FH - small repairs

 Spring is here and I'm away using the Square Four for some little house renovation jobs in a nearby town. There's a little bit of time in the workshop to do a few bits on the Huntmaster. 

We'll start with blocking that hole in the primary case that used to be used for the chain oiler before the fully Enclosed Rear Chain Case arrived. It's lost its blanking plug so I've made a new one up from a cheese head 2BA screw with a fibre washer:

The next one is a bit more serious. This is the pinhole in the fuel tank - I've taken the tank off for better access which is quite easy with these single centre bolt tanks. I've opened the hole up a little bit to clear the paint with a scriber and I've cleaned the area with acetone.

I've put a blob of Seal-All in that hole - just a tiny blob. After deliberating for a while over the approach I would take to this repair I realised that Seal-All had been sealing several holes in the W/NG tank for many years, and is still good. We'll see how this turns out tomorrow.

FH - shaking down 2

Well, I expected to do a few modifications or repairs after a bit of shakedown mileage - for example I now know that it needs a larger engine sprocket and I've got a couple of oil leaks - but I didn't expect to be taking it off the road quite so soon! I fully filled the tank for the first time yesterday having driven around with about a gallon sloshing about in the bottom for the last few miles and unfortunately it appears that the extra weight of fuel has revealed a pinhole. Now this tank has had a few weld repairs, it's been tested with air several times and filled with Slosh sealant - but there's still a pinhole.

You can just about see it here - there's a bit of a 'halo' around the hole. The tank is empty in this picture - with 4 gallons in there, it drips constantly.

Would something like Petro Patch work do we think? JB Weld perhaps?

In other news, fellow AOMCC member Stan has been in touch to tell me that BSA engine sprockets (A, B and M series) will fit and I have ordered one; I'll put a 2 BA cheesehead screw in the open chain oiler hole in the outer primary case, because of course this hole is not used on FERC bikes and just provides a leak path. Stan suggested a couple of other things:

• Use Morris AG90 gear oil in the box
• Put an O ring under the speedo drive nut to stem the cable oil leaks
• It's worth getting an aluminium gear for your auto-advance unit as a backfire can strip the fibre teeth
• It's worth having a spare rocker shaft in your toolbox as these can break

You get great support in the AOMCC.

I did check where the idle screw had ended up after the hot adjustment yesterday - 1 1/2 turns out. However, starting today was a bit tricky - the bike was more reluctant to run. I had the choke fully on, perhaps the weather was too warm? It was spitting back a fair bit.

I've also ordered a new fuel cap.

FH - shaking down 1

 Well, I've decided that since in the last nine miles of circuits around the house the Huntmaster hasn't exploded, I have today filled it up and racked up another 15 miles.

Amongst other places, we've been to the lovely 1910 Weybourne Station on the North Norfolk Railway. Here the FH poses next to the 1960 - built English Electric Class 37, ready to depart on the last up-train of the day.

It's going very well. In the first nine miles I had adjusted the brakes 3-4 times, and after changing one of the levers they are starting to feel OK. 

Some days ago, I had adjusted the tickover. Today, having put perhaps 11 miles on the engine I stopped at Weybourne to find that it was less easy to start; adjusting it on arrival at home, I leaned it out 1/2 turn or more - the plugs are showing tickover was rich. I may have gone too far, but before I adjusted it the engine was very easy to start cold.

The other thing that is obviously wrong is the gearing - you can feel it is too low. Inspection of the build pictures show there's a 22 tooth engine sprocket fitted - standard fitment for solo bikes is 24, so we will have to see if we can get one of those.

Lastly, we have a timing cover oil leak and a primary case oil leak. I know that the old chain oiler screw hole is open, and there may well be too much oil in the primary case but since that will have to come apart to fit the new sprocket, we won't worry too much. The timing case is another matter.

FH - running in

 Another sunny day dawns and after more faffing about trying to get the chainsaw to run adequately I went out for some more circuits on the FH. Before I started though, I wanted to check the oil level and top it up - it was virtually full though, so perhaps it had wet sumped since it last ran and emptied the sump back into the tank in the couple of miles I did yesterday.

I also remembered to remove a large magnet I had used to stick a cable clip under the rear mudguard:

The bike ran beautifully, starting easily. The clutch seems a little notchy but the brakes certainly work, though the front is very spongy. There's a lot of flexibility in the lever which we will have to sort out.

It sat here happily burbling away while I took this picture:

On return, I went round the bike with the spanners. After my third circuit, I had noticed the front had started to clonk on braking and I was surprised to find the brake torque arm nut had loosened off.

This brings us to running in. This is what the Ariel instruction book has to say about running in:

It also tells you to change the oil at 1500 miles and decarbonise at 2000 miles. Pitman tells you to change the oil at 200, 500 and 1000 miles.

I'll be checking bolts, chains, cables and brake adjustment very frequently, especially at the beginning, but what of the head gasket? Shall I retorque at some point? I think not, at least not as a matter of priority since it has an annealed solid copper gasket.

FH - finished!

 Well this is it, I am calling the Huntmaster project finished. In the last post which I wrote yesterday, I fitted the wheels and brakes and tightened up everything in that area.

Today it came off the lift to be replaced by the Square Four and rolled out into the yard for some pictures. 

The yard is halfway up a hill and when I was happy with the pictures I togged up with helmet and gloves and rode it up the road to test the brakes. I've set the tyre pressures to 28 & 36 psi, on the basis that the weight is more or less the same as the SQ4 - though the distribution might be very different - and it's using the same tyres, albeit in different sizes. If nothing else, it's a good starting point.

Several round trips later, each interspersed with some brake adjustment, it was time to take a cup of tea to Mrs H at her allotment. Domestic bliss waits for no man!

Hopefully tomorrow, we will have some time to go a little further.

FH - tyres & brakes

 We're nearing the end now. I've got the tires tubes and rim tapes, the wheels are both built and the brake plates are stripped out. 

The plan was to fit the tyres myself so that I didn't have to have the bike off its wheels for too long, because I wanted to be able to develop the setting up of the brakes.

I started with the back wheel, trimming the spokes with a large half round file, fitting the rim tape and then the first bead of the tyre, making sure that the direction of rotation was correct. All went reasonably well. Next step is to put the tube in, so in the timeline of fashion I put a bit of air into the tube and pushed it into the tyre. Getting the valve in through the rim and the rim tape was a bit of a hassle, but it's never an easy job. The next bit is to get the second bead on .

Fortunately I've had some large levers lying around for quite a long time for fitting tyres and these came in handy. Handy that is until the following day when I went to blow the tyre up and of course I had nipped a tube.

B*****. Just save any further messing about, I decided to do what I usually do and take the wheels to SPS services in horsford to fit the tyres for me, but first I needed to order a new tube .

While I waited for the tube I engaged myself in some more domestic duties, putting up some coat hooks and repairing the chainsaw which we had attempted to use to trim some damson trees at the allotment. I found poor crankshaft oil seals in the chainsaw and remarkably a run out of just under a millimetre in the crankshaft - and consider how small a chainsaw crankshaft is!

I sent the brake shoes to Villiers Services as usual for re-lining. I had asked for them to be riveted as well as glued, but Steve at Villiers Services explained that they had bad experience with Ariel brake shoes cracking around the rivet holes and didn't want to do it. I accepted the shoes with no rivets.

A few days later the new tube turned up and we made a rapid trip to Horsford to drop off the tyres and wheels and to buy an apple tree, scones and a cup of coffee or two on the way home. 

I was back there the next morning picking up the wheels with the tyres fitted and properly centralised. I have found it very difficult in the past to get the tyres concentric to the wheels, but these are perfect and fitted in the right direction.

They were back on the bike with the brake plates rebuilt and fitted by the evening.

FH - front wheel

 A very short blog post just to record that I've finished building the front wheel. 

Of course the first step is to finish the polishing. Here it is with the 80 and 150 grits done:

I needed a break of a couple of hours to let my arms and shoulders recover from the strain of polishing - these hubs are quite heavy. Here it is fully finished:

With a bit of experience, you can build these up wheels very quickly. All the spokes are tight in this view but it's not quite true; I'll leave that for tomorrow.

FH - wheel building

 With the hubs polished and the proper spokes delivered, we can start on the delightful job of lacing the wheels. 

These will use butted spokes like the originals fitted by Ariel back in the 1950s. The nipple end of the spoke is thinner than the head end - in this case the nipple end is 10 gauge and the head end, with perhaps 1" of spoke length is larger at 8 gauge. The idea is that the stressed part of the spoke is strong without making the wheel ridiculously heavy; this will have the effect of making the steering lighter by reducing the gyroscopic force on the wheel.

I'm building the wheels on a post which is of a suitable size to go through the wheel bearings. The bore of the bearings is 1"; the post I'm using is 1 1/8" so that the hub is happily suspended in mid-air. 

It's essential to get all of the spokes into their holes in the hub before you attempt to fit any of them through the holes in the rim. There is absolutely no chance of getting the spokes in the right place if you attempt to put some of them through the rim before they are all fitted in the hub, so be warned.

For this Ariel/BSA wheel Devon supply the rims in two packets - one for the inner and one for the outer spokes, that is the spokes whose heads are on the outside of the spoke flange but whose length is on the inside, and the converse for the outer spoke.

When polishing the hub I had used a brass brush in the Dremel to clean out the spoke holes. It was easy therefore to slip the spokes into place starting with the outer spokes. Because these hang down, it's a bit easier to do these first followed by the inner spokes.

You can see the butted spoke in this close-up:

Once you've got them all in you'll have this forest of stainless steel wire:

The next job is to offer up the rim. You have to decide which way the spokes are going to point-there is often a fret mark on the outer spoke flange which will show you how the originals fitted. I start with the outer spokes on the upper flange and follow the pattern shown in the spoke flange by the original spokes and fit three or four of the new spokes into their holes with their nipples screwed on by literally a couple of threads. These three or four spokes should all point in the same direction; then I will fit another one in the opposite direction still in the same flange which will serve to stabilize the rim. You can then carry on fitting the same spokes in the same flange until you have all the outer spokes fitted in the top flange. By this point you will have learned that for each outer spoke pointing in the same direction there are three holes in the rim until the next spoke of the same orientation.

When you've done that you can fit all the inner spokes from the top flange as well. This will enable you to ensure that all of the spokes cross in the proper orientation. Don't mix up the crossing, or you will end up with bent spokes.

You can then repeat the performance for the lower spoke flange but this time start with the inner spokes followed by the outer spokes, again to preserve the proper crossing.

Once you've got all the spokes in, you can do up the nipples gradually and evenly until the end of the spoke appears in the slot on the outside of the nipple, like this:

Now it's time to put your wheel in your truing jig or perhaps back in the bike. There's no substitute for using the bike frame as a jig to allow you to adjust the spokes so that the centre line of the wheel is aligned with the centre of the frame. This works beautifully on the Ariel swinging arm frame, but is much more difficult on the Square Four frame - because the Square Four frame is asymmetrical at the rear to accommodate the offset engine.

I made this spoke screwdriver years ago and it's very useful for tightening spokes when you can get to the nipple from the space usually occupied by a tyre. It makes it much quicker to tighten the spokes than using a spoke key.

I'm not going to explain the whole alignment process here because there are reams of material about it in this blog post, written when I was building the wheels for the Square Four. I must say though that these Devon rims and spokes pulled together to give a wheel that was virtually true and aligned out of the box.

Very nice indeed.

Now we just have to do it all again at the front!

FH - polishing hubs

 I've started on the rear wheel for no particular reason other than I expect it to be more work and secondly it's easier to get out than the front one for which I need to remove the wheel stop on the bike lift. 

The first step is to take a wire brush to the sand cast aluminium surfaces on the inside of the spoke flanges. You don't want to scratch the outer polished faces because it will be the devil of a job to remove the scratches made by a steel wire brush.

For the outside I have used a combination of 180 grit Scotch-Brite pad and a degreaser. This reveals a nice groove which whilst it looks quite uniform has actually been worn in place by the sharp edges of the chain case. When it's clean you can see that the bottom of the groove is quite rough:

With the grease removed we start with the 80 grit stitched mop and polish out as much of the tarnish as we can. We will also polish the edges of the spoke flanges and the ribs around the drum.

This progresses through the 150 and 300 grit wheels to the polishing mops:

It doesn't take long before it's ready for lacing on the rim.

Shame I have ordered the wrong spokes. It's shown here sitting on a 1 1/8" post, clamped in the Workmate, turned to just under 1" to allow the hub to slip over it. We'll lace the wheel in that.

FH - stripping the back wheel

 Finally, and it seems to have been a long time coming, it's time to start on the wheels. I've got the tyres now though I have had to compromise with a 90/90-19 front tyre rather than the 325-19 that I wanted, but at least I have everything.

It doesn't take very long to remove the rear wheel from these bikes despite the fact that I have complicated matters by fitting indicators, and these need to come off before the rear of the mudguard can be unbolted.

The first step is to measure the offset using a straight edge across the bearing housing. With that in place we can measure 7/8" to the edge of the rim.

These are quite common wheels so finding someone that could help with the lacing pattern of the spokes wouldn't be difficult. Nevertheless it is good practice to photograph your wheels before dismantling such that the peculiarities of the spoke pattern can be recorded for the rebuild to come. These Ariel full width hub wheels are simple in that the spokes are of two types - those that fit from the outside, and those that fit from the inside; this results in similar lengths but different head angles for the two types. For the half width hubs fitted to all my other Ariels, there are four types of spokes in each wheel.

When you have all the components delivered, and you have recorded your spoke pattern and your offset you can dismantle the wheel. I've done this a few times now and have discovered the quickest and easiest methods to my mind.

Let it be known that we are not going to reuse any of these components other than the hub. Therefore the best way to remove the rim is to cut through all of the spokes on both sides; Iuse a bolt cutter for this job which makes short work of snipping through each of the spokes.

There we go. The tyre has not even been deflated yet!

Here is the hub with the remains of the spokes. It's sensible to cut the spokes as near to the hub as possible because it is much more difficult to remove the full length of the spoke from the hole in the hub.

You will find most of those little bits of spoke are stuck in their holes through corrosion and dirt. Just wiggle them a bit to release the gunge, and thread them back through their holes.

Removal of the rim and tyre is equally brutal. All I have done here is to take a hacksaw to the tyre, lubricated with some WD40 and sawn through both the tire and part of the rim such that I can cut through both beads and the tyre will just fall off.

And that's it. Apart from a trip to the dump with this scrap metal and rubber the next job is to start polishing the hub.

FH - dashboard again

 A job I had been putting off for a while involved pulling the instrument panel off again. It involves fiddling around behind the headlamp, a particularly inaccessible area, and removing the handlebar clamp. It had to be done though, the indicator relay bracket was threatening to fret through some wires and the ammeter was popping out - not to mention the fact that I couldn't get the screws in to fasten the thing to the nacelle.

One of the problems with removing the dashboard is that you have to lift the handlebar clamp completely off. This is because the dashboard has been repaired where it sits under the handlebar clamp, and the slots are not really the right shape. One in particular fouls the stud in the handlebar clamp:

I marked the offending area on a bit of masking tape:

A few minutes with a file sorted that out, and now the clamp fits much more smoothly. You still have to lift it to remove the dashboard though.

The main job was to move the indicator relay. In a previous incarnation, I had it fitted under the rearmost speedometer nut and it was preventing me getting my hand in to fit the speedometer cable and to reconnect the wires to the headlamp switch.

What I've done today is make a new bracket for the indicator relay so that it's mounted under the ammeter in a corner of the nacelle that's out of the way:

I can get my hand underneath the dashboard now to reconnect all the wires and the speedometer cable. I made the main battery feed cable quite long when I built the wiring harness and this helps to reconnect it to the ammeter when you are fitting the dashboard.