New project stirring?

Could these boxes contain Huntmaster parts, sorted out with a view to starting work?

I've taken a few photographs of the frame to get to know it...

Gearbox bottom bolt thread is very stiff...

Is this steering lock lug supposed to look like that?

You will have realized the frame is upside-down.

Commuting

When the opportunity arises, I like to use the Square Four for ordinary day to day trips, like commuting to the office. This is great fun, and usually results in some issue appearing.

I covered about 55 miles today in a trip to Norwich, to collect some new glasses. Nice B-road trip, early start, mid afternoon back. There was a bit of rain in the morning but the Ariel didn't miss abeat - well, not due to that anyway. The return trip was dry, sunny, and much warmer than the morning had been.

Regular readers will have observed that I have had the front brake and its cable off and on a few times, trying to cure it from grabbing. Since I happened to be in the vicinity of Bungay a few weeks ago I dropped in to see the chaps at Draganfly and to pick up some new brake shoe return springs. Pulling it all apart at the weekend showed that the springs were about 3 mm shorter than the old ones - all fitted, end of grabbing problem. I even adjusted the wedge up another notch on the way out today, and no hassle from the front brake all day.

Duff old brake shoe springs

Another thing that is a persistent problem is the tank knee pads. These come loose after a few tens of miles - so I need to find a way of fixing that.

Loose knee grip

Then there is the weep from the rocker boxes - or is it the cylinder head? After a run, there is always fresh oil on the back of the block, which is worse on the nearside; you can see a stain coming from the rocker boxes, and sometimes there is a drop of oil on the rocker shaft nuts.

Offside rocker nuts, complete with drip

Here's the nearside

It looks like it dribbles off the head and onto the barrel...

Now, these engines are reputed to over-oil the top end, and of course this is worse on Morgo-equipped bikes like mine

The oil tank is often wet  on the outside, with a stream emanating from the filler cap - I fancifully wonder if this comes from the offside rocker boxes, but this is so obviously worse around the cap that I can't see that... the thing is, I routed a pipe beyond the rear wheel to allow the tank to breath & nothing comes from that.

I guess the cap just leaks. I have a new tank with a good thread, so I will change that one day. 

Something that has been niggling at the back of my mind is a misfire that appears after a long run on a hot day and gets steadily worse. Excessive carburetter temperature leading to fuel vapourization? On arriving home on a warmish day (23°C - warm for Brits!) after getting a mild misfire, getting worse in town, I found that the carb around the throttle spindle was up at nearly 90°C, and the float chamber near the main jet was around 60°C. That's got to be enough to vapourize some element of the fuel - petrol boils at 95°C (203°F)...

Infra-red thermometer. This has been useful!

I plan to fix this with a tufnol thermal barrier between the carburetter and the head. I'll probably add the proper Bi-Starter knob and the air bell when I have the carb off, and maybe make the new throttle lever spring bracket.

And the other thing? the speedo has packed up again - over-lubricated I think, it just sits at zero. I guess the clutch is slipping...

At rest. Unfortunately it still looks like that in motion...

Here are some fish for tea...

Fresh Mackerel, straight from fishing rod to kitchen!

More on the new tank

As reported a few weeks ago, the replacement tank for the Ariel is coming up for it's turn on the bench. Or is it...

It's back from the blasters now and not unexpectedly it is a bit of a state. The bottom has been removed to blast the inside, and the next few months will see a bit of tin bashing & welding, to put this lot right.

Here are the pictures:

Picture 1 - Offside Rear

Picture 2 - Saddle Nose, Offside

Picture 3 - Saddle Nose, Nearside

Picture 4 - Rear View

Picture 5 - Front Offside

Picture 6 - Front Nearside

Picture 7 - Underneath

Picture 8 - Offside

Picture 9 - tap area

Picture 10 - Brazed Mount

Bantam National Rally

A fine sunny day last saturday saw me and Beattie winging our way down to Marsham, near Aylsham, for the 2015 BSA Bantam Club National Rally, hosted by the Starting Handle Club.

Beattie, amongst many siblings

A C11G

An A10

Another A10

Racing Bantams

Racing Bantams again

Rick & Alan

Rick & Alan had both come up from Devon the day before - they were having a couple of days break before going off, after the rally, to Yorkshire & then on to Berwick before heading back down the west coast for home. This round Britain Run was in aid of Headway, the charity devoted to supporting sufferers from brain injuries. Very pertinent to us all.

You can donate here, on Headway Devon's website.

Congratulations guys, and to your fellow travellers!

Indy Corvette

Remember this anyone? Indy Corvette concept car, about 1988, pictured on the test track at Lotus Engineering, Hethel, Norfolk.

That's me in the middle, purple shirt.

Tools & Maintenance

You may remember me remarking on the inaccessibility of various items for maintenance, notably the oil strainer and the gearbox top bolt.

Well, as if to demonstrate this needless fact to myself I decided to cover myself in oil, last time I did the change, realising too late that the funnel I had to direct oil into the can really was too big to fit under the oil tank and no I couldn't squeeze it to fit...

So, I needed a small funnel with an offset spout. Could I find one? No. So like all good engineers I set about making one...

This is not actually a paper Shewee. Its a paper model of my funnel that I made to make sure my design would fit in that teeny tiny space under the oil tank. 

Here are the tin parts. I took the paper she-wee apart again and pasted the parts onto this old oil can. Cutting around the parts with two different pairs of snips (snips are designed for cutting straight lines, or right and left hand curves, in different pairs of snips) I came up with these:

So let's stick it under the oil tank and see if it fits. Despite the narrow space around the drain plug, this will do the job. What we will need, though, is something to stop oily, slippery drain plugs disappearing down the funnel. More on that later.

This is the top of the funnel. It has a wired edge for stiffness, made by rolling the tin around a 2.5 mm copper wire, which is then wrapped around the funnel shape and joined, again using the wire and a small soldered flap

So here is the wire-edge rim and the funnel soldered together:

And here's the funnel & tube section fitted together & soldered,

As you can see this produces a funnel which doesn't align with the top of an oil can

So it needs a crank in it, like this:

And now it fits happily in the can

And it fits under the oil tank, whilst its in the can. now I can drain the oil hands-free. All I need now is something to stop the drain plug disappearing down the funnel. 

And here we are, a simple mesh made from interwoven 2.5 mm copper wire:

So there we have it, an operational funnel made to fit in a couple of hours from scrap - an old oil can and a bit of 2.5 mm twin & earth, knocking about in the garage. Tools used are simple too - a 100 W soldering iron and a pair of snips.