20. BSA A10 Oil be seeing you

At last it's time to put some oil in the bike and that means fitting all the oil associated parts. First the rocker return oil pipe. Not quite as easy as I expected. The banjo bolts fitted easily along with the fibre washers each side of the union. But the pipe comes straight and has to be bent to follow the path it has to take. It didn't take long to figure out the route but the pipe is quite hard to bend and I did not want to kink it, so I found pieces of round wood to bend it around. It went up from the rocker box, under the frame from left to right an then followed the frame back and down towards the oil tank position.

Next was the oil tank itself. I had bought the mounting kits and offered the tank into place only to find that there was nowhere to bolt the bottom fixing to. Having studied the original stripping photos (Shown here) I soon discovered that the previous owner had made a home made bracket bolting the oil tank directly to the battery tray. This was very wrong as the tank should be rubber mounted to prevent it from fracturing due to vibration. I studied the parts book and found that there was a special loop bracket that fitted on the battery tray mountings with two captive nuts on it that replaced the right hand battery tray mounting nuts and I just didn't have this part. A quick call to Lightning Spares and Brian had a nice new bracket on its way to me and once it arrived it fit beautifully.

Now I could mount the oil tank and the oil send and return pipes along with a new banjo fitting that connects to the rocker return pipe. I had quite a bit of confusion as to whether to fit an oil none return valve or not. Lots of mixed reports on this on the Internet. Wet sumping, where the oil tank empties itself into the sump when the bike is not used for a period of time is a very common problem. But the none return valve is said to cause cavitation and stop oil reaching the big ends etc. on sustained long journeys. What to do? In the end I made a decision, this bike will not do long journeys and will spend most of its life in my workshop or at vintage shows. Estimated mileage per year about 50 miles maximum. So I fitted the valve.

Time to pour some oil in. I took advice from Lightning Spares again and bought standard 20/50 motor oil. I put a quarter of a pint directly into the rocket box and then filled the tank to the correct level. Next was to put oil in the gear box and the primary chain drive case (just enough for the chain to dip into it).

That done, all I need to do is connect the fuel and try starting it!

Next blog: The first kick!!!

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 Copyright K. Hopcroft  22.03.13 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