Friday, March 1, 2024

Cranberry Flywheelers Ice Breaker 2024

Took a drive last Sunday morning to the Cranberry Flywheelers Ice Breaker in Hanson MA.  It's always quite peaceful going to Plymouth county in the morning and it brings back good memories for me as I would ride out to visit  my good friend Floyd Garrett, who has since passed.  A bit too cool to ride the old bike so I took the car. The lot at Ferry's was quite busy for a Sunday in fact it was almost too full! After parking at the end of the lot I walked down to the front and was greeted not by one but two Rovers this year!  Not much in the way of hit and miss engines on display but there was still things to catch your interest. Most of the morning I was busy checking out Tom's working models while the Flywheeler's had their meeting.  After the meeting was over I took a quick spin up the street and checked out Jack's collection of oddities.  Here are a few pictures from the day. 








 

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Singers sewing machines...

I had noticed that Ed G. had put a few pictures of his Singer industrial sewing machine up on the blog.  feeling inspired I thought to put a few pictures of the machines here in my shop for those that might find it interesting. Though currently these machines are somewhat buried under motorcycle bits until the winter digout.






 

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

We're still here!

 Busy, busy and busy!  We've been doing a bit of aerial photography these past few months when not working behind a video camera setup.  



Sunday, March 12, 2023

1970 Velocette Thruxton recommissioning

This week saw me back into the shop after a small hiatus. The thought of finishing up the fork leg both inspired me but also put me on reservation.  It's been a few years since tackling a Velo front end. There are some peculiar points to keep in mind. 

The last job was re-soldering  the fork leg. Next was to repaint. My approach may not be what you would consider to be usual. Most people would either take the parts to a paint shop or pull out the aerosol cans and give it a whack.  The cost and time for a paint shop is out of the picture for me and with it still being below the 50's in Fahrenheit, aerosols are also out of the picture. I've done the oil tank and forks on the scrambler with brush with good results, so it should be ok here too. The idea is to keep within an older approach to repairs; easy, simple methods that are reproduceable. Everyone has a brush.


The first set was to get the primer coat on. I did two coats with light sanding in between each. The sanding is a regular theme in brush painting parts.


The final color was done in four thin coats, each coat is wet sanded to remove dust and level out the overall finish. I'm not looking for perfect, just a respectable finish that blends in with the original finish.


A few pictures of the final finish after wet sanding, buffing and waxing. The picture below is a final comparison of the original Thruxton leg on the lower right and the repaired and painted leg on the upper left.


Once the leg was painted and had a few more days to 'cure', the assembly began by removing the fork tube from the triple clamp, stripping off the spring and spring holder. I also needed to  remove both upper and lower bushings so as to replace the fork seal.  Fork seals are the same as BSA C15 seals for note.  I could slide the fork seal and upper bushing down from the top of the fork tube making it easier to use the home made driver. It's possible that some fork tubes will not allow you to do this, in which you would need to in stall the spring holder, spring, fork seal and then the upper bush plus use a two piece driver tool to install your upper bush into the leg followed by the seal. It's a good idea to draw out and give your self a good looking at before you install. Another item to install is the damper assembly into the bottom of the fork leg. It could be done later, but as you can see in the picture; it's the easiest way to make sure of it being centered. 





Once the fork assembly is ready, it's time to begin the fitting into the triple clamp setup. The spacer/spring holder might be a very tight fit into the lower triple clamp. With a wedge expanding the pinch opening I used a brake hone to clean up the surface and make it slightly wider. On the spring holder Ed G. suggested to use a file and lightly reduce it's diameter. Since it wasn't too far off I used the interference marks as an indicator as to where to file.








Monday, February 13, 2023

1970 Velocette Thruxton recommissioning


 So after feeling energized from a short but successful jaunt around town on the old beemer, I thought that it might be best to get back into the Thruxton project.  It's been over two week since I've done anything to it.  There was the matter of finding flux and proper soft solder and the time to get to it.  Most of the past few weeks was spent studying for a unmanned aircraft certificate, which I did get.

Ray said he would be down at the shop after his Worcester trip. So I packed up all the bits, solder, flux and gloves to head to toy shop east.  Ray was in the back with a couple of old timers. The torch was ready by the bench vise, I just set right to it. First step was to give it a quick rub with emery cloth both the outside of the tube and inside of the casting.  Next step was to use a brush to apply the flux  before an initial tinning of the components. 


After this point a put the casting in the vice, axle stub section and did the tinning to the inside of the casting. Tinning the inside to the casting was a tad challenging. From that point I realigned the casting  vertical and added more heat while sliding the tube back in. The questionable part was knowing when there was enough solder in the joint. I would keep adding until it looked to have a good bead and the stop. But it was cooling slower, allowing the solder to continue to flow back out the bottom. So I heat a bit more, add more solder and so on.  After a bit It seemed that the trick is to feather your heat and solder towards the end of the job.  

I gave Ed G. at toy shop West a quick call just to confirm my thoughts, it was an affirmative. After it had cooled I packed it up to head back home shop where it would be finished up. A small, last little chore before paint will be to clean up the seat bottom inside of the casting. I've removed all of the extra bits of solder that seeped into the bottom of the casting and re-tapped the drain plug hole 1/4 -28. 




When it's time to reassemble the whole unit, I will revert to my post a few years back when I replaced the lower leg on my 63 MSS 

Out on the old beemer


 The weather seemed good enough to take the old 90 for a run today. It's been awhile since I ridden it or much of anything this year. Even though there was decent weather on new years, my  motivation wasn't. But I figured that with this somewhat cool New England mild winter, that it would be best to get out for a spell, maybe even get some errands done in the process.



In with the fresh battery that I bought last fall from Kaptain Kaos and off we go. Nice to see that the beemer is still so compliant, fired up without much fuss.  After a bit of warm up we were set to ride. A bonus was that I had filled it's tank in preparation of a New Years ride. 

After the few quick errands in and around town, I took a short trip to see how my shoulder would be this season. It's been an issue for quite some time now. Not too many miles before it began to act up but it was great to ride the old beemer! Next year it'll be with me thirty years. Hopefully I'd like to get another 20 in.  Ok, thinking of you guys while out there. ( Dunc, Tim, Mike, and Chip)  
Still so many that aren't out there with us; welp, this was a ride for them too. Miss you guys.