Tank Strip

Here's a nice little eBay find - an original tank strip for the Huntmaster. This is an original Ariel part, rechromed -its been polished very thin, but it was a good price and its usable, unlike the one I have!

Wheels

Sample spokes

Amid engine machining and gearbox rebuilds, I decided it would be good to actually ride Amelia at some stage. Standing in the way of this was a set of very rusty spokes on both wheels. I'd hoped to get away with commissioning the bike on it's own wheels, without any form of rebuild (continuing my 'Phase 1' rebuild with no chroming or painting) but it was not to be. Both wheels had at least one broken spoke, and the remaining spokes were very thin in places.

So, a rebuild it had to be.

Amelia has half-width cast iron hubs, front and rear. The front is the 'Qualcast' half width hub fitted to all telescopic-fork Ariels prior to the appearance of the full-width alloy hub in 1956, and the rear is the 5-stud QD hub. Tyres are 3.25-19 front on a WM2 rim & 4.00-18 rear on a WM3 rim.

Max has found some tyres

So, gathering parts. I used Central Wheel Services for spokes & tyres, since they give outstanding service and their prices for tyres were very good. I bought traditional Avon Speedmaster & SM MkII tyres, still made today in a modern soft compound.

Close inspection of the spokes revealed plain spokes on both sides of the wheel at the front, with butted spokes on the drive side at the rear, plain on the other side. This matches the description in the parts book perfectly. However, it didn't match the records at Central Wheel, so I had to provide sample spokes for them to manufacture against. I chose stainless spokes and plated brass nipples this time, since I was not at all happy with the nickel plated steel nipples I bought for the Bantam which, 2 years on, are rusty.

The first thing you must do when rebuilding a wheel is to remove the old tyre. Don't think about using an old tyre for a second - even if it has tread and sound sidewalls, the rubber will be hard as nails and will have you sliding down the road. 

Interesting paint under the original rim tape

Removing tough old tyres can be a challenge, and I often dispense with the traditional levers in favour of a set of bolt cutters, which I use to cut the wires in the bead. On an older tyre, I'll cut the rubber with a Stanley knife to ease the passage of the bolt cutter. Don't bother trying this technique with a modern tyre though, there's wire everywhere!

Rear rim offset

Next, find yourself a nice stiff flat board. A piece of 3/4" ply would be good. We need to measure and record the offset of the rim to some datum on the original wheel - the brake drum is very convenient. Place the brake drum face down on the board, and measure the distance from the edge of the rim to the board

Amelia's front wheel offset is 1 1/4" to the rim on the brake side;

On the rear, it is 9/16" to the rim on the brake side. On the rear, the offset is measured with the brake drum removed.

The next step is to photograph the spoke patterns. Make sure you have pictures of which spokes overlay others, which holes the go into on the rim and please also look at the dimpling on the rim holes and makes sure you know which way round the rim goes. 

Those of you who have read my Bantam pages will know I have rebuilt at least one wheel with the rim the wrong way round - the result is not pretty as all the spokes will be bent.

My reference photos are shown further down the page.

The next step is a real turning point in the rebuild: take your best bolt cutter, and cut the all the spokes. Do it within an inch or two of the hub. If you cut near the rim, it will be much more laborious to feed all the rusty spokes through the dirt encrusted holes on the hub.

Bolt cutters - did I really do that?

The next step is to get the rims off to the platers. This takes a while, so don't hang about! While they are gone you can clean up the hubs, get them painted, recondition the brake plates and replace the bearings.

Incidentally, I spoke to Tony at JD Wyatt Contract Polishing, who told me that it would reduce the cost of the polishing if I were to leave the painted rim centres in the blasted condition. Since this would provide a key for the paint, this is what I decided to do.

Spoke Patterns

Spoke patterns for the rear wheel:

Spoke patterns for the front wheel:

Apologies...

Apologies if there doesn't appear to be much going on, but I have been away travelling again. Last week was spent mainly in Stavanger (-7 degrees C) and Oslo (-18 degrees C) and I have only just thawed out.

When I am away working, I tend to order stuff to get busy with when I get back. This was a similar trip. I have been talking to Bernard Ashpole in Bishops Stortford about doing a few jobs on the engine. I'm going there tomorrow and hopefully the following jobs will be done:

• soda blasting the crankcases, barrel and the original head (so I can sell it)
• welding up the damaged fin on the barrel
• replacing the timing side main bearings, line boring them and replacing the camshaft bush
• tidying up the camshaft journal

I ordered the dipswitch, horn button, and the indicator switch from the VMCC - these are now stashed away. I also ordered the oil filter, which I have to make a bracket for. I'll zinc plate that when I'm done.

I've also ordered a few more parts from Acme, this time the exhaust brackets & bolts and the 5 nuts for the QD rear wheel, and the front brake cable adjuster.

I have a full set of stainless engine bolts from them, and the timing cover, primary cover, and coupling gear cover screws. All very nice, as usual, and a pleasure to deal with.

When I ordered the camshaft bush from Drags, Lee noticed that I had a battery box (the dummy Lucas GU11E) on back order - so this has now been delivered. Here it is in the tray I made earlier. 

And lastly, I have been looking at the wiring. Moved by a discussion on cable ties on the AOMCC forum (how many rivets in a BR Standard Class 5?),  I started to look closely at the wiring harness.

This discussion was so interesting that I have moved it to it's own post, here

More Plating...It's been every evening this week...

Well I am persisting with the zinc plating while waiting for my Bantam engine to come back. I've reworked all of the engine fasteners now, not brilliant but usable, along with parts like the clutch adjuster. I've also plated a few spacers, chain adjusters & the brake adjuster:

Quite passable I think!

Plating

So, I've started plating some Bantam parts using a 4 Amp 6V/12V battery charger and Gateros Bright Zinc kit - £59. for enough to make two 4.5 litre tanks. I wanted to clean up the rusty fasteners & clutch adjuster on the outside of the engine.

I started by running a die along all of the fasteners to clean the red Hermetite out of the threads. Then they went in a caustic soda electrolytic bath, followed by a rinse.

Then it's a minute in a 30% hydrochloric acid solution (brick cleaner from B & Q), and straight into the plating tank. It's a struggle to get the voltage right with a rudimentary controller in the form of a coil of resistance wire, but the results are passable - especially as I was really looking for a cadmium plate look-alike, not shiny zinc.

Here are a batch of parts in the plating tank:

And here they are again after about 20 minutes:

A 'before & after' shot:

So having tested that out, onto some more valuable (read scarce) parts. These are the steel parts from Amelia's Solex 26 AHD in the tank. Same process as before:

And here they are after plating. They are still attached to their handling wires here, but they have been  in the clear passivating solution for about 60 seconds.

And here is the carburetter assembled. All the brass has been cleaned with Farecla G3 compound, a toothbrush and a brass wire brush in the Dremel. It all looks to be in nice condition though it will need a new set of seals and some parts from David Jones, including the air bell, the Bi-Starter knob and it's bracket.

The other thing I need is to find out what the cable bracket looks like, if there was an adjuster, and where the throttle return spring goes... anyone got one I can copy?

A pleasing distance from the 'before' shot from last week!

Carburetter

Well, while waiting for the Bantam engine rebuild to get moving (I'm waiting for the crankshaft to come back from Rex Caunt) I've been plating fasteners using a kit from Gateros.

While I had the tank out, I thought I would get the Ariel carburetter ready and plate the steel parts. I've been experimenting with aluminium cleaning with an electrolytic soda bath, along with various household products.

Here is a household product with which I have become acquainted:

I started with a spare Zenith mower carburetter I had knocking around:

I attacked one of these with Cillit Bang descaler and got this in a few minutes:

The electrolytic bath didn't help much. I started with the Solex 26 AHD from the Ariel, which looked quite horrible to start with. These carburetters appear on several small french cars - they were specified by Ariel because the constant vacuum from the four cylinder engine can prevent a spring return slide from closing:

But after a couple of hours with a small brush & Cillit Bang:

This is what it is supposed to look like:

The next step is to make some decision on how to plate the steel parts. I fancy a nice yellow chromate passivate...

Parcels still wrapped - more electrics

Well, the eBay parcels are still under wraps. Christmas is coming and sometimes it isn't wise to buy too many present for other women, however much shiny paint & chrome they will have when they are finished!

So in the meantime, let's get on with the headlamp. We've got a nice original SSU700, no repro bits here!

The instrument panel looks like it is off a WD bike; it's in great nick but the ammeter is wrong - it's not the white face one with the ignition light that should grace a Square Four headlamp.

Also, there are some flaky bits. The edges of the pilot light aperture are rather ragged - it's an aluminium casting and I'm not sure how to repair it yet. Then there is the rim:

The picture is not too hot but it's bent and it looks like it has been thrown down the road. I'm going to see if I can straighten it before I give up and buy a new one.

Here's the inside of the switch panel from the inside. All right & proper, apart from the ammeter I mentioned before. A new one will have to wait though - the proper ones will be like hens teeth!

Lighting switch, cleaned up nicely.

Here's the pilot light mounting plate. It was missing, but I made this one from some photos & dimensions provided from the fantastic people on the AOMCC forum. It's designed to hold one of these in the underslung pilot lamp:

And here is the ammeter, with the steering damper knob lurking in the background. I'm going to tackle the rim and the headlamp fasteners with a Plug 'n' Plate chrome plating kit, and see how much of the original stuff I can save.

More later.