1. Ariel Golden Arrow - Restoration

For anyone who followed my BSA A10 restoration, you will be expecting my next project to be my 1954 BSA Bantam. However I just couldn't resist this Ariel "Golden" Arrow super sport that turned up on EBay.

So the Bantam has gone on hold and this new project awaits. After doing the restoration on my BSA A10, I had no hopes that this bike would be as good as it looks in the photos. I know that it will need a full strip and hundreds of hours labour to bring it up to the standard of my other two bikes and fit to show, but that's the bit I really enjoy, to take a 53 year old bike and restore it to better than new condition.

I collected the bike yesterday from Kent and put it in my box trailer for the 168 mile trip back to Nottingham. I was only 30 miles from Nottingham when I decided to take a look in the trailer and see if the bike was still OK. It wasn't. Despite having used 8 ratchet straps to hold it in place, the bike was virtually over on it's side. A quick inspection revealed that the rear lifting handles, to which I had fixed four of the straps had only been held in place with domestic rawl plugs and  screws, which hadn't held. My only choice was to hook the straps onto the bodywork, which fortunately held for the rest of the trip and didn't damage the bodywork. However when I opened the trailer I did find that both silencers had dropped off and one of the rear silencer mounting brackets.

So today was just a case of studying the project and learning about Ariel Arrows. The first thing I couldn't resist was to see if it goes. A few kicks achieved the odd cough so I tried a bump start and to my surprise, it started. It does not sound well and is very smokey, but at least it started. So I took it for a quick spin up the car park. First impressions are not good. The engine is reluctant to run and the bike has a definite wobble, which feels like a buckled wheel. Lifting the seat revealed a 12V battery (not connected). So it looks as though it has had a 12v conversion at some point in its life, it remains to be seen if 12v is actually being delivered to the battery?

Tomorrow, with any luck, I'll start the full strip and see what other nightmares are going to be revealed.

 Copyright K. Hopcroft  19.01.14 All rights reserved
 You can contact me on: hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

My other Blogs:

1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
 https://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html


Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html

1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car: 
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.html 

Motorcycle Trailers / Caravans:
http://motorcycletrailersandcaravans.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/1-motorcycle-trailers-problem.html