West Coast Road Trip 2 -The Jameson Collection

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A Road Trip

(West Coast 2)

The Jameson Collection

Out of San Francisco on Route One going south to Monterey. A pleasant drive with views of the sea most of the way. I can understand why you would want to bike this. Gita drives us in the hire car, a Hyundai Tucson SUV. It is a bit of a tank but she gets on well with it. I have a destination to get to in Pacific Grove. After checking into our hotel it is off to find the Old Timer Museum which we find easily using Tom. There is no-one there when we arrive but a note on the door inviting us to an address in the next street. This is the local newspaper office. We are in the middle of the office of “The Cedar Street Times” . We are introduced to the team members Neil and Marge Ann Jameson along with Webster Slate. At the back of the office is the Jameson’s Classic Motorcycle Museum. We spend a couple of hours talking bikes and history. I could not think of a better way to spend our time. The collection has some very interesting machines to view.

Neil standing by one of his Triumphs. In his collection there are some very interesting bits. I start with this washing machine motor. Most would this it would be electric however, in the past many places do not have an electricity supply even today so a petrol driven option may well take your fancy.

There is a good selection of scooters all having been restored to running order along with various mopeds and bicycles. Then there is this early Harley single to add more interest and a late thirties 45.

There are some interesting Triumphs too with this electric start Bonneville that was one of the last twenty to come off the production line before Meriden closed.

There is a speed record holder in the Honda CB160 Bonneville Streamliner from 1965 and a little 1913 Peugeot almost hidden behind a Harley but my favourite was the late thirties Rudge. Unusual to see anywhere.

Last but not least is one of my favourite 250s and that is the BMW R30, a bit heavy but built like a tank with and almost unburstable engine. It is an eclectic collection of motorcycles that reflects the machines that were used in different times.

As usual I left some fliers and got, in exchange, a copy of the Cedar Street Times and a couple of copies of the City Bike Mag. All of which I have enjoyed reading along with the different styles of publication.

West Coast Road Trip 1

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A Road Trip.

(West Coast 1)

At the Wey Valley Advanced Motorcycle Club meeting in April the guest speaker was Zoe Cano who is an adventure girl travelling across America, New Zealand and Wales this time on her scooter. Zoe was very honest about her travels expressing her fears and triumphs quite clearly. An enjoyable evening. I have known Zoe a little while and at this meeting introduced her to my wife Gita. Timely as we were about to embark on our own road trip flying into San Francisco going down the west coast to LA then on to Flagstaff via Phoenix, some of the National Parks, Las Vegas, Death Valley, Yosemite and back to San Francisco to come home. All in three weeks and every day planned except one where we had to change the itinerary due to it snowing! The painted desert would not be painted!

San Francisco is a great place to visit with those hills that everyone remembers from the Steve McQueen Film “Bullet”. Touristy stuff was on the agenda along with paying a visit to the San Francisco Fire Department Toy Program being a Facebook Friend for a long time I felt that being in the city it was an opportunity not to be missed. Will all my best efforts I did not manage to meet up with the Toy Program organiser Sally or see the Museum however I did get to visit 3 Fire Stations one being the fireboat station. 

This happened to be the oldest fire station in San Francisco that survived the quake and following fires in 1906. It is being preserved for posterity. What I did learn was that San Francisco has the only Fire Department that still uses wooden ladders. Some with parts a hundred years old. They have craftsmen that look after these ladders, service and repair them from new seasoned wood. They all look like new! Varnished and beautifully cared for, works of art. Having visited stations 9, 10 and 35 leaving London Motorcycle Museum fliers at each station meeting the most friendly guys ever a few of whom have promised to visit the Museum when they come to the UK.

A visit to San Francisco would not be complete without going across the Golden Gate Bridge, Cable Car rides and a visit to as many shops as we could manage while they were open we left the city on Route One south to explore the coast, enjoy the scenery and arrive at Monterey to visit a couple of Motorcycle Museums and the famous race track, Laguna Seca.

Valiant Effort

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A Valiant Effort.

At the end of last year my Little Velocette Valiant was being very incontinent. Oil was dripping from the clutch housing at the back of the engine. 

There are three oil seals in that space where the clutch is positioned. One on each side of the drive shaft and the other being the kick start shaft. To get to these required an engine out job splitting the engine from the clutch housing and then from the gearbox housing. A great deal of faffing around trying to squeeze the engine from the frame without taking paint with it. 

I had to remove all the securing studs to make the space. Fortunately I only needed to replace the two engine seals. The drive one behind the clutch and the main culprit the kick start shaft seal. This seal was a poor fit in the casting so some loctite was applied to take up the slack. I found a very old paper gaskit (over 20 years at a guess) that had been folded and would not straighten out. It did after I made it damp with water and spread it out to dry to restore its original shape. 

Reassembled with a little gaskit sealant it all went back together quite well until I found the oil pipe that supplies oil to the drive shaft bearing was not in the right place and on bending the pipe to fit it sheared off at the union. I drilled out the remains of the pipe and re-soldered what was left back in position and continued the assembly. A minor hiccup. It is now running fine but I have discovered another drip of oil from the front housing and the oil seal there will need to be replaced before long as does the one on the Greenford Police LE engine. That will be done soon. Sorting through my spares I found another LE silencer box. It looked quite reasonable until I started to repair the obvious small holes. In the end I spent half a day welding them up only to blow more holes in it because the metal was so thin. I think I have filled all of one side with welding rod. It is now painted and ready for fitting. It looks OK. 

I have not progressed much further with the Police LE other than to get a 3BA tap and 3BA countersunk screws that are needed to fit the top leg shield plates that are the platform for the switches and gauges and then refit the screw fixing brackets after the final coat of paint has dried. On-line nut and bolt specialists have been a great asset in this area. I have had some bits from the LE club and got hold of a second hand radiator cap that has taken ages to clean up. For some reason these zinc caps acquire a powdery residue from contact with anti-freeze that is difficult to remove. It just does not rub off and has to be scraped away especially from the screw thread on the inside of the cap. I now have a shiny cap.

I have been contacted my Mortons about the Southern Classic Bike Show at Kempton Park on May 19^th and will having a Velocette LE Club stand at that venue. As usual things need to set in motion now for who will be attending and what bikes will be there. I also have an invite to attend from the BEN Windsor Great Park -Vintage and Classic Vehicle Tour on Saturday 30^th June. I usually take the Valiant on this one. This year it is my intention to get to the Chinnor Byke Dayz event the following weekend. Wall to wall live bands and entertainment all day. 6^th, 7^th and 8^th July Real ales and food too! It was great the last time I was able to go and something not to be missed.

Two Strokes and More

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Two Strokes and More.

I have a whole muddle of things I have been thinking about as the snow swirls around and I’m not able to do much about anything. I’m waiting for oil seals from the LE Club as both the Valiant and the Greenford Police LE have started to leak from behind the generator flywheel. It can only be the front oil seal so I wait the delivery of new seals. When I put the heater on I can work in my garage but the space is limited and putting dabs of primer on the leg-shields to smooth them out a bit more is as much as I can do before the top coat is applied and I’m not sure when that will be. It has to be a bit warmer before that can be done

The visit to Sammy’s has made me think about two strokes not only the Villiers four but the little Tandon that was made in Ludgate Hill London and here is a small list of some of the bikes made in my area over the years. My thanks to Pete for supplying me with this information.

Ascot, Pentonville Road

Austen, Lewisham

Banamoto, Acton also made Cyc-Auto that was Park Royal

Bowden, Greys Inn Road

British Anzani, Hampton Hill

Brown, Great Eastern Street

Butler, Dalston

Calvert, Stoke Newington

Casswell, Great Eastern Street

Castell, Kentish Town

Century, Willsden Junction

Chater Lea, Golden Lane and later Banner Street

Clement, Regents Park

Cyclaid, Raynes Park

Dayton, Shoreditch and later North Acton

Duzmo, Enfield Way

EMC, Perry Vale

Featherstone, Bethnall Green

Gamage, Holborn

Grandex, Grays Inn Road

Grigg, Twickenham

Hack, Hendon

Hazel, Forrest Gate

Iris, Brixham

Ixion, Loughborough Junction

JAP, Totenham

JP, Cheapside

Kerry, Shoreditch

Kuhn, Stockwell

Kyma, Peckham Rye

Lagonda, Staines

Lindsay, Clerkenwell

Little Giant, Uxbridge

Mabon, Clerkenwell Road

Mars, Finchley

Neofold, Battersea Rise

Newman, Tabernacle Street

NYE, Leather Lane

Ogston, Acton

Pheonix, Holloway Road

Pride and Clarke, Stockwell Road

Randall, Wanstead

Rayner, Chancery Lane

Reyre-Newson, Stamford Hill

Silva, Conduit Street

Swallow, Park Lane

Trent, Shepherds Bush

Tyler, Gerrard Street

Vindec, Great Eastern Street

Weller, West Norwood

Whippet, Twickenham

Wilkinson, Acton

Wooler, Park Royal

Young, Waltham

Zenith, East Molesey

Not an exhaustive list but quite a number mostly surviving only a few years in the 1900s.

More up to date is the Villiers Four that look like a collection of 9Es in a Vee. There was a common crankcase that was pressurized by using a Shorrocks supercharger to provide the crankcase pressure, the brainchild of Bernard Hines. The following photos should explain it all.

More from Sammy's

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More from Sammy’s

Thumbing through some magazines I stumbled upon the Guzzi Vee twin racer. Sammy Millers has one and is well displayed. It was story told by Vic Willoughby “The Galloping Guzzi” in Classic Motorcycle Legends of spring 1991. Even Stanley Woods had a ride on one and Ernie Lyons of Triumph GP fame rode one at the TT in 1948.

It seems many people loved this 500cc 120 degree Vee Twin. Other bits of interest at Sammy’s was a sectioned Wooler beam crank engine, EMC and Puch split singles. Looking around and trying not to notice the 1300 trophies along one wall it makes our Derick Minter collection look quite small other bits of engines keep me occupied. There is an example of a desmodromic engine, Bradshaw’s oil boiler and the Italian Capriolo face cam engine of 1955.

I spent all day there taking pictures of all the bikes and bits I found interesting nearly 360 photos for the record to add to my already large collection from other museums. It is a never ending quest to find out more about the bikes I know about and the list keeps getting bigger!

Some of the bikes I know about like the Guzzi Vee Eight and the earlier Vee twin that Sammy had brought to Brooklands and fired it up a few years ago. We have a 1925 Beardmore Precision at the LMM Sammy has a 1923 model and what about a Duzmo of 1923. Bert L Vack raced one in the 1920 TT that had a top speed of 80mph! 

There is a 1925 Grigg not that significant other than it was made in Twickenham. Obtaining more information about things I had seen, at the last Off Road Bike Show at Kempton I saw an interesting moped that had an in-line crank. 

It had no name that I recognised on it but now I know what it is- a Cyc Auto made by Wallington Butt in 1934 and later produced by Scot in 1938 at their Shipley works.

I have now seen another Douglas DV60 and also the very rare single cylinder 150cc two stoke made for the 1938 Motorcycle Show the CL38. 

The Ascot Pullin was a master of enclosure for 1929. I think it must be more to the colour blue but is was a very technically innovation machine for its day. 

I have seen a number four cylinder machines like the 1935 Indian, 1909 FN , 1916 Henderson, 1911 Pierce but there are some British four cyders out there too. How about Mr Wooler and his flat four of 1955 and of course Ariel with the square fours I prefer the earlier OHC model to the later push rod engine that Edward Turner came up with and then there is the Haythorn of 1939, the in-line four AJS of 1929 or the 1930 OEC using the Matchless Silver Hawk engine, the Villiers two stroke four of 1962 and I know its racing but what about the AJS water cooled Vee Four of 1939 and the 1947 Porcupine.

Sammy has an amazing collection and a single visit was not enough. I did speak with the man himself in the workshops more bikes are being put back together and I am now aware of a new cleaning process that takes all the muck off aluminium and makes it look freshly cast. The finish is amazing.

Winter Activities

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Winter Activities.

When the weather is bad you may think there is not much to do but as I think of things the “to do” list just keeps getting longer. Having bought Elspeth Beards book “The Lone Rider” at the Wey Valley Advanced Motorcycle Club meeting in November it took me ages to get around to reading it. Once started it kept me reading until I had finished it. Reason for no other posts in January. If only I could read and write at the same time! The book had tales of daring, persistence, illness and disasters along with camaraderie and affection. One tough and determined lady. It is a shame that her adventure has been left so long to be told. I can’t wait for the film.

 The Greenford Police LE is moving along I used a pair of my heads to get the engine assembled  as the original ones were cracked through frost damage the oil filter was painted along with the timing cover and mated the gearbox back to the engine  and checked for a spark that arrived after cleaning and resetting the points and the exhaust system fitted, I need to get hold of a proper clamp instead of a jubilee clip that it came with. I had cleaned up the rusty and pitted exhaust pipes and gave them a coat of heat resistant paint so they looked a bit better and  after fitting the exhaust system assembly one Saturday morning I fitted my only set of foot boards and borrowed the kick start off my LE and the battery. I had to fit the footboards because they are also the kickstart stop without them the kick start mechanism would disconnect itself.  Hot wired and with a squeezy bottle of petrol all the ingredients were there for it to run. To my surprise after about half a dozen goes It showed signs of life and a few more ungainly kicks it revved away until the fuel ran out. I was only putting a carb full at a time as my set up was s leaking. Success, I can now move on to other things.

 Leg shields were handy and needed a bit of repair where the holes had become too large over the years for bolts and washers to secure. My solution was to araldite aluminium plates to the back of the leg shields then use filler on the front side to get a smooth finish before re-drilling the holes. Doesn’t sound much but that was a couple of days effort. Rubbed down I sprayed some primer on the shields. Not easy when you have to spray outside. Having a can of warm paint helps enormously. The horn received a clean up and a coat of paint too. I may need to wait for a month or two before more progress with the final coat.

Life is not all confined to my garage or study I do get out at times and a visit to the New Forest was planned and being in the New Forest Sammy Millers’ and Beaulie were so close. I went to Sammy Millers’ Museum on a very wet Saturday. Met the man himself and spent all day there. I took over 370 photos and wherever I go I see something of interest. Sammy’s racing machines are well known and as he keeps searching for new things of interest he put together a complete bike for the 50cc four cylinder engine that had been hung up on my last visit. Having spent some time finding out what surface cam engine there was in the Museum, Sammy had one already and a cutaway of the mechanism. Now I know how the surface cams operate the valves. The Sturmey Archer engine was used in the Dunelt model T30. However Dunelt were not the only people to use a surface cam engine and, also in 1930, Chater Lea had a 350cc version.

I do like some of the Italian machinery like the Moto Guzzi vee twin racer and the bacon slicer singles. The V8 is unbelievable. I had a great day and complimented by the ham, egg and chips for lunch washed down with a good mug of tea. I met some very interesting people too with lunch being spent with a member of the BSA owners club and later on a VMCC member who has recently bought a Dart motorcycle from 1922 and looking for some guidance in restoration. As Dart were made in Coventry it may be that a visit to the Coventry Transport would be useful for him. A busy day for us on the Monday with a charming lady who loved the smell of petrol, oil and old motorcycles in the little barn. A gem I would say.