RUDGE PROJECT

Rick’s found another soulmate. Someone who found a Rudge for an affordable price who wants to turn it into a working bike, just like he did. Of course, it was in boxes. Time to start another rebuild...

Rick embarks on a new restoration project – a Rudge (or a box of Rudge bits...)

Ilusted after a Rudge Ulster back in my teens, but it was not until spring 2014 that one finally came my way. My friend Keith Burdon in Scotland was selling a 1936 Ulster project to fund another purchase. Keith had rebuilt the engine and although there was too much missing to build an ‘original’ bike, it presented the perfect excuse to build a period café racer. The project cost me £3500 and I spent about another £500 building it into the bike I wanted, so it cost me about half the going rate for a complete bike.

Ben Moor did even better. He lives up in Inverness and was looking for his first really old bike, something that would pull a sidecar to run errands around the Highlands – but it was costlier than he realised. Finding that even post-war bikes like BSA M21s were fetching £3500-plus, it looked like he would have to think again. But before giving up, he tried putting a ‘wanted’ ad in the local paper; incredibly he was offered a 1937 Rudge Special in bits for £1000.

Ben contacted me to see if I would be interested in putting the bike together for him as a Classic Bike project – and having successfully got my bike up and running, I felt I had learned enough to take it on.

It looked interesting. Old photos among the paperwork showed that probably around 30 years ago the bike had been complete and in good, original condition – but that’s no guarantee. From what I can make out, my bike was complete around that time, too – but it had been broken up and it was a near miracle that I ended up with the matching engine and frame. With the former owner of Ben’s bike having died, who knows what parts may have been sent away for repair, paint or plating that were still sitting unclaimed on a shelf somewhere?

So the first job was to make use of my new-found Rudge knowledge to sort Ben’s stuff into three piles: bits for the Project Rudge, spare Rudge bits and bits off other bikes. Having identified the parts for the project, I then went through to make some assessment of what we had to build Ben’s bike. You’ll see the results over the page.

So what’s the plan? Well, Ben is on a limited budget and isn’t fussed about cosmetics, so – as with my bike – it will be a rough and ready paint job and we’ll save the budget for anything needed on the engine, gearbox and electrics.

I really like the fact that Ben plans to use the bike as a working combination. My job is to make sure it will be up to the job...