FH - nacelle & handlebars

 I'm working on several fronts here, aiming to find problems and clear space so that I can start on the bottom end of the engine. Once that's in, there's polishing and plating, cables and wiring.

The nacelle went on relatively easily, though the trim on the front doesn't fit too well. That will need sorting out:

I planned to fit the instrument panel, mainly to avoid losing the trip reset cable but I found a few problems:

• the speedo bracket only fits one way, basically because it's too wide. I fitted it by elongating the holes but it would be nicer if I made a new one.
• the ammeter is one of those - - 0 - + ones, with no numbers. I'm not sure that's correct.
• the Lucas U39 headlamp switch is damaged where the clip fits - people prise these out and the Bakelite breaks.

On the up side, both the light switch and the speedometer have PVC cables - maybe the whole bike was wired using that stuff.

Next - working through the little bags of screws, I find the grub screw for the steering lock, so that's fitted:

I treated the bike to a nice set of stainless steel handlebars from Draganfly - made in Bungay. The SQ4 has these too and they are very nice.

There's a lot of work to bring the levers up to scratch though!

Charlie's Shed - adapting threads

The FH kit came with a lot of original Ariel cables, most of which were pretty rusty but which still had their original adjusters and nipples. The cable layout changed with the advent of the swinging arm bikes, in that the mid-length and gearbox end adjusters moved up to the handlebars for the front brake and clutch. The thing is, most of the handlebars out there use the later 5/16" BSF adjusters, but Ariel used the earlier 1/4" adjusters to the end. Guess what? Levers with 1/4" adjusters are like hen's teeth!

So what to do? after looking at eBay for ages, and noting that Draganfly are out of stock I decided to modify what I had by sleeving the existing 5/16" thread. The issue is that putting a 1/4" thread inside a 5/16" thread leaves very little wall thickness, so the part would be weak. Here's how I set about it:

First job is to turn a bit of scrap brass to the correct OD - 5/16", and put a thread on it - these are BSF threads in these levers, by the way - so it's 5/16" x 22 tpi. Next, we can drill a hole, tapping size for 1/4" BSF, but we won't tap it yet. Next we can try it out in the lever perch and if all is well retain it with some Loctite 263 high strength thread locker:

Next job it to file the ends flush, and tap the hole. Currently I don't have a tap long enough to go all the way through, but it's long enough for the adjuster. Cut the cable slot with a hack saw and a needle file:

Job done!

W/NG Handlebar Upgrade

Updated: First published July 2018

Living with the W/NG for a while now - coming up two years, I have realised that I don't like the dropped handlebars as they make you hunch down over the front end. Since the W/NG is great for pootling about the countryside looking at stuff, it needs higher bars - and since I like originality in my bikes I decided to look around for a pair of the original Ariel bars, which are tapered from a 1" central section to 7/8" at the ends.

I was lucky enough  to pick up a set of taper bars from Guy Hovey, of the AOMCC. They looked a bit odd - Guy said they were bent, which they were marginally, and I managed to fix that with a plywood jig and a dose of burning MAPP gas. What was more 'disorientating' at least to the eye was the fact that they had been shortened by an uneven amount at each end, which made them look more bent than they were. Careful measurement with the dividers found that eventually, and I have described how I fixed that in this blog post. It should make a good guide to show others how to repair or extend motorcycle handlebars. You'll note though that the repair is not in a stressed part of the handlebar - it is less than 2" at each end. If the repair had been in a location with a significant bending load, I would have added a solid steel internal spacer to bridge the joint, probably about 2" long.

There's a few pictures a bit further on.

Onward and upward, I found a set of Czech-made levers on eBay, at a good price - good because they were for 1" bars. Not to be deterred and making good use of the mini lathe, I knocked up some brass spacers.

They are made from 1 1/4" brass bar:

Brass bar in the lathe, supported on the revolving centre

Turning the spacers

Drilling to 13 mm

Cutting the 7/8" bore

Parted off from the bar

You will note in these shots that only one of the spacers has both flanges - one has a flange machined off to accommodate the 'web' that the clutch and brake levers mount to.

Marking out for cutting

Almost there

Small flat required to clear the levers

All done

Moving back to the bars, I needed to establish the original length and make the appropriate extensions. Nev Hunter, Australian AOMCC member told me that the end to end dimension was 71.5 cm on his original W/NG bars. Mine was 63...

So, seeking some bent MZ bars from the scrap pile, I cut a couple of sections and squared them up in the lathe. Having squared up the cut ends of my tapered bars with a file, I aligned the two pieces with a piece of copper tube:

I tacked them up in a couple of places with the TIG set before welding.

We call this an autogenous orbital butt weld, when we are welding hydraulic tube together. I held the TIG torch in place and moved the bar to produce a neat peripheral weld:

Gas was set to 5 l/min and the current to 45A.

I used a 1.8 mm electrode, #4 shield. The electrode was fully shrouded and ground to a sharp angle to maximise penetration:

All done

I marked out the length using dividers, measuring inches from a centre point:

These marks show inches from the centre to each end:

I learned that the total length of the tube was 31 inches. Using Nev's information,  I made a square cut at the 15 1/2" mark at each end.

When I'd finished I squared those cut ends up in the vice. Happy with the result, I mounted up all the handlebar equipment to have a look:

Half an hour with some 60 grit emery tape saw them ready for some etch primer:

This is what we are aiming at:

And here we have the finished article:

Today, a year or so after I wrote this post I have updated the handlebar layout to reflect the longer grips the W/NG would have worn:

Charlie's Shed - Free the Nipple

We have to make a new set of cables for the W/NG's new handlebars, using the techniques shown in my Cable Making post here. Unfortunately, the lovely Czech levers I have appear to be a little under size for the clutch and brake cable nipples so we are going to need some non-standard nipples.

This presents yet another mini-lathe opportunity. Starting with a bit of brass (10 mm OD) we turn a suitable length to provide two nipples to provide an easy running fit in the lever - about 8.8 mm.

This done, we need to drill the holes. The inner cable diameter (for the clutch in this case) is about 2 mm, so we'll need a through hole for that and a shallow hole, maybe 5 mm, for the birds nest and solder bucket. We'll start with a centre drill, with the bare nipple in a tailpost V block:

The centre drill is followed by a through hole drilled 2 mm, and this is followed by a 5 mm hole to a depth of 5 mm for the 'birds nest' that we will form when we fit the cable.

Here's the bar after drilling for the first nipple:

The next job is to part off to the desired length, in this case 10 mm. The finish leaves alot to be desired - I was running the lathe too slow for brass.

Deburring next; notably the cable hole on the reverse of this picture. I use a centre drill to open that hole out a little to catch the open, unsoldered wire ends on the inner cable.

So that's it. I made three out of the bit of bar I had turned to size, to avoid wasting it. One for the front brake, one for the clutch and one for the box of nipples & ferrules. I wonder if I can make ferrules...

Clamping Down

One of the many problems that have arisen so far during my shakedown period has been the inability to get my levers and twist grip to clamp onto the handlebars. The bars are polished stainless, and I guess that 19 mm OD stainless is of sufficiently less OD than chrome plated 3/4" tube, enough to allow the parts to move. They are not that loose, just enough to worry you. 

So, a few minutes with shears, a fine file and some 0.5 mm brass sheet produces a neat & tidy solution.

All is now rigidly clamped in place.