of gas, our average would have been 70-plus ➤ FOR THE OLD-TIMER who used to ride a single, and the younger rider who never had the pleasure, the new Gold Star should be a welcome change in their lives ➤ THE TRANSMISSION worked quite well, though some extra care was required compared with other constant mesh units. Gear ratios were well suited to the engine’s power band which is quite broad ➤ THE FOOTPEGS are too far forward. This is an extremely uncomfortable position… we feel they should be moved a minimum of four inches back. The pivot leverage for both the foot brake and the shift lever are very awkward ➤ THE ENGINE HAS plenty of torque, and is intended to be shifted at relatively low rpms. By the same measure, the compression deceleration is considerable; so much so that some care must be taken when downshifting at high speeds. The back wheel can be broken loose, causing the rear end to skid on turns ➤ THE BRAKES PERFORMED very well and we gave them hard use. They showed no tendency to fade or grab and seemed to improve throughout the day ➤ THE ENGINE performed flawlessly, except for an occasional tendency to detonate when running flat out down long straights. Despite the considerable torque of the engine, the 30lb difference in the weight of the two riders was enough to affect acceleration out of the corners… and the lighter rider’s speed through the trap was a consistent 7mph faster than the heavier rider ➤ THE BSA GOLD STAR rates very highly on an overall index of quality, design and performance. It’s the only big bore four-stroke single left on the market Cycle Guide, 1971
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NOVEMBER 2017 I 11
has an ignition key, unlike the antiquated preunit rubbish, I tried once more with the key turned. It fired up first kick; no need to push it down the hill, after all. We thumped to a show, the throng gathered under a cloudless sky. The Gold Star Owners’ Club were there in force, of course. They told me how unreliable these bikes were, not worthy of the name, etc. ‘Almost impossible to start, those.’ From a Gold Star owner. Oh! The irony. The punters loved it, especially younger riders. I was asked, more than once, if it was new. Better than, I replied, smiling. At the end of the show the real Goldie owners left en masse, except one that wouldn’t fire up. I gave him a push before firing up the B50 with a nonchalant single prod. ‘You should bring that along to our next event,’ said the grateful Goldie man. High praise indeed. I really enjoyed my time with this, the last BSA single. In 500 form the upgraded motor is validated as a significant step forward from the highly-stressed 441 Victor. It proves that the concept, developed all those years ago, was sound, and demonstrates what can be achieved if you approach a rebuild with an unlimited budget and resources. I’m told that in excess of nine thousand pounds was required to buy and transform this example, although its retail value is likely to be less. It dropped no oil and starting never proved to be an issue, although some technique was required.
12 I NOVEMBER 2017
BSA B50SS FACT PACK
The street scrambler look is very current right now; hideous exhaust aside, I can’t help but think a bike such as this would be a sales success even today. Is it deserving of the Gold Star moniker on the side panel? Hmm, I’m not sure it even needs it. The two engines feel fundamentally different in the way they produce power, and these motorcycles deliver a totally dissimilar riding experience. I’d have gone with some sort of FIM motocross tie-in, personally, perhaps the B50 FIM Crosser, or somesuch. Frank should really get on and finish his unit single, I can highly recommend them.
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Engine
Air-cooled ohv four-stroke single
Bore / stroke
84mm x 90mm
Capacity
499cc
Compression
10:1
Power
34bhp @ 6200rpm
Torque
28ft/lb @ 5000epm
Ignition
Alternator / coil
Carburetion
30mm Amal Concentric
Lubrication
Dry sump
Gearbox
4-speed constant mesh
Clutch
Wet, multi-plate
Frame
Tubular, single cradle
Front suspension
Slimline oil-damped tele forks
Rear suspension
Swinging arm, twin shocks
Front brake
8-inch 2ls conical hub drum
Rear brake
7-inch sls drum
Front tyre
3.25 x 18
Rear tyre
3.50 x 18
Wheelbase
54 inches
Ground clearance
7 inches
Saddle height
32 inches
Dry weight
310lb
Acceleration
0 to 60mph in 7.9 seconds
Acceleration
16.05 second standing quarter mile
Braking
29.6ft from 30mph
Top speed
92.5mph Ready for the road…