It Moves!

And here she is - a rolling motorcycle! You can see if you look carefully that the mudguard is not fitted to the L stays at the rear - the radius is slightly too large and I will have to cut & reweld.

I won't do that however until I am convinced that the front mounts are in the right place, and I need the proper spacers for that.

Tin bashing...

So remember planishing pieces of copper at school? making bowls & beakers surrounded by 30 other 14 year olds? well it continues in my cellar workshop, courtesy of some sheet from a local fabricator, some cheap panel beating hammers and a lump of sapele with a scoop out of it.


The plan was to make some repair panels to bridge and reinforce the cracks, then to butt weld the original material so that when the original metal, since it was so thin inevitably burn through there would be some meat behind it.

Here is the underside of the rear mudguard, with the first two patches in place. I'm quite pleased with the quality of the welds though this work is a graphic illustration of why welders are coded for the position of the weld - the horizontal welds with the torch held above the weld are of much better quality than the vertical ones! That mole grip is doing double duty, holding the patch in place and providing the earth connection.

Here is the topside of the same patches.

Good penetration all the way around and no holes! Below this you can see two large holes which had been used to mount the spring pillion. The two bolt heads above are, I guess, the other two pillion seat holes. I'll be leaving these until I am sure that I don't need them!

On to the outside of the mudguard. This is a small hole which appears to have been caused by the chain guard chafing on the mudguard. Looks ugly - I didn't really have the orientation right when I tried to weld this up. Nothing the flap wheel can't sort out.

And here is the outside of the area around the upper L-stay mount, where the pillion seat mounts were. Those two holes are uppermost in the picture, below that are the cracks which have now been welded up. The mudguard is now very stiff, compared to the wet rag it was before. 

Here is another shot of the same zone, in its more natural orientation.

Lastly, this is the area around where the chainguard fits. There was a long crack on a fold here, where residual stresses in the material would have led to increased levels of corrosion. This was backed up with a narrow strip on the inside with continuous peripheral fillet welds, with a continuous seam weld on the outside. 

So that is it. the next step is to fit it to the bike, and for that I need a delivery from Mike Peters at www.polished-stainless.com, and the special studs for the L stays from Drags.

Building up

So, a few shots of half an hour's work, putting in the yokes:

Bottom bearing greased...

Steering damper parts all assembled. All from Drags bar the star washer and centre stem which are original

Top bearing greased

Bottom yoke in & bearings adjusted.

On to more serious work...

So, a while ago I promised to share the contents of some cool eBay finds...

These were a set of mudguards and chainguards I found in Doncaster, which were won at a very reasonable price and duly arrived. They were wellmarked and  photographed by the seller, and I knew I was in for some serious welding.

Here is the worst of the rear guard:

Here's one of the upper L-stay lugs, broken off and thoughtfully retained by the vendor:

So essentially we have a maze of cracks in each of the lugs for the L-stay at the top of the mudguard, along with two large holes left by a pillion seat fitted in the dim & distant past.

The metal is also very thin in these areas, badly pitted by moisture retained by a seat bracket that was still fitted when I got the parts.

There are also cracks at each of the lifting handle lugs. and a worn hole where (I guess) the chain guard rubs against the mud guard.

Unknown at the time of taking these pictures was the long crack above the chainguard recess.

A while ago I realised that the number plate that I had was a later BSA pattern, repaired it with the trusty MIG welder and sold it on eBay, to further fund the Ariel rebuild.

Of course, the holes for this are not the same as the ones I need and will have to be filled, along with the pillion seat holes and any others that I find I don't need - but then, this is the main purpose of the non-cosmetic Phase 1 build.

I've mentioned the fantastic AOMCC forum once or twice. Yet again Brenton Roy comes to the rescue with some photos of his Dad's '51 SQ4:

Here are the pillion mounts on Roy's bike's rear mudguard, looking down to the front mudguard mounts:

Front mudguard mounts in more detail. My mudguard has the front stay inside the mudguard bade.

Here is the routing for the rear light cable - presumably that is the end of the ignition coil. I'm not sure where mine fits yet.

And here is the whole rear end. I'm not fitting a pillion seat, though I am going to repair the holes left by the previous one, and reinforce the mudguard at those points in case I change my mind. That way I will have powder-coated a mudguard that is strong enough to be re-drilled for a seat.

This is what it is supposed to look like. You can see the L shaped stay and the lifting handle: