Hallets of Canterbury

Some way back, eager readers might remember I bought my mudguards from an eBay contact and that they were from a bike supplied by Hallets of Canterbury. Well, quite by chance Marcel Hallet, great grandson of the Marcel Hallet whose name adorns a brass plate on my front mudguard got in touch. In his own words:

Afternoon Simon.

A little bit of history. Hallets was opened by my great grandfather after the war. My grandfather and his brother also worked there. It then purchased a company called Invicta Motors the dealer for Ford, who were in financial difficulty. Invicta grew and grew over the years having Ford dealers in Ramsgate, Margate, Faversham, Canterbury. Invictas was sold to a Japanese company in the early 2000's. Hallets the building you see in the photos was knocked down around 2 years ago and now has a block of flats with shops underneath.

Marcel Hallet

And there were a few famous names associated with Hallet's:

Derek Minter (born 27 April 1932) was a British former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer. After National Service in the RAF he often became a fascinated spectator at Brands Hatch and took a job with Hallets, of Canterbury, the motorcycle dealers who were to become his sponsors. The proprietor, Ray Hallet, had been a useful road race and grass track rider himself and had taken Derek to the Isle of Man to be his mechanic in the Manx Grand Prix. Eventually Minter persuaded the company to provide him with a BSA Gold Star. Twice he entered his name for races at Brands Hatch and twice he backed out, suddenly realising that it took more bravery to turn up and race rather than watch. Eventually he plucked up courage and began to show real talent.

His best season was in 1958 when he finished the year in fifth place in the 500cc world championship.In 1960, Minter won the North West 200 race inNorthern Ireland. In 1962, he won the Isle of Man 250cc Lightweight TT.

And the local motorcycle manufacturer, Norman Cycles of Ashford:

Dealer Hallets of Canterbury entered a two-rider team in the 1959 & 1960 Thruxton 500 mile races. Les Hatch (Norman employee) and John Punnet (Greengrocer) rode a factory prepared B3 Sports, engine was specially tuned by Villiers. The B3 Sports was more or less standard, they came 2nd in the 250 class in 1959. The result boosted the Norman order book by £10,000 over night.

Marcel was kind enough to let me post these splendid photographs:

A Sunbeam S7 & A Villiers twin...

An M20 and a Gold Flash:

An Ariel single and a VB:

Another M20 and a Gold Flash:

And this is the best one. Are those my mudguards? that is certainly a Mk1 Square Four, no chrome on the tank so it must be '51 on...

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...

Bit quiet on the bike front...

Apologies to my regular readers once again, things have been a bit quiet. I've spent a lot of time away this month - two trips to Norway & one to Scotland - but the smoked fish in Sandefjord was lovely!

No movement on the Ariel, but the Bantam is moving ahead at Rex Caunt racing. I've had to send my crankcases over this week as Rex has found some peculiar wear that needs investigating. The workshop is still choc-a-bloc with Bantam parts, and I am getting ready to try out some zinc plating on the fasteners for the engine. I have new clutch plates and springs courtesy of Howard at Bournemouth Bantams.

And I have a new toy! Years ago I bought a 1950's Hercules bicycle at an auction (a proper one where you go and wave your hands about) and I've been thinking lately that it needs a little more... excitement. So I have bought this at a very good price on the Bay of E:

That's right! it is a Cyclemaster! It is also about 1951, and sports 26 cc of 2-stroke technology giving 0.6 bhp of raw grunt. It is very original, with it's original Dunlop Carrier tyre & rim, and it's original control levers. It is however, or appears to be, siezed.

There is an excellent site about Cyclemasters at http://www.cyclemaster.co.uk/.

 

In response to a query...

In response to a comment on the blog, here is a photograph of the front stand bracket:

And some dimensions:

On to brighter things?

After the doom & gloom of the gearbox story, I fitted a few more parts and had a general clear up of the summer house - we don't want domestic bliss to be troubled by Ariel parts in the way of deck chair deployment!

The oil tank went in first:

Fitting was relatively straightforward; the ding in the filler neck was not as bad as I had remembered but the dent in the front was a worry.

This was laid to rest by the ever helpful Brenton Roy, AOMCC member & correspondent from Australia who confirmed this is as Ariel intended and is there to clear the distributor.

Not so the other picture!

A Dutch correspondent, and another fellow AOMCC member, suggest that the dent in the oil tank behind the battery was probably due to an exploding battery...

We may leave that one alone, since you can't see it when the battery is in place.

However, also visible in the picture is the very nice stud arrangement from Acme Stainless, holding the oil tank in the frame lug under the saddle.

Here's the oil tank again from the battery side, with the inside primary case in place albeit loosely.

Apparently the spare hole in the engine plate is for the clutch cable.

Here's a view of the primary case from behind, to try and ascertain what happens here. That shiny bit (there is only one shiny bit) is the brake lever stop, another Acme Stainless component. You can see it behind the primary case where there should apparently be a spacer. Thanks again to various AOMCC folks.

And here she is as she is today, looking a bit more like a motorcycle!

Father's Day

Having spent most of my spare time this month either working on the house or stripping the Bantam engine, Father's Day bought the first chance to take a look at all the bits I had collected for the Ariel and to try some of them out.

An eBay auction brought a pair of handlebars purporting to have been taken from a plunger NH - these should be correct for the Square Four if indeed they did come from a plunger NH, which I am beginning to doubt - they look a bit high to me:

Whatever they are from, they look a lot better than the flat 'Norton Straights' that were previously fitted, snaffled from the box of bits that came with the MZ.

The next job was driven, as I have said previously, by a suspicion that the gearbox was wrong. In an earlier post I reported that a G106J51 gearbox comes from a 1951 KH, VH, KG & one or two others. There was a suspicion that the main shaft was different and I was trying to get the transmission together to check the chain alignment, and I though I had achieved that. Secondly, a Burman BA gearbox purporting to be a 1951 Square Four gearbox, labelled G107K51 (the correct code) appeared on eBay - but it was quite obviously not a Square Four gearbox casing - or even an Ariel casing - however it was attractive (or would have been at the right price) because the kickstart housing carried the correct number and the clutch cable abutment was intact - mine is broken.

I'd also checked through the engine mounting plates & studs, and started to talk to Acme Stainless about replacements, so it was time to get the gearbox in it's plates. The result was not too happy.

See the arrows? In this picture, the bottom lug of the box is in the correct location in the frame. The left hand engine plate, on the right in the picture, is fitted correctly to the frame lugs, but there is a 1/8" gap between it and the gearbox. This gap is repeated on the other side, where it appears at the frame. This is because the casing on a Square Four box is different to that for the singles & twins, because for some reason the gearbox is shifted to the left. Research reveals that the mainshaft is also different.

So, pleas are out to DragAnFly, the AOMCC members, and to the nice lady from Essex to try and locate the correct box!

Broken Bantam

Regular readers may have noticed that there has been a wanton lack of progress on the Ariel lately... as I mentioned earlier, the Bantam has decided that it doesn't like it's crankshaft.

We were out for a nice little bimble about, such as can only be found in North Norfolk's finest countryside, when she started clattering and misfiring. After the usual carburetter cleaning, plug gapping etc. and a couple more miles with enforced stops, I turned to the points only to find the cover very loose and the screws backing themselves out.

So I pull it all apart, and find myself with the flywheel in the road:

This signalled end of play for that day, and for the first time she came home on a truck. Several weeks of DIY activity plus a trip to Houston and a busy time at work followed, until last weekend we had the engine out & stripped.

It's now on it's way to Rex Caunt Racing to have the mainshaft replaced.

Hopefully, since the Bantam is down (but not out) we'll get some Ariel time this weekend!

Stainless bits...

Here are some parts from Acme Stainless, a new supplier I've discovered who copies original motorcycle parts in stainless.

These are a few parts totally missing from by boxes - a gearbox pivot bolt, gearbox adjuster and gear position indicator.

Also shown are a set of tank bolts & the tiny 2BA CSK screws for the tank badges.

Here's the brake rod - again totally missing from my bike. The butterfly nut is original.

And here is the clevis at the brake lever end. All very nicely machined & presented, and at a good price.

Front Mudguard & Stands

Here she is in all her slightly less moth-eaten-than-last-month glory...

Front mudguard, first trial fit - looks fine. That stay is slightly bent though, and the front stand bolts (to the fork leg) are also wrong. They shouldn't be plain machine screws as fitted at the moment. Or should they?

Rear view. Looking good. Front stay bolt hole looks stretched/bodged.

Side stand, first trial fit. Needs the primary case to locate the short end of the spring, but coming on. Not sure I would want to use it though, looks rather wobbly.

Here's my triumphant shot of the rear stand spring - all working now. I have scraped up the huge pile of pennies from the shed floor, released from the spring when I used it the first time.

Battery Carrier

Amelia is completely devoid of any battery carrying facilities. She should have the big Lucas GU11E battery that appeared in 1951.

Thanks to Brenton Roy & Guy Rayner of the AOMCC for these images of what I need to make, find, swap or a combination of the three:

What I need is the dimensions of this part. Anyone measure one for me?

Underside, showing the screws that clamp it to the primary cases.

Here is the strap, best English chrome plate, available from Acme Stainless in a rather more appropriate material.

And here is the large battery carrier, in position on Guy's 4G. As he says, his bike should have the small battery. Alas I don't have one to swap...

As a postscript to this request, the ever helpful Brenton sent me this:

We'll be making one of those later.

Welding under way

And so onto the repair of the front mudguard:

Here's a section on the offside, welding up the rusted folded seam

Here's the fatigue fracture in the mounting bracket, cleaned of paint but not ready for welding.

 Here's the offside at the bottom of the flare, burning away as fast as I can weld it.

And here is the long rusted seam on the near side, all repaired.

Well almost. Run out of gas.

Hopefully more tomorrow if I can get to MachineMart Norwich.