8. BSA A10 Mud Glorious Mud (guards)

Let's just give a proper mention to my main parts supplier for the BSA A10 Rocket Gold Star replica that I am building. If you are attempting a BSA rebuild I cannot praise high enough this company. Take a look at their web site:  http://www.lightning-spares.co.uk of 170 Cross Street, Sale, Cheshire M33 7AQ. The owner Brian Pollitt is the most knowledgeable and helpful person that I have met when it comes to BSA's and if you are buying your parts from him, he is more than willing to offer advice and technical know how. I have found him so helpful, that I decided to buy all my parts from him (even if they are not the cheapest) in return for the invaluable help that he has given.

Having got the A10 sitting on its own wheels, I decided that it was time to take a look at the mudguards. Having decided not to put the original heavy black super Rocket mudguards back on, I bought a pair of lightweight stainless steel mudguards. The front one looked the easiest to attempt first so having bought a set a chrome stays (no stainless ones available), I offered the front mudguard in place. Unlike the original mudguards, these can be fitted with the wheel in place. The mudguard slid between the forks easily and the two back stays fitted no problem. However the centre and front stays were a different matter. A Gold Star has two lugs, front and back of the bottom of the fork to fasten the front and back stays to. My Super Rocket only has a back lug. Also the Gold Star has a plate sticking off the back of the forks, half way up, with two studs on it, to fasten the centre stay to. My Super Rocket doesn't. Instead it has two studs on the inside of the fork leg itself.

After some time designing and making cardboard templates I decided to make some thick aluminium mounting brackets to replace the missing ones. Because I could see exactly where the front lug needed to be (opposite the back one), I decided to make the front lugs first. Taking some 3mm aluminium plate, I scribed out an "L" shaped bracket and guillotined it into shape. I then bent right angles (one left and one right) into it to form the lug and drilled two mounting holes in it to fit the two bolts holding the axle end cap in place. I bolted the plate in place and then fitted the front stay and tilted it toward the new plate until it was in the right position so that I could mark through it onto the bracket for the lug fixing hole. Once this was done The bracket was removed again and polished before final fixing. Once finally fixed in place, it was obvious that I had made the lug a little too long (see picture) and so I removed it again and shortened it so that the two stay fixing bolts were the same distance from the forks.

I mistakenly thought that my design for the two centre plates would be much easier. After all it was just a flat plate. But my original plan of making a flat square plate with four holes in it turned out to be much more difficult than I thought. The plate needs to have its horizontal edges parallel to the floor to make it look right and the forks are at an angle. Which makes the holes at an angle. I made 5 cardboard templates and two thin aluminium ones before it fit. I then made the proper 3mm ones and bolted them in place. The stays fit perfectly but the plate looked horrible. So, using the first plate as a template I made two more this time with sloping sides to match the angle of the forks. Polished ad fitted, they now look great and the front mudguard is firmly held in place.

Now for the back mudguard. No fixing lugs on the mudguard itself. So support brackets had to be ordered so that I could see where the mudguard is supposed to fit. And it didn't! After have a long conversation with the oracle at Lighting Spares, it turns out that you have to cut the mudguard to length at the front to make it fit the frame. Having offered the mounting brackets into place, it was obvious that they did not fit the mudguard properly or the front of the two mounting points near the top of the rear shock absorbers (on the hockey sticks). So I decided to have custom stainless brackets made (aluminium would not be strong enough). and that is where I am at the moment. At this date the custom brackets have not arrived yet and so the rear mudguard is still awaiting fitting.

On the next blog, the engine rebuild begins.

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 Copyright K. Hopcroft 10.08.12 All rights reserved
 You can contact me on: hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

My Other Blogs:

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

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

1971 VW Karman 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