Frank's Linked!

So, time to start assembling. This shows the rebound springs, the sliders, their posts & pins in position on both sides with the chrome shrouds slid into the frame. Above these are the main springs with their caps, ready to be pulled in.

Missing from this first picture are the stand brackets which have to fit on the end of the springs, the horseshoes and the links.

In the background, you can see the rear wheel waiting in the wings!

The next step is to pull the springs into place and fit the nuts and the stand brackets to the bottoms of their pins. This is not too difficult, since you can trap the slider against the bottom of the frame with a G-Cramp or a cargo strap, and compress the rebound spring; then you can get another strap or clamp on the top of the pin, against the bottom of the frame again, and pull the main spring down until the end of the pin emerges through the hole in the bottom of the frame lug.

When you've done all that, you can slide the stand bracket into place over it's lug and put the bottom nut on - the only difficulty I had here was to get the pin central enough to get the nut on.
Pushing the slider around allows that to happen OK.

The next step is to add the horseshoe, it's pin, knurled washers and nut. That done, you can put the links on and wiggle the pivots into place.

All I need now are some stainless washers & nuts for the links; and some suitable stainless fasteners for the stand brackets.
I've put an order in to Draganfly for the rear stand, the springs and the mudguard stay mounting studs. While we wait for the parts to arrive, we will have a look at the forks.

Watchmaker...

So with the odometer and the speedo drive sorted out, it was onto the movement and the case. This is the movement as it emerged from the case:

The movement appeared intact on inspection, indeed it was just caked in grease and the debris from the mangled drive wheel. It was a simple matter to strip it down, then we sorted the various assemblies into separate pots for cleaning with pegwood, solvents & the ubiquitous toothbrush. Look at the colour of the solvent:

This took several rinses, followed by polishing of the wheels & arbors.  There wasn't any tooth damage to the wheels, and the various pivot holes in the plates are all in good condition.

Reassembled & lubricated the speedo now works nicely in the electric drill.The picture below shows it in position in the main frame, hooked up to the main drive & the odometer. We cleaned the odometer wheels (very gently) with a swab dipped in a mild water/detergent solution:

Next stop was the case, which required a trip to the shed to find the top yoke, since there was no strap for the speedo and no idea of what it should look like. A cardboard template and some of the inevitable sheet metal work soon remedied that problem, and the case was rubbed down and sprayed gloss black. The picture below shows the speedo in position in the top yoke, from underneath:

The dial and needle we left mostly as found - we don't want to polish all the patina away. I had the lamp holder still attached to the original wiring harness, so this was polished up using brass brushes in the Dremel, wired up and fitted back in place. some new M6 nuts finished the job - since the design of these instruments originated in France, all the fasteners are metric.

I love eBay...

After months of searching, I've found the correct S467/3/L speedometer for spares or repair on eBay! It looks good in the picture!

When it arrives, it's well wrapped in a box, inside 3 jiffy bags with newspaper around the outside. So, as soon as possible, we spin it up on the drill and...nothing happens. Well, the trip works and the odometer would probably have worked if I had bothered to wait...

If you've read the Bantam article, you'll know that I've repaired these before. When I got this one apart, we found the drive pinion spread around the interior like fairy dust. It shown in the pictures, minus all it's teeth.

As luck would have it, I had a Bantam 'D' speedo in the spares box, with it's drive spindle intact. This fitted straight in.

So next, I dismantled the trip/odometer drive (as you have to do, to get the drive spindle in or out) and cleaned up all the dust with a stick of jewellers pegwood, with a cloth swab taped to it. A dose of lighter fuel on the swab cleaned it up beautifully. Reassembled & lubed up it works perfectly.

Next job, number wheels. A similar swab but this time with a weak detergent mix cleans all the oil & grease off those as well.

Then we get on to the morass of goo that covers the movement. More later.

Sheet Metal Shop

Way back when, every engineering student spent time in the workshop with a scriber and square, an engineers hammer and a dot punch, and got his fingers covered in marking blue. The lecturer would be at the front of the shop in his white shop coat, explaining how you had to wash your hands before you went to the loo, because you were a real engineer now and you didn't want any nasty skin infections.


Then you'd spend the day marking out, witnessing, sawing and filing a tack lifter that would spend the next 30 years at the bottom of your toolbox. The enthusiasts would eat that in a couple of hours and move on to a 5" gauge Flying Scotsman or a 1/12th scale Avro Lancaster - such were the days before 'Call of Duty 4'.

Actually, my bias went more towards making myself some mudguard stays for my Matchless or welding up the holes in my Austin Healey Sprite.

However, you don't forget those manual skills, and somehow they are much more valuable than the office skills you learn later in life as your career takes off.

Here's the missing suspension washer and a new clutch screwdriver, copied from the W/NG manual.

Tools

So, more work this week on several fronts. It may interest the polyamide quilting moguls of the world that I have started to collect Ariel tools.

No... I've been through the parts lists for the SQ4, and checked all the tools the toolbox is supposed to hold. I have looked at Drags website to see which ones I can buy. I have obsessively trawled eBay for examples of tools marked 'Ariel'. I have printed the W/NG spares lists, and the handbooks, because these have pictures of all the tools.

And I have retired to the deep, dank, dark & smelly recesses of our cellar workshop to make the ones I cannot find...

Amelia's Plungers

So, we spent the weekend cleaning, painting & collecting pieces of suspension from the boxes the machine was delivered in. We are missing a washer (!) which will have to be made and we were missing the two large upper shrouds (the ones with the slots in) which came from eBay, with better lower shrouds than the ones I had.

Generally the bushes are good - the tubes along which the sliding members move are a bit pitted in places. Some threads need recutting as well.

The chrome plating done by the previous restorer is flaking and will have to be removed - the link pins are especially bad. However since the first build is to be non-cosmetic, we will leave these for now.

Draganfly have the rear stands in stock, so when I have acquired the material to replace that washer we will take a trip down there and pick one up, along with the springs, the mudguard stay fixings and various other small parts. We'll go to Mike Peters at www.polished-stainless.com for all the stainless fasteners (as we did for the Bantam).

However for now, the plungers are loosely fitted in the frame:

And this is what it will look like:

Frank's Links

So, to bike building, starting at the back.

My Square Four, like many others is fitted with the famous Anstey Link rear suspension, designed by Frank Anstey to overcome the chain-tension problems inherent in the plunger design, whilst avoiding the complex frame re-engineering required when providing a true swinging fork. Mr. Anstey joined Ariel from Triumph, as Ariel's Chief Designer, in 1937. Here's an extract from Patent 498544, filed by Ariel Motors & Mr. F Anstey on 16th December 1937:

Patent Number 498,554. Spring frames for motorcycles. ARIEL MOTORS, Ltd., and ANSTEY, F. Dec. 16, 1937, No. 34840. [Class 136 (iii)] A spring mounting for the rear wheel of a motor-cycle comprises in combination, ...on each side of the wheel, a lever j arranged horizontally or nearly so at the rear end of the frame a, one end of the lever receiving one end of the wheel spindle m, as by means of a slot k, a fulcrum piece g having a pivotal connection, i with an intermediate part of the lever j means for carrying the fulcrum piece g on the frame so as to allow it to move in a vertical or approximately vertical direction, and means for attaching the other end of the lever j to the frame so as to allow this end to move in an approximately horizontal direction, as by means of a vertical link n or a horizontal guide, the movements of the parts being controlled by one or more springs.; The fulcrum piece g is slidably mounted on a guide pin f secured in a bracket c formed on or attached to the rear end of the frame a, the sliding movement being controlled by a main spring h and a rebound spring or rubber buffer, with or without a vibration damper, such as an hydraulic damper combined with the guide pin mounting. The lever j is formed with a forked part passing around the bracket c, the pivot pin i extending across the forked part. Thesprings are enclosed in telescopic tubes t, u. The two levers j on opposite sides of the wheel may be interconnected by links &c. and controlled by a single spring or set of springs

The  design uses all the 'normal' elements of a plunger suspension, but instead of suspending the wheel from sliding member it incorporates a cast steel horseshoe, which carries the wheel and pivots on the sliding member. This horseshoe is retained by a link, pivoting above the lower frame members and forward of the plunger allowing the horseshoe to travel through a short arc so that the drive chain tension was kept more constant during compression and rebound. Of course, this is not a perfect solution since the centre of the horseshoe's rotation is still a long way from the gearbox sprocket centre, but it is a lot better than a conventional plunger.

Of course, there are lots of pivots, sliding members & bushes to wear out...

Here are the bits I have acquired:

You can identify most of these from the sketch above. The long screw poking out of the horseshoe (and painted that WD green colour) is the chain adjuster, which replaced the snail cams. You will also see that my '51 bike has volute-type rebound springs in place of the previous coils.

Gearbox. Woes?

So, in a change from electrics, we have had an anorak moment with the gearbox. Reading part numbers (ZZZZZzzzzzz.....) and looking through the parts books, we find that the Squariel is supposed to be fitted with a Burman BA gearbox, with a part number staring with G106.

All not very interesting, until we see that our gearbox number is G107J51, which means it is a G107 gearbox built in November 1951, several months after Amelia was sold in sunny Leytonstone.

The problem is... the G107 is from a different Ariel with a different mainshaft and probably doesn't fit! what are the chances of finding the correct box? why did I buy a bike in bits?

But but but.... I feel a plan coming on. How will I figure out if it is OK? the folks on the AOMCC forum says it is all about chain alignment...

So, the plan is that we assemble the bike enough to check the chain alignment. I'm not sure if it will be the primary or the secondary chain, so I'm going to build up from the rear wheel to the primary cases and see where it goes...


To see how this story turns out, go to this post...

and to see how I rebuilt the gearbox, you can turn to this one.

A few more electrical items

Well, not much to add this weekend. We've been very busy with work, paintwork for an MZ TS125 and a poorly VW Beetle with inlet manifold leakages. 

All we've managed to do is strip and repaint the dynamo end cap and the regulator. We used Hammerite Kurust on some parts of the regulator, at double strength, which seems to work very well. The parts are painted with high street acrylic aerosols & U-Pol etch primer. The end cap is from the original Lucas CF35D dynamo, the rest of which is still attached to the engine. The regulator is a 1962 Lucas MCR2, with a brass case which though a later replacement part is correct for the machine

Ammeter Finished

So, here is the finished article. The ammeter has been stripped & cleaned inside & out and is now working happily.

The chrome on the rim is good, and the case has been repaired.

This is the new ignition light. The design & material selection is inspired from the genuine ones I have seen on eBay and the various forums, particularly the C10/C11/C12 forum. It's not an exact replica of anything but it looks the part.

I've made a carrier from 2 mm Tufnol which is a little thick, but all I had. The lamp bracket is made from 0.5 mm brass sheet, with insulation gaskets as necessary, riveted together. The one thing I would like to find now are a couple of 2 BA thumb nuts to replace those steel hex nuts.

Almost a red spot ammeter

Well, here is the first of the post-Christmas presents!

This is the kit of parts that I have, now that I have stripped a Lucas red spot ammeter that I bought on eBay from a member of the AOMCC, for a lot less than one can spend on such things.

It is a bit of an oddity. It seems genuine, it has a Lucas part number and is made of parts of approriate 'quality'. It is marked '1980', and I guess it was a replacement part for vehicles still using red spot ammeters. It is marked 'Lucas' on the dial, but it does not have a window in the back, like the earlier versions that would have graced Amelia's curves when she was new, and it has no facilities for an ignition lamp internally so it could not have functioned as the red spot ammeters were intended to do.

The plan is to replicate the parts used for the ignition lamp and to cut the window through the ammeter, so that we end up with a suitable white faced ammeter with the functionality that we need.

So, starting the work. Here is the back plane of the meter, with it's insulator. I've marked out the holes I need, and I've drilled a pilot hole in each. Then I have taken my piercing saw with it's V-table and carefully cut the shape we need for the ignition lamp aperture. I've cleaned the hole up with needle files.

Here is the back of the ammeter, the back plane and the insulator, all assembled and showing the aperture lined up. Not quite right yet.

Here's are the prototype parts for the ignition lamp. Following the style of the original ammeters, I have used a plastic card to replicate the tufnol insulator that is used to mount the lamp holder, just to get the shape, and the position of the lamp correct in relation to the aperture on the back of the meter.

The lamp holder is mounted on a small piece of 0.5 mm aluminium sheet, pop riveted to the insulator. There is a plastic insulator between the centre terminal of the bulb holder and the mounting bracket.

So for now, the lamp is in the correct place. We will reassemble and see if it looks OK from the front, when it is illuminated, then we will make some nicer parts.

Here it is, put back together with the ignition lamp off...

And here it is with the ignition lamp on! Isn't it exciting!

Headlamp almost there

So here are a few pictures of Christmas holiday activities. The chewed pilot light housing has been filled & built up around the front edge as a low-risk alternative to a welded repair - I figured I would rather try this approach and have to redo it than melt an original SSU700 headlamp housing with clumsy welding.

After going through the grits with the help of some knifing stopper the headlamp shell is now looking very smart.

I have ordered some W-clips; I have rubbed down the newly straightened rim and I will order a plating kit after the holidays.

Then I plan to plate all the screws and maybe the rim as well.

And hopefully there should be a Red Spot Ammeter in the post!

Fill in jobs...

This is an original Lucas Altette, bought from eBay for the Ariel. Apart from one stripped thread and non-original acorn nut, it is perfect.

It came with the right angle bracket, an original Lucas one, that is used on the earlier machines with the smaller battery. Since Amelia should have the big 20 Amphour battery, we will use the straight bracket shown attached to the horn. I bought this from Vintage Bike & it looks like a nice quality part.

All gone a bit quiet

Not too much activity these last two weeks, as Christmas is coming and I've been away at work. However, I've managed to straighten the headlamp rim and I have stripped much of the scratched chrome away - there was a couple of very large scrape marks & dents. I've knocked out the dents and I have lead loaded the scrape marks. This needs a bit more work but is going to be a good solution.

I've missed a few eBay items - a pair of tank rubbers & plates, originals, which went for £51, a rear stand with all fittings which went for £130, and a lifting handle... No matter, I have plenty of other work faces!

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.

Distributor - All done!

So, this weekend we finished off the distributor and did some easy jobs, painting one or two electrical pieces.

We also had a bit of an eBay-Fest, and got some good bits from John Mitchell

These two are the distributor cap again. If you look at the one on the left, you'll see the wire staples we put in have now been covered with an epoxy putty (free of metal fillers and non-conducting - thanks to the advice of the AOMCC members!). In the right picture, we've filed, sanded & painted the putty to match the rest of the distributor cap.

 

Here are a few more views of the finished distributor. It's been fully stripped down & cleaned. Painted parts have been re-painted, plated parts have been cleaned of any corrosion and replaced. The capacitor has been refitted, but we have no means of testing it so it may need some attention later. There is no evidence of pitting on the points though.

Last thing before we go back to work - the ignition switch and coil. The coil checks out on the meter, and has just been cleaned and repainted. The ignition switch has been stripped, cleaned and painted and a new key made from some scrap brass.

Next step - the headlamp!

In the meantime, eBay has come up trumps with original front mudguard, rear mudguard and lower chainguard. John Mitchell has sent a clutch lever (for the gearbox) and the offside footrest support, and we have one or two more original spanners for the toolkit.

More next week when the parcels arrive!

SQ4 - repairing the distributor

Here is the broken corner of the cap. The plan is that we will repair it with a metal loaded filler - we've fitted brass wires to small holes drilled in the cap, to act as a reinforcement for the filler... at least, that is the plan...

Here's the body again. It's been dismantled, degreased, primed & painted. The original screws, labels & cap clips have been cleaned up & refitted. The cam and auto advance have been cleaned, polished & lubricated. Looking good.

First parts in the workshop

This is first part up for refurbishment. It's the Lucas DKX4A distributor, it's all present and correct, but the there is a chunk missing from the cap. The bearings are good though!

One Day...

One day, she will look like this fine beast... this is a 1951 Square Four sold recently at Andy Tiernan's Classic Bike Emporium in Framlingham, Suffolk.