Monday 20 March 2017

Tool boxes

As I move along with the resurrection of the W/NG, I've got around to sorting out the toolboxes. They both have the wrong knobs, and they both have stripped threads; additionally, the lower toolbox appears to be in the wrong place since the lid won't open very far...


And if you look at this one, its more or less the same:

 Picture from http://twist-grip.blogspot.co.uk/

You'll notice that none of these bikes have pillion footrests. I don't know when this was taken, but some of these bikes have early toolboxes and some have later toolboxes; None of them have pannier frames though:


The pillion footrests won't let the lid descend even when they are in the 'down' position. You can see the damage to the paint:


With it off, I can see that the tool roll has to be carefully packed to get it in. You can also see the knob thread which someone has drilled out to 9 mm...


10 minutes with the TIG sorted that out...


And here is the other one, from the small tool box - this is just worn. Its set up with a small piece of 1.5 mm sheet closing the hole, with a big copper heatsink underneath to help me weld it up.


The small toolbox also has this sleeve around the knob, riveted into the lid. This is missing from the bigger toolbox.


These tabs are threaded 1/4" CEI. I drilled and tapped these through the knob hole:


Gravity knobs fitted with thackeray washers and dual lock nuts:


So that's it, done. Now I can load up the tool boxes - its quite difficult to get the tools in:


Some of the large toolboxes have a document holder in the lid, and a chain to stop them opening too far. The chains appear from some time in 1942 - the part numbers are the same, but the description in the parts book changes. Not sure whether mine should yet... There is something in the lid of this one, and no chain - you can see from the knobs it's quite an early toolbox (the gravity toolbox knobs appeared in 1942):


Some odd paint marks and brass rivets in the lid of my larger toolbox. The paint marks suggest the shape of the document holder in the period picture above:



Sunday 19 March 2017

Brake Pedal

For some time I have seen the brake pedal above the footrest like this:


It's very difficult to get your foot onto it in that position and quite unnatural. It's caused by the fact that the brake pedal stop is missing, having been replaced by a plain bolt. You can see where the stop used to be, witnessed by the dent in the brake lever:


Its a simple matter to make a new one, out of a 5/16" bolt and a short length of 3/8" round bar, welded together:


This is a genuine Ariel one:


Here it is in place:


This is how the pedal sits now:


Tuesday 14 March 2017

Collecting bits

What do we have here? a camshaft, in much better shape than the one in my SQ4: