BSA TRACKER PROJECT
In a tale of two tanks (or possibly three), we discover that fortune favours the man who builds bikes out of rusty old leftovers. Mostly. Odgie’s A65 needs a petrol tank, and the Cosmic Supply Co does its stuff
In a tale of two tanks (or possibly three), we discover that fortune favours the man who builds bikes out of rusty old leftovers. Mostly. Odgie’s A65 needs a petrol tank, and the Cosmic Supply Co does its stuff
Regular readers will be aware of my philosophy when building bikes. I take great pleasure in finding old secondhand parts, bits of scrap, junk from charity shops and anything I come across really, and turning it all eventually into a well functioning motorcycle. As an old hippie I approve of recycling – save the planet, man – so giving things a new lease of life is right up my street. It also makes my motorcycles cheap to build, which is a Good Thing as I rarely have too much in the way of money.
So I generally have a selection of oddball bits and pieces around me – when I do come across them I squirrel them away in the big Dressing Up Box, and whenever a new project starts I empty it out and see what might be useful. But I’m also incredibly lucky as well. Once a project is underway, the things I need seem to just materialise somehow. When I needed seat covering for a vintage car I was building, I found a brown leather settee right by the side of the road half a mile from the shed. An old unidentified piston my mate Billy picked up from in front of his feet fitted the Zenster perfectly when I was telling him I was stuck for one. I could fill this entire article with similar stories, stretching back decades. I’ve even picked things up from the gutter when crossing the road which have found their way onto bike projects. Maybe there’s more to 35 years of meditation than meets the eye. When I very first started I was told it would lead to increased ‘world help’, but to be honest I don’t question the how or why, I just appreciate the circumstances.
I’d had an old fibreglass tank at the back of the Dressing Up Shelf for donkey’s years now, I’d long forgotten where it came from. I figured it was an aftermarket one, I’d never even looked at it closely, but I thought I might use it on this project, although the back end was a little high and wide. Dragging it out and getting all the old maroon paint off with thinners I realised it was a genuine BSA Hornet one.
It was carrying some repairs and would be useless as a tank for modern fuels anyway, so I was all set to start cutting it to pieces when our kid tried to stay my hand by telling me he had something similar down his unit I could have. It turned out to be an old fibreglass shell someone had made, very similar to an original BSA but – and here’s the thing – lower and narrower at the back! Sometime, somewhere, someone had obviously thought the same about the standard tank as me and had a go at making a smaller one, and rather magically the results had eventually ended up in my hands. So far, so cosmic. Man.
Then I was telling my mate Steve Parker about my plans to make a steel liner to go under the fibreglass cover. We were stood chatting in his workshop, and without moving his feet a single inch he simply reached up into the rafters and pulled down an old Montesa trials bike tank (which as it happens sat under a fibreglass cover on the original bike).
‘Here,’ he said, ‘You can have this if it’s any good to you.’
It turned out to be perfect. As the old saying goes, better to be lucky than good looking...