19 Ariel Golden Arrow - Exhaust & Handle Bars

At last I can fit the new exhaust pipes that my wife bought me for Christmas to my 1961 Ariel Golden Arrow. (I know it's sad! Who on earth asks for motorbike exhaust pipes as a Christmas present?) First I removed the very crude cast aluminium end cones from the new exhausts. These were not very good castings and had deep pit marks and sand casting bumps all over them. So first I put them it the lathe and spent some time smoothing them down with emery cloth and then filled all of the deep pit marks with body filler, finally rubbing them down with wet and dry until they were ready for painting. Then it was into the cardboard spray booth for several coats of high build primer.

Once dry I then made a mistake. I decided to use some "high temperature black enamel" paint that I had. This was not a a good idea. It reacted with the primer and never dried. After 48 hours it was still sticky and starting to blister. Obviously the two paints had had a chemical reaction together and this was not good. So I had to start again. I got the wet and dry out again and rubbed them both back down to bare metal again and resprayed the primer and this time, after drying, applied standard high gloss black and they look brilliant. It was then just a case of reassembling the silencers and fitting them to the bike with some nice new stainless steel exhaust clamps and they really look nice.

So, in order to finish the wiring, I need to fit the handlebars so that I can wire the dip switch and horn. One of the replacement parts that I have hated has been the plastic cap that covers the headstock nuts. This plastic cone that was damaged and beyond use presented a problem. I bought a replacement new one, but when it arrived it was in a black marbled finish. I thought that I would be able to simply paint it but after four attempts it was obvious that this was not the answer. Each time I painted it the paint flaked off and revealed the black plastic. So I decided to have a stainless steel one made.  Whilst I have the skill to turn one myself, my lathe isn't fast enough to turn stainless and the tools I have are not good enough to cut stainless. So I took it to a friend who made one for me for a bottle of wine (good deal) and all I had to do was polish it. I could then pop it in place and add the handlebar clamp and the new handlebars. I must admit that it does look so much nicer than the plastic one.

With the handlebars in place, the clutch and brake levers could be fitted and the throttle twist grip. I decided to clean up and refit the old red handlebar grips after checking various photos of Arrows and seeing that most of them had red grips. It was at this point that I also decided that I did not like the way that the front brake cable just hung loose down the front forks and decided to figure out a way of neatly securing it. The answer was to make a simple stainless steel "P" clip to fit around the front brake stabiliser arm nut. A neat and easy answer.

Back to the handlebars, I now had to make a four wire loom to carry the power to the dip switch, the main and dip return wires and the horn wire. Once made, this short loom reached from the left handlebar grip position along the bar and down into the headlight. I was about to connect the loom into the dip switch and secure it to the handlebars when I realised that I should take a look at the fly screen and how it fixes first. So you will see from the picture above that I've slipped the fly screen fixing clamps onto the handlebars so that I can work out the route and position for the dip switch wiring.

Finally, on the subject of wiring, I took another look at the wires coming from the electronic ignition over the side of the primary chain case and I still didn't like it. I know what you are thinking "Is this bloke never satisfied"? Well the answer to that is probably "no". Even when my bikes are winning trophy's I can still see all the faults. Anyway I decided to see if I could make a cover plate to hide some of this wire's path. So I made a cardboard template, traced that onto aluminium and then cut it out, bent it and polished it. What do you think?

One final touch. As you know, we no longer need to display a tax disc, but I thought that it would be a nice idea to have a tax disc that showed the original registration date of the bike in the style of the tax disc issued in 1961. I know that the more astute of you will say " if your bike was registered in 1961 then the disc will show an expiry date of 1962", but I really wanted one to show the true age of the bike. So I looked up on the internet what a 1961 tax disc should look like and then reproduced one on the computer using Corel Draw. The only difference being that I substituted the rubber stamp for the "Vintage Motorcycle Club" emblem. I then got a nice aluminium tax disc holder and fitted it on the bike. Not to everyone's taste, but I like it!


 Well that's it for now. Next time will probably be the final wiring and the fly screen fitting and possibly the first attempt to start the bike. Then all I'm waiting for is the new seat which I'm told will be at least 3 more weeks to wait.

Copyright K. Hopcroft  22.07.15 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