TALES FROM THE SHED
It's a thrill-a-minute as frank drills holes for parts which don't fit and uncovers a mystery or two
Imiss autojumbles. No no, do not laugh: I really do. And increasingly so, as my stocks of old junk are used up failing to fix the various ruins heading for resurrection here in lockupland. The latest completely common and completely unavailable part is a switch: the noble Lucas 31563, as fitted to lots of machines in the mid-late 1960s. I had expected that there would be no problem sourcing a replacement for the mildly destroyed item on my not-forproject AJS. But no. Or rather… there are loads available, but they’re all pattern, a few claiming to be otherwise, but in fact they are all pattern items. And they do not fit properly.
Time was that a chap could pass many a happy hour scouring those wobbly trestle tables at a jumble or two, feeling fairly confident that he could turn up a useable used item eventually. I have a couple which I acquired that way, but unhappily both of them have a disconnection somewhere inside their insides and no longer switch electrical magic from place to place. And they don’t dismantle.
There were usually a couple of well-known types at jumbles who always carried costly but original used electricals, but as I never anticipated being unable to go and buy bits I didn’t make a note of their contact details. So it goes. Instead – as I mentioned last time – I bought a replacement unit which looked most like the original. The illustration revealed that its wiring colour-coding was correct for my AJS, and that the bullets were big fat imperial types rather than the rather more slender metric affairs fitted to lots of pattern parts. These simply do not fit the connectors, and as the diameter of the wires is usually too small for me to want to solder on new bullets, I’d prefer not to use them.
The new switch works fine. Its bullets are
the right size, it has a lead so long it must have been intended to fit a US machine with optional apehangers, and it even came with a pair of what look like 2BA screws to mount it to the handlebar. But it’s nothing like the correct curvature to fit the bar. Only when I removed the old broken switch did I recognise that it too isn’t an original, and in fact it looks quite like my new one.
It’s very easy to lose hours of Shedtime pratting about with things like this, isn’t it? And although it’s easy to get all of a gloomed about being compelled to mostly stay at home, in fact the Cornish climes have been so unfriendly that I doubt I would have used a bike much anyway so far this year.
Decision made! The decent replacement switch will do until I can locate an original. Even if fitting it involves some minor violence so that the switch and its little rubber pad are forced a little closer to the bar’s curvature. And I can drill a pair of holes to mount it in a less silly position. While I was at it, I decided to move the valve lifter’s lever a little so that it was possible to place the dipswitch control a little less far from where a thumb rests while a human is riding the bike. Of course I don’t have any BA taps so … so I used a pair of nasty self-tappers to locate the switch. Temporarily, of course.
All of which has managed to check that small irritation off my small irritations list. Next? The speedo.
As I commented last time, the reason – hopefully the only reason – the speedo fails to waggle its needle in an encouraging way is because there’s something wrong with the drive from the rear wheel. Which of course means that the wheel needs to come out so I can investigate further. An easy job. Some folk are critical of AMC’S decision to replace the Teledraulic fork with Roadholders for 1964, but I have never been among them. As well as fitting the Norton front wheel, the factory sensibly also fitted the matching rear, complete with one of the most sensible QD arrangements known to man. It really is easy. Remove the three grey plastic grommets, apply a socket to the sleeve nuts behind them and remove them. Then simply withdraw the spindle, drop out the spacer and washer and take out the wheel.
Removing the silencer makes this less of an exercise in muscle development, and only requires undoing two bolts, so I did that too. Not least so that I could give the original but bent silencer a decent dose of polish and preservative.
Those two bolts? Warning lights flash when it becomes clear that they are not AMC original. I worry in a laid-back kind of way about this, whenever I stumble over non-original fastenings on a mostly original machine. I always wonder why? Why remove presumably original fasteners and replace then – as in this case – with the wrong bits? Neither the silencer’s clamp bolt nor the retaining bolt was the right size – and neither had any washer. Neither of the bolt heads fitted any of my spanners, either, which is a little remarkable, given that I have a lot of spanners!
I can reveal that although the silencer is
an original factory cigar, the header pipe is either a pattern replacement or some maniac has sawn off a chunk of the pipe where it feeds into the silencer. Why would someone do that?
But never mind. The speedo drive dropped off suspiciously easily, and it took probably ten seconds to discover why it doesn’t work. It has no innards. Gentle Reader, this is a new experience for me. For a start I wasn’t aware that it was possible to strip down a speedo drive. You live, you learn. Next question: If you were selling a bike for top shilling, would you remove the speedo gearbox’s innards and replace it as a useless piece of junk, or would you simply blow £50 or so on a new gearbox? The latter would make your eventual customer happy, the former … less so.
However, as already revealed, I have a small stock of secondhand old speedo drives, and one of them is almost the correct type. This is why I miss autojumbles. I should have more old speedo drives. Late AMC typically use a 2:1 ratio speedo drive to match their 18-inch wheels, so time was that whenever I spotted such a drive at less than a fiver I’d buy it. And you thought your life had its saddo moments?
There are only two left in the drawer now, but half of those is the right type for the year. Next! Most of the 2:1 drives you’ll find will not fit the Norton wheel spindle. Instead, they are sleeved to suit. My spare is not sleeved. If I use this handsome device as it is, chances are that things will go wrong and I’ll gain another useless broken speedo drive, and a chap can easily have too many of those.
Time to stand at stare at the gutted original drive. Does the sleeve come out without violence, heat and pain? Hard to say, but it certainly doesn’t move if encouraged in a restrained manner by Thor, King of Hammers. Hmmm. Time to consult online oracles to see whether removal is possible or whether I need to locate another correct speedo, complete with a sleeve of its own. Imagine my surprise…
…when I discovered that there is a part number listed for that very sleeve / adaptor; a surprise boosted into the realms of total incredulity by the subsequent discovery that Andover Norton carry them in stock. Ordered online on the Sunday; delivered Wednesday morning. How’s that for service? I offered it up to the drive gearbox and it fits perfectly. What is the world coming to?
Hurrah, so forth. Now to refit the wheel. I gaze around me, feeling what some folk sneerily refer to as a senior moment, wondering where I’d put the wheel. Of course it’s at Ace Mosickles. I dropped it off yesterday
– memory floods back. I even avoided Kenny’s koffee and shared a chuckle with Austen about the spindly-thin 3.25 section rear tyre.
‘Can you get me another 3.25 x 18?’ I’d asked. ‘Preferably a Dunlop K70 – as per the Bakelite bald original – or an Avon SM MKII?’ Conversations as gripping as these should linger long in the most jaded of memories. I wonder if the wheel’s ready yet?
There’s a text from Ace Austen, asking me to call. This is plainly a disaster brewing. I pour myself a medicinal glass of Big Peat, just in case. Guess what? There are no 3.25 – or even 3.50 18-inch rears in the patterns I’d prefer. Instead the tyre supplier suggests a Dunlop K82. I look it up. Blimey, bet that would feel strange. Austen suggests something called an Anlas. I have no idea what it is. He orders one anyway, which seems like a good idea.
How come there are no trad-pattern 18in tyres, suddenly? The tyre on the front of the AJS is a Dunlop and could easily be the 1966 original, so it probably deserves replacing. I like ribbed tyres on the front of AMC machines, with a block-type on the rear. The Matchless CSR which is currently buried under a large pile of promises and good intentions uses the same sized rims – I think – as the AJS. They’re certainly 18-inch at both ends, but because the CSR is a super-sporting rorty-torty twin I’d fitted it with mostly modern Avon Roadriders. These handle very well, allowing the bike to roll around their smooth radii in a manner undreamed of in 1965, although they also reduce the ground clearance a little. Either that or I’ve become more heroic as the years have passed, which does appear less than likely.
Thinking of tyres past is a hazardous pursuit. When I first started riding old bikes (I could only afford old bikes so that was all I rode) I didn’t care what tyres came with them, so long as they carried enough tread for the Motman to pass them. They were various, truly so, and none of them was much use, but they made great practice material for a learner. If you can ride a WD 16H Norton with WD ‘arrow’-stamped tyres dating from 1941 and so tough that they were fine to ride even with no air in them, then you can ride pretty much anything. Mind you, my first Matchless had a John Bull ‘Full Front Grip’ tyre on it, which was lethal in the damp. OK in the wet and the dry, but a light shower? Blimey, as I may have said more than once at the time.
And then of course as money became less tight I habitually fitted new tyres to pretty much all the bikes I bought and intended to ride (which was not all of them, in fact). And those tyres on the old clunkers (as opposed to the modern clunkers) were always as close to original fitment as I could manage.
Until now.
Huh.
I like tall, stiff sidewalls fitted to bicycles which were fitted with them from new. The way things are going, it’ll be Anlas block tread front and rear. Interesting, no? OK, OK…
One of the very many delights of pratting around with an old Ajay – or indeed an old Matchless – is that I get to pester Steven at AMC Classic Spares. I always try to buy some bits, but mainly I’m after advice and encouragement: Steven’s good at both.
I asked him about my bent centrestand. Quick as a flash comes the reply: scaffold pole. This takes me by surprise. I may have swallowed an entire bottle of Staropramen while I recovered. Use a scaffold pole as a centrestand? More information required. Apparently, and to my relief, a scaffold pole is not much use as a stand. However, if the bent stand is removed and placed in a very big vice bolted to a very big bench and if a scaffold pole is applied to the bent leg – usually the left leg – it will bend back again.
You live; you learn. Life is filled with enlightenment. I managed to type that without laughing. Much. In any case,
removing the centrestand with the bike leaning on its sidestand is a procedure fraught with peril. I know this.
More to the point is the occasional misfire, which I may have mentioned before but cannot now remember. Sometimes, and unpredictably, the engine emits a hefty clank and spits back through the carb. It quickly recovers and settles down to its customary polite way of doing things – until it does it again. Which may sound like a minor irritation, but it does not inspire me to ride very far on the bike. Given that there’s no moment in a conventional 4-stroke cycle where the inlet valve is open while the piston is ascending, the only cause I can think of would be the inlet valve sticking in its guide. So, the real reason for my getting in touch with Steven at AMC Classic Spares. All the bits to rebuild the top end were in stock and arrived inside 48 hours.
Inevitably, the fuel system is now leaking. That would be my freshly cleaned, freed-off and re-piped fuel system. I remove the tap and blow through it, open and closed, just to check. It appears to be airtight. It leaks petrol. It’s all too much.
Although I’ve never known one of this type of fuel tap to have a functional reserve slide, I find one in my big box of fuellish things. Both on/off and reserve appear to work fine. I fit it. It leaks petrol. It’s a mystery.
While waiting for the rear wheel to return from that Ace Mosickles experience, I decide that I should perform the little checks and changes that are customary for anyone acquiring an ancient bike they actually want to ride. So I check the swinging arm pivot (a good thing to do with an AMC machine). It is of course bone dry, so I apply the appropriate oil appropriately, then disconnect both rear shocks so I can work the swinging arm bushes to get some oil to them. Repeat until bored. Then the gearbox oil. Is there any? There is, but not much.
AMC thoughtfully provided a level plug on their excellent gearboxes, but there’s no need to disturb it when refilling the box. How so? The bolt is clearly visible through the filler hole, that’s why. I refill the gearbox from an ancient plastic bottle labelled ‘gearbox oil’. It’s hardly likely to be the same tech spec as specified by AMC in 1966, but I am entirely certain that it’s better than nothing. Next, the fork oil.
Oh my. Time to order 20W fork oil, as there was more water than oil in the fork legs. Some modern telescopics claim to use advanced emulsion tech to control their movements, but I have a few doubts that AMC did, or that they rely on atmospheric condensation to provide the watery bits.
And while I was feeling energetic I ordered a replacement battery. Because some keen and enthusiastic previous owner (there was apparently only one) had fitted a modern type of battery and bodged the leads to take connectors to suit – horrible Lucar efforts – at the same time shortening them so there’s insufficient wire available to fit proper connectors and thus a proper battery … I ordered a direct replacement. It arrived. I connected it – electrical skills being at the forefront of my portfolio. Sparks flew and the ammeter showed a fullscale deflection. To the +ve side of the instrument. How?
I removed the battery and replaced it with the old one. It had gone mostly flat over the weekend. But there was no ammeter deflection and the lights still glowed dimly. Thinking about this, I collected the rear wheel and its mysterious new tyre, ready to refit it.
What could possibly go wrong?