Huntmaster Toolkit

Updated: First published April 2018

As you know, I have a bit of a passion for getting the tool kits right on my bikes. Some while ago, I started a post on the tool roll for the FH, which took a while materialise but the secret to finding these bits is to do your research and start looking, in the knowledge that it might be a while before you find everything...

Here is the toolkit list from the 1956 parts list. Added to this for 1957 is a 'single ended box spanner for rear wheel nuts', number 6601-57, probably when the fully enclosed rear chain case was introduced:


Here's a list I made to collate what I had. Decimal dimensions come from the factory drawings in Ray Tolman's list.:

Item	Ariel PN	Old PN	Function	End 1	End 2
1	6600-32	G1/110	Spanner for brake fulcrum adjustment
2	6600-36	G1/125	Double Ended Spanner	3/16	1/4
3	6603-28	G1/59	Double Ended Spanner	5/16	3/8
4	6603-56		Double Ended Spanner (rear wheel spindle nut)
5	6604-55		Tappet Spanner
6	6605-28	G1/66	Double Ended Spanner	7/16	½
7	6606-27	G1/55	Double Ended Spanner, steering head nuts	1.01" 9/16" BSW	1.1" 5/8" BSW
8	6608-56		Spanner for sparking plug
9	6611-55		Box Spanner for rear wheel
10	6611-31	G1/99	Tube Spanner for hub spindle nut	0.825" 7/16" BSW	0.925" 1/2" BSW
11	6616-26	G1/33	Screwdriver
12	6616-29	G1/86	Screwdriver for clutch spring nuts
13	6617-56		Magneto Spanner
14	6625-26		Tyre Lever
15	6625-55		Tyre Lever and tommy bar
16	6636-54		Tyre Inflator
17	6601-57		Single Ended Box Spanner for rear wheel nuts
	6640-54		Tool roll only

My FH tool kit started off looking like this:

A tool box full of spanners

So we need to set to and find the tools. Item 1 is easy, and I already have one for the FH:

Item 1, Brake Fulcrum Spanner

Item 2 is also easy, once you remember that these spanners were bought in by Ariel, the makers names ground off and 'Ariel' stamped in their place. They are also notable for the fact that they are marked with BSW sizes unlike most Ariel spanners, which are marked with BSF or BSC sizes:

Item 2 Double Ended Spanner

Item 3 is another common Ariel spanner, the G1/59. This one is the later oval shank style:

Item 3, Double Ended Spanner

Item 3 is a bit tired and will need some material adding.

Item 4 is a complete guess, supported by Ray Tolman's opinion:

Item 4, Double Ended Spanner

Is this BSA spanner similar to item 5, given the provenance of the FH engine?

Giving it some thought I decided this later BSA spanner would be more appropriate.

Item 6 is one of the most common Ariel spanners. This one is pre-war (rectangular shank style):

Item 6, Double Ended Spanner

Item 7 is also very common, though this one has been filed out...

Item 7, Double Ended Spanner

This one fits the spark plug, but other than that is a complete guess:

Item 8, Spark Plug Spanner

Since item 9 has a 1955 part number, I assume it must be the wheel spindle spanner: 

Item 9, Box spanner for rear wheel

Here's a modern equivalent for item 10:

Item 10, Modern Version

Item 11 is just the usual wire formed screwdriver:

Item 11, Screwdriver

The clutch screwdriver is also easy:

Item 12, Clutch Screwdriver

Item 13 is a standard Lucas magneto spanner:

Item 13, magneto spanner

Item 14 is a tyre lever, which I assume is similar to either to the 'third hand' type included in the military tool kits, or more probably the Dunlop spoon type. Since I have a spare cranked one, we'll add that for now:

Item 14, Tyre lever

Would item 15 be something like this, used by Triumph?

Here's my attempt, almost there:

Item 15, Tyre Lever and tommy bar

The tyre inflator:

Item 16, Thapex Tyre Pump

Here's the last item, which I guess was added when the FERC was introduced in 1956, making it difficult to get to the QD hub nuts:

Item 17, A single ended 3/8 BSW spanner suitable for the hub nuts

So now I have this, and a bit more searching to do.

In addition to the standard tool kit, we'll need this 10 thou feeler gauge and a 1/8" hex key for the Triumph socket head tappet adjusting screws I fitted in this post:

Here's the repro tool roll I made in this post:

The little pile of tools fits the bag nicely:

And the bag fits in the tool box:

Here are a few links to my other toolkit pages:

• W/NG toolkit
• SQ4 toolkit
• Military tool roll
• Civilian tool roll
• Swinging Arm tool roll

Charlie's Shed - Making a sidestand

 The sidestand fitted to Anstey-framed Ariels is a poor affair that does not extend very far from the frame and has a very small foot which combines to make the use of the stand a very precarious and risky operation. I never use it. 

However, the bike is a heavy old thing which would benefit from a decent sidestand so in this episode I'll show you how to make one.

I bought a leg, a while back, from eBay. It's from a Suzuki TS125 trail bike, so it is very long and it came with a spring and a M10 x 1.25 bolt. Doing this again, I'd probably buy a Triumph or Enfield leg as I ended up cutting a lot of length off this one.

The sidestand is going to bolt on, but I'm not a fan of clamp on types so this is going to bolt across the two bottom frame rails forward of the sump plate. A piece of steel bar, 6 mm x 35 mm spans the frame. I start by putting a 45° bend in a short length at one end, to start to get an idea of how it will look on the bike and what sort of leg length I will need, where it will sit in the 'up' position and where the stops will need to be. I drill a 10.5 mm hole for the bolt and fit the leg:

The first decision I make is that the spring will be underneath, not above the leg as Suzuki had it. I'll cut the peg off and smooth the area:

While the 6 x 35 mm flat bar can provide the 'down' stop, it needs extending to provide the 'up' stop. I make a piece with a double prep and weld it on:

Some shaping with hacksaw, files and the linisher gives us two stops:

The stand is going to be held on the frame rails with three 1/4" U bolts, one on the drive side and two on the timing side. Here's a trial fit of the first one:

With the assembly in place we can look at the leg length, and the angle it is going to make with the ground. Obviously if the stand's touch down point is further away from the bike's centreline, the bike is more stable. We don't want the stand leg too short, but leaving it like this won't allow the bike to lean enough.

Next, we need to stiffen that bar. It's stiff, but this is a heavy machine and we don't want a rider sitting on the bike while it is on the stand opening our stand bracket out. The stiffener is a piece of 20 x 3 mm flat bar

The stiffener also provides somewhere to mount the spring lugs. I made these from a bit of 10 mm round bar on the mini-lathe:

One of the key issues is to get the lugs in the right place such that the spring holds the leg firmly in both positions, without the spring fouling anything as it moves:

There was way too much slop between the stand leg and the mounting bar. I built up the bearing surface with weld and cut it back on the linisher to get it to about 7 mm

It's much less wobbly. Obviously wobble here will affect the lean of the bike when it's on the stand.

Time for another fitting. At the previous trial fit, I marked the position of the timing side U bolts, so now I can drill the holes. I haven't yet trimmed the mounting bracket, but I have trimmed the leg. Here are all the bits:

The bike has a lean of maybe 5°, which is fine.

Time to start finishing the leg. Here's the foot, cut from a bit of 3 mm sheet. The sheet happened to have a hole in it, I'll fill it up later:

Gosh that was quick. In this next picture, the foot is partially welded on and I have made the foot finder from some 10 mm round bar and another bit of 3 mm sheet. To start with, I fitted the stand to the bike in the up position and held a 200 mm length of the round bar in place, deciding where I wanted the foot finder - it needs to come out behind the foot rest and to do that I needed a bend. Once I had the bend formed I held the round bar on the foot with a spring clamp to see if it was in the right place, and I was able to see how long the bar needed to be and where on the foot it needed to be fixed. I tacked it on the foot.

Next I made a 25 mm square pedal, and curved it a little to emulate the shape of the brake pedal. I tacked that on the end of the bar and refitted the stand, which revealed various issues. These were resolved by removing the leg and holding it on the vice, heating the round bar to perform the bends I wanted - the bar curved around the exhaust, but not tightly enough, and the pedal was not square to the bike in two axes. A bit of heat soon fixed those issues. 

That's it for now. The stand is back in position and working:

I'll run around with it for a while and see how it goes. I still need to ease the 'u' bolt holes on the timing side and trim the end of the bracket before painting, but for now we need to shake it down.

FH Dry Build - Magneto Cutout Switch

There's lots of jobs to do on an old bike project - some dramatic, some messy, some tedious, some hardly noticeable. One of these is the magneto cutout, which is a small Lucas 76207 horn button mounted in a folded steel bracket to one of the handlebar clamp studs. It's here:

You'll recall I made some nuts last week - one of these was the locking nut for the cutout button:

The bracket will be a bit of 2 mm cold rolled sheet, but its a bit of an odd shape as it has to appear from under the top yoke, go forward under the handlebar and then pop out between the handlebar and the casquette. It took me three goes to get it right in cardboard:

I made the next prototype in 0.8 mm sheet which I could cut with snips and fold easily:

This looked OK but the switch wasn't quite in the right place:

It took me two more goes in this sheet before I felt confident that I wouldn't be wasting time if I went to the full thickness. Of course, at 2 mm thick it was going to need a bend allowance and it's straightforward to build that in during the marking out stage.

Here's a close up after drilling - you can see the double lines showing the position of the bends. I use a bend allowance equivalent to the thickness of the material - in this case adding 2.0 mm to each bend.

Here it is again, having been cut out with the hacksaw, filed and linished to the final shape:

I didn't take any pictures of the folding in the vice. I was careful to use the smooth jaws, have the bend line exactly aligned with the top of the jaws and to observe the bend forming as I pushed it over, such that the bend was formed between the two bend lines.

That's it. I've added it to the list of small bits to be zinc plated later.

Charlie's Shed - Making Nuts

 This week, I have been mostly making nuts...

These are the special sleeve nuts for the front stand - only the SQ4 has the correct one, so, since the same part number has been used since 1928 I have made four - one for stock. 

These are 3/8" CEI reduced hex half nuts, in this case for the Huntmaster magneto cutout button. I made three - two for stock. 

Threading these on the lathe was being difficult - the 5/16" CEI taps are dull and this is 303 stainless. I started them in the lathe and finished them in the vice. 

Either I need to learn how to sharpen taps or I need to replace them! 

FH Dry Build - Front Stand

Amidst various domestic and railway activities, the FH Dry Build marches forever onward - and I am beginning to run out of jobs. Did I really say that out loud?

I took a series of pictures for the dating certificate and this one reveals graphically that the front stand is wrong - it's either not Ariel, or perhaps is for a bike with a smaller wheel, though I can't see that somehow. The FH has a 19" front rim and none of the bikes I am aware of use a smaller rim than that, apart from the Leader & Arrow neither of which use a front stand.

Anyhow, it has the right fitting at the rear and is the right shape, so I am going to use it.

Removing the stand in the safety of the workshop reveals it is about 3/4" too short:

What I have done is cut both legs as square as I can and trimmed them up on the linisher. Then, I've taken a piece of 5/8" x 16 swg tube and cut two 3/4" sections on the lathe; I've also cut two pieces out of a scrap footrest bar (which was bent) to support the spacers and keep everything aligned:

I've set it all up on the bench, and cleaned the areas to be welded on the wire wheel. There's a bit of 5/16" bar through both ends to keep them aligned while I tack it together:

Two autogenous butt welds on each side, 40A:

And there we go, problem solved.

All we need now are a couple of Thackeray washers and I can make the pivot bolt spacers on the lathe. 

Here they are now, 5/16" ID, 3/8" OD and 7/16" long 303 stainless:

Bolts are 5/16" CEI x 1". This is how they fit:

The stand pivots around the spacer and the Thackeray washer prevents it all rattling. You can drop the stand by loosening the single nut at the back of the mudguard.