Model A - work faces

 The Model A has been on the bench a while now and I've been spending time investigating what I've bought and reminding myself of the parts I've made or acquired over the last few years. 

As a man who likes to tinker in his workshop - who doesn't - various work faces have opened up as I've investigated the machine. 

One is the broken dynamo and it's clamp. Removing the dynamo I realised that I didn't understand how it was held in place with only half a strap - pleas to other club members soon yielded a few photographs showing the bits that were missing. 

Taking the dynamo off showed me quite how bad the damage was. Both of the end castings appear to be broken - the drive end is in two pieces and I had to drill out one of the screws, but worse, the armature is actually bent. It looks like it's been dropped on the floor or had a whack from something at some point.

The secondary of investigation is all of the tinware on the drive side. I started with the clutch dome but I have various repairs to do to the primary cover and the dynamo chain cover. 

This led to me looking at the clutch and the gearbox because of course the aperture in the primary cover dictates the movement of the clutch to some extent during the tensioning of the primary chain.

Thinking about the gearbox and it's range of adjustment led me to the gear controls, most of which I have already made. This leads naturally to the fixing of the fuel tank because of course unless the fuel tank is firmly bolted down (and I have new rubbers for that) the gear controls can't be set up. 

If that wasn't enough I've been looking at the front wheel and loosening the spoke nipples. I'm not going to go any further than that though - I was trying to establish whether the front wheel rim could be used or whether it was too far gone. 

The other area I've been looking at is the Lucas H52 headlamp, it's shell, and the mountings. The shell was quite bent and whilst I had the hammers and dollies out to sort out the clutch dome I knocked the dents out of the headlamp shell. It still wouldn't sit straight - it's aligned to the offside - because the mounting bars are also bent...

I think that's enough for now. I promise that I won't take anything else to pieces except perhaps for the gearbox outer cover - the kickstart doesn't seem to work and I can't get first gear!

Model A - primary chain case tinware

 Moving on from the clutch bowl, our 10 bashing activities come to the primary chain case. This is all present and mostly correct but some of the brackets and appendages have been broken and repaired by riveting. 

One thing we mustn't forget when we view this overall shot is that the position of the gearbox rather dictates the position of the primary case in that the primary case aperture for the clutch must accommodate the full range of movement of the gearbox. 

We must also think about the bolt hole for the rear upper chain guard. 

Again this position is dictated by something else - in this case the rear bolt for the chain guard which is fixed to the luggage carrier.

However we can take comfort from the fact that the holes for the foot rest bar, the brake lever and the shock absorber grease nipple at the front are fixed positions, so we can probably weld up the lower rear bracket without too much worry.

 The secondary cover, which protects the dynamo chain is present and in more or less sound condition - it's only missing one of the feet.

The stripped 1/4" CEI stud in this position came out very easily. The bracket is a little bent.

Here's that missing foot:

There's plenty to sort out here!

Model A - Lucas H52 headlamp

The Model A is fitted with a Lucas H52 headlamp which was sold to the industry between 1930 and 1932. It's distinctly different from the lamps that succeeded it as you will see. 

Outwardly the lamp fitted to my Model A looks a bit bashed, and indeed it is. The rim has obviously taken the brunt of a collision, but the nearside mounting is pushed right in as well.

The shell is brass, deeply drawn or spun - it's likely to be hard, so we may have to normalise it to avoid cracking.

To straighten out the front end requires adjusting the headlamp mounting bars and I can't do this with the headlamp bowl bent out of shape. In parallel with the clutch dome I have got out the panel beating hammers and dollies and set about straightening the bowl.

It's a little better in this shot but the near side mounting is still not positioned correctly. You can see the connections panel on the back of the switch here - the H52 has no internal wiring for the headlamp and side lamp but uses this Tufnol panel with sprung copper leaves for connection to the bulbs and ammeter.

Here is the inside of the main switch - it's retained to the Tufnol panel by two brass posts and sleeve nuts. You can see the half charge resistance and the switch in the middle. It's interesting that this switch is clearly a predecessor to the later commonly seen Lucas U39 switch, and you can see how it connects to the Tufnol connector panel from four of the terminal screws and from that central brass plate.

Here is the wiring diagram for the H52 - indeed for the whole bike. I suspect that since the headlamp is the centre of all things electrical, Lucas would have supplied the headlamp with the wiring for the whole bike already installed:

Here's the shell again with the nearside mounting almost correct. I think that to get it much better I will have to remove the rivets, straighten it and replace it with new rivets - these are round head copper rivets quite easily available.

There's also a flat on the shell around 2 o'clock.

The view from above shows that it is a bit better than before. We will need to buy a new rim and a new glass, but we will keep the old reflector. We will probably use one of the LED headlamp bulbs with an integral lens which doesn't use the reflector at all - I've got one of these on the W/NG and they're quite effective.

These bits are available from Jiri Horace at https://www.vintage-replica.com in the Czech Republic, so when we have a better handle what everything we could buy from him we will send an order.

Model A - clutch dome

 The clutch dome from the Model A has been full of dents since I've had it, and is also split - it looks like someone put a screwdriver through it at some stage. Since I have the sheet metal working tools out today sorting out some of the dents in the Lucas H52 headlamp, we'll have a go at the clutch dome.

I took out the largest dent on the sandbag before I took this picture but essentially this is the before shot.

Half an hour with stakes, dollies and hammers had it at this stage, though I don't think it's very different, at least visually. We'll do some more.

Getting there?

Model A - headlamp supports

 Well I guess you have to start somewhere. Looking around the bike I realised that the headlamp supports - which are just bits of flat bar - weren't fitted correctly, and one of them was very bent. 

Take a look:

The other side was upside down as well, but not as bent as this. This is how it is supposed to fit:

Here it is again, after I have done most of the straightening work on the headlamp bowl. The riveted mounts on either side are now in the correct place and I have straightened the nearside lower headlamp mounting bar.

It's still not sitting centrally though - the headlamp mounting bars don't match: the near side is more straight than the offside pushing the shell towards the offside. I will have to look at some pictures and try again. The top bars aren't helping either:

The top headlamp mounts seem to be usually fitted outside of the ears on the forks, and outside of the lower mounts at the headlamp. 

Model A - valve caps

 A post on the club Facebook page and a chance conversation with the Black Ariel spares officer has me looking at the valve caps on the Model A.

A fellow member was struggling to remove the exhaust valve cap on the club 1928 machine and ended up taking it off in pieces. I thought I would have a go with the club spanner I bought a few years ago:

The inlet cap came off quite easily - the exhaust cap is still refusing to move!