Model A - Kickstart spring cover

 When you have a few old bikes, and you use them, and especially if other people use them, you must expect a few diversions from your ongoing project whilst you fix the other bikes in the fleet. The Square Four has absorbed a bit of time recently and it's now become the daily rider again while the hunt must have takes a little holiday in Norwich.

Therefore, the Model A has taken a bit of a back seat but it's time finally for the next job. This is the tin cover for a kickstart spring.

To start the job off, we can measure the machined register that it fits on the kickstart cover and then we can work out how long it needs to be by measuring the spring.

I'm going to fold the cover up from a strip of 0.9 mm thick steel around a wooden former which I will turn on the lathe from a chunk of sapele, part of an old door.

I've screwed and glued this former to a suitable piece of timber such that I can hold it in the vise

Here's the first try, cut from a bit of sheet with the aviation snips to a suitable width and rough length. With it held in place on the former some tie wraps, I can mark the end and trim.

We'll do a little trial fit on the job:

We need to bear in mind that this cover is supposed to turn with the spring. The spring fits nicely inside it but I suspect it's rather tight on the gearbox end cover.

The only way to find out to tack it together. A couple of tacks show that it fits nicely will turn on the register on the gearbox end cover, so I fully weld it and dress it on the linisher.

The next step is to work out how long it needs to be. I believe that I will need to fold it over such that the inner diameter just fits the kickstart shaft bush.

A little session with the Wiss snips sees it cut to approximately the right length.

Attempting to spin the end over on the lathe was an abject failure - the wooden former just flew out of the chuck so I returned to doing it with a hammer.

That worked reasonably well, and it fits:

There's something fundamentally wrong though:

With a lot of help from the AOMCC, I've learned that LS263 holds LS264 in place and is itself held by the kickstart lever.

Time to try again.