Friday 26 May 2017

Southern Classic Bike Show 2017



Southern Classic Bike Show

2017

After getting back from Bristol and at the Museum on Monday and picking up more fliers for later. Tuesday saw me meeting up with Chris for him to borrow my trailer so he could get his Police LE to the Show on the Friday. Nothing happened on the renovation front with the LE engine and gearbox but I did check over my LE in preparation for the ride to Kempton Park. Friday we set up the LE Club stand with Chris, Phil with his Valiant, George and myself getting the banner up and drawings and photos attached to the false wall. 





Chris, me, Steve and George. Phil is taking the picture.

I used safety pins for the wire brackets to hook into and support the banner, Wire coat hangers and masking tape held the drawing in place and just masking tape for the smaller pictures. Everything stayed in place this year. Last year things just kept falling down. Perhaps its because I had new tape that had some sticky stuff on. George arrived on his KSS and me on my LE Special to complete the display on the Saturday morning. Great fun talking to people and handing out fliers for the LMM. Phil had brought several boxes of old Bike magazines and was giving them away. They all disappeared before end of the show. My usual mission is to get oil for the next year and photo some of the more interesting machines on display and around the auto jumble. 


There was a remarkable AJS  M10 500cc ohc single and an even more pristine Zennith Gradua for sale. 





I usually go for Morris oil but this year I was too late in getting out and around because of the heavy showers that sent people scurrying inside to stay dry. No 20/50 anywhere except one stand selling Heritage oils. I was surprised that a gallon was only £14!! Too cheap to be good you might ask. When I had tested it out I’ll report back. Apparently Heritage blend the oil themselves and have a range of oils to suit everyone including fork oil SAE 5,10,15,20,25 and 30!! You can find them on-line www.heritageoils.co.uk
Back in the display hall I went in search of the New Imperial stand to ask a question. New Imperial made a 250cc inclined single and I had a thought that may be one of the engines that had no identification on it in the Museum was a New Imperial. The inclination and shape of the barrel and ports looked a possibility. On the stand Mike was very helpful but he didn’t know of a New Imperial that had a surface cam engine. I showed him some pictures of the engine that I had on my phone. He offered to go in search of information. The picture on the phone were not that good and I said I would get some better ones when I went to the Museum on the Monday. I e-mailed what I had to him on Sunday.


I had recently read about the involvement of Bill Hayward who rode his Baughan in his local motoball or as it was called then motorcycle football. Football played by riding around on a motorcycle and trying to kick a ball as well started off in World War One by despatch riders having a bit of fun. This proved very popular during the twenties and thirties drawing thousands to every match. In the sixties the game had all-but disappeared and is now having a revival, our local club is the Hayes and Southall MCC Motoball Club.



Zoe was on the next stand with her Triumph that has done a few adventures in America with books Bonneville Go or Bust and Southern Escapades that I have yet to read. This time she sold out of books! I commented that she would have enough money to eat today!
Steve, from the LE club helped us out on the stand and Peter, from the Museum was around handing out fliers. He had been on the main gate and had dropped around to the club stand so say he was on his way so I gave him more fliers to hand out. He had distributed them by lunch tome and was on his way home before it started to rain again. I was a great day talking bikes, although we started to pack up at 3pm it was 4pm by the time we had loaded Phil and Chris’s bikes on to trailers. After tidying up our display area it was 4:30pm when George and I and geared up and headed for home on our bikes. We’d had a dry runs this year.
At the Museum on Monday I was on a mission to take some better photos and do some research of my own about this odd engine. I found what I thought was the answer in the British Motorcycle Directory and then in British Motorcycles of the 1930’s. 


The motorcycle was a Dunelt model T that had used a 250cc Sturmey Archer face cam engine. The one in the picture was a single port model but the rest of it looks so similar it has to be. Mike sent me an email late that evening to confirm it was a Dunelt that had used this type of engine.



Wednesday 17 May 2017

Kingswood Heritage Museum




Kingswood Heritage Museum


Being busy is one thing, but adding to it is just too much. I was in Chepstow a few days ago and visiting their local museum that had a special exhibition on antiquities from Assam. Also Gita was dancing at the cultural show that was organised along with the exhibition. Needless to say I was in the dance troop too! No motorcycles to see at that museum but not too far away from where I used to live is the Kingswood Heritage Museum. It is a small museum that traces the industrial development of that area of Bristol. Kingswood is where Douglas Motorcycles were made and the purpose of my visit there. The site of the Museum is an old brass foundry with remnants of the kilns and the slag heap that was turned into sculptured grottos. At the museum are 5 Douglas motorcycles and an interesting Vespa scooter with a big box sidecar on it. 



The Douglas Bantam is a lovely example of an everyman bike with panels to enclose the engine. In the course of production some were fitted with Villiers engines instead of Douglas’s own design two stroke. There was a very nice MK IV and a couple of Dragon Flys. 




I had never seen a Bartrun Fairee but there is a 1908 example of it and it was full of innovation with a clutch and coupled front and rear brakes. The brake lever is exceedingly long! Reading some of the information about Les Bailey who teamed up with, of all people, Granville Bradshaw  and in 1912 who helped build a 350cc racing Douglas.




Over the end of May Bank Holiday the Douglas Motorcycle Club along with the Vintage Motorcycle Club have an annual ride out that starts from the Museum so if you are around that weekend it would be worth paying a visit. The Museum is open Wednesday to Sunday each week from 2pm to 5pm. I found another book to buy, this time on Douglas motorcycles by Peter Carrick. I have read histories of the Mark from Jeff Clew, a view from when the people were still around to talk to and some of his personal recollections and that from Mick Walker a much less coloured transcript as it was written much later. I have yet to get started on the new book that contains a great number of interesting photos. I have an affinity with Douglas Motorcycles as my Father worked there in the machine shop for a few years and, because he had a driving license, would be pulled out to test the 80 pluses and 90 pluses when they were short of test riders. While at the Museum I had a good look at the Dragon Flys and made an observation of how long the induction tract was with that single carburetor. It was not surprising they were not very responsive. Velocette had a similar problem when they tried a single carb on the Valiant. Velocette had to use twin carbs, perhaps that is what was needed on the Dragon Fly?


Getting back to the London Motorcycle Museum on Monday the 1946 Triumph GP racer had returned from the Classic Race Bike meeting at Donnington as was in the Minter Cafe to get up close and personal with. I’m not sure how it got on but it didn’t look as thought it had been thrashed around a race track. No oil leaks!! I managed to take a few close ups before it gets back on its display position.



Magnificent!!!!




Rebuilding a Velocette LE



Velocette LE


It has been quiet for me over the last month with not much being done for the Museum. I have been plagued with cars with problems including MOT’s. All needed work being done on them either by me or a garage so I’ve had little time to get out and about and when I did the Buell broke a muffler strap and I didn’t ride it for a couple of weeks until it was replaced. 

Riding it with the front strap broken would eventually fracture the down pipes as happened to me in 2011. Over Easter the Calthorpe and the Raleigh were fired up for the first time in ages. Great news for our enthusiasts. I’ve been reading and finally finished the book on Harry Baughan. Being in Gloucestershire and not far from from the place where Frank Whittles’ jet engine was first made it is not surprising that Harry Baughan’s company were involved in making parts for this engine. In much secrecy and everyone being kept in the dark, bits were made and no one new what for. Harry Baughan was enthusiastic about trials and much of the book is devoted to his efforts in making difficult courses that tested man and machine and very much part of the success of the Cotswold trial. He made light cars and motorcycles, all being hand built and his sidecar wheel drive a real special. There is some conjecture that Norton’s version was a rebadged Baughan set up as one was made for one of the Norton trials team on the hush-hush and a version of that was produced by Norton for the military in World War 2. This ended up on the market after the war with the sidecar wheel drive disabled as it was deemed unsafe for public use.
Being the resident LE expert I was asked if I would put the Museum LE back together again. After a long time I have got around to collecting the engine, gearbox and final drive from the Museum with a view on getting this ex-Greenford Police LE back together again. It is in a bit of a sorry state as the place where it was stored was not very dry and has caused a good deal of corrosion. I’ll update on the progress as it happens. 


In the box of bits I discovered a large envelope in which there was an article called “On the Speedway” published in The Oxford Annual for Boys 22nd Year by Oxford University Press 1929. This describes Speedway at its start in 1928 the stars of the day and the bikes and gear that went with it. Nothing about Greenford in it, other than just being mentioned, but still an interesting read. No thoughts about it being possibly a little “Dangerous” it was just “Thrilling”. Perhaps we should now replace every reference to motorcycling that mentions dangerous to be thrilling?