FROM THE FRONT
A good friend has finally fired up the Norton Commando he’s been building for quite a while. He was so excited by it all that he sent me a recording of the thing clattering like a road drill (even modern technology has its limits in the sound transmission stakes, apparently). The rebuild took a while, because he started from something of a horror story, but the bike’s a runner, and is red instead of black, so two stones, one bird. Or something like that.
What is it about the first start-up of a bike we’ve built ourselves? I’ve never been sufficiently excited to actually record one – and the B25SS sounds soppy through that big fat lozenge silencer – but it is certainly a thrill when the lump finally blasts into life. In my case, it’s also usually a surprise.
Speaking personally, the first thing I do is whip off the oil tank cap to check that the lube is returning as it should. With my own last rebuild – a Matchless G80 – that was also a minor concern because it has a gear oil pump and the oil return seemed to take an absolute age before getting down to the familiar series of squirts rather than a highpressure constant jet. But it did … eventually.
Next comes the time to see whether the charging circuit is doing what its makers claim it does. Again, I generally replace alternators and have dynamos rebuilt by Someone Who Can, as well as replacing the ancient voltage control boxes with modern equivalents – which work entirely by magic, as you know, so demand especial attention and curses if they’re going to function as they should.
By the time all that’s been done, things should be nice and warm, so it’s time to consider the size of the inevitable oil leak, and to investigate whether the engine has a tickover of any kind. Some do, some don’t. A minor mystery which has followed me down the very many years is how tickovers can be so elusive and how they can quite suddenly appear by that same magic, leaving me standing with both hands by my side while the engine chuffs away all on its own. In the case of the Matchless, it did that for a while, then stalled and refused to restart. I blame modern fuel, or air, or modern electricity, or…
There’s something about a first start that is almost impossible to explain to those who don’t share our peculiar enthusiasm. I mailed a friend when that Matchless fired up, an email packed with modest happiness. He replied that he’d just got in from a decent ride on his (classic, allegedly) Honda and that it always starts on the button, first time every time, so what was I on about? And although I did understand what he was saying, I felt strangely sad that his life didn’t include than minor madness of that first start-up.
But then… after the first start-up comes the first ride, and that is another milestone moment, no? But which is the better? First start or first ride?
Ride safely