Buyer Beware

I was asked to have a look at a friend’s father’s bike recently. I met my friend when he asked me to have a look at a Velo he had recently purchased (I’ve been playing with Velos since the 60s). It had been through someone else’s hands since it was built as a very trick race bike and had a few problems, but not too bad and it got sorted pretty well. I was then asked to look at his dad’s AJS that they had bought at a swap meet in Victoria. I’m not a swap meet person, been to a few but just as a browser. My impressions are of some good deals and some dodgy deals.

There’s all sorts of people who love classic bikes, some are mechanically minded and some aren’t.

I’ve not worked on AJ’s before but have learnt a fair bit with this one. It’s been made with parts from different years, not unusual and not a great problem, as long as the person who built it has experience and pride in what they do, and not just chuck bits together to make a sale (I think I look at things through rose-coloured glasses). This bike looks nice and I got it to start and idle well without oil going everywhere but it had a number of issues including