PROJECT EXCELSIOR
When is a motorcycle not a motorcycle? When it doesn’t have any wheels. This month Rick and Lewis rectified that with a bit of help from an old friend
The project turns the corner as the wheels are rebuilt
Iknow some restorers who won’t begin reassembly until everything is laid out ready: gleaming enamel, dazzling chrome, polished aluminium, serried ranks of nuts and bolts... Call me immature, but I can’t be that disciplined. I like the regular hits of excitement I get from reaching each stage of completeness. Fitting the forks and – crucially – the handlebars; putting the rebuilt engine back into the frame...
But surely the big one is the wheels. The clue is in the word – ‘motor-cycle’, an engine on wheels. Fitting the wheels is the point at which, for me, any rebuild really turns the corner. The only trouble with the Excelsior was that we didn’t have any wheels. Well, we did – but as it arrived, the rear rim was rusted through and the front was missing altogether.
It would have been easier if we’d had both, however rotted. Rusty parts may look fit for the skip, but they contain much useful information. Although it was in desperate condition, the rear rim revealed width and diameter as well as the spoke angles and lengths – information we’d have to work out for ourselves with the front.
The hubs themselves were in pretty good condition. We washed and greased the rear hub ball races and fitted new balls to the cycle-style cup-and-cone front hub. It isn’t easy to find replacement cups and cones, and in cases where these are past saving the easiest solution is to have the hub machined to take ball races, remembering to fit an accurately-sized spacer between to support the inner races.
I was Lewis’s age – 17 – when I met former 50cc racer Maurice Thomas. Back then he was the ‘Mol’ of Molray Engineering in Kent, building wheels while business partner Ray Palmer straightened frames and forks (um, some of them mine!)
That company is now Maidstone Motoliner, run by Ray’s son Tommy and assisted by Maurice’s grandson George, so you might say it’s a family affair. Maurice (01622 202536) sold me the spokes for my first wheel build, which was also for an Excelsior front wheel. He’s still wheel-building today, so it seemed right to ask him to teach Lewis how it’s done.
The front wheel build was complicated by having no spoke samples. I already had a rim, so I decided to sort that one out myself. Lewis had bought the Ensign tyres ready; back in my Excelsior days I had to rely on finding old stock, as narrow 19s were not available in the 1980s, but the Ensign range has usefully filled a lot of gaps. I can see Lewis is getting itchy about having never actually ridden a bike, so that’s going to have to be addressed soon – but we had a load more good luck this month. Not only was I able to salvage the missing bit for Lewis’ speedo drive from a scrap hub, Rudge owner Andy Carlile very generously donated £100. Thanks very much, Andy!
‘FITTING THE WHEELS TURNS THE CORNER’