11. Ariel Golden Arrow - Good News & Bad News

Having successfully mounted the HT coils and the dummy tank brackets, I decided to take a look at the real petrol tank. Quite good news! although the paintwork is dull and discoloured, it's in good shape. No rust or leaks and no damage. So I decided to simply clean it up and fit it. As it sits inside the frame and cannot be seen, it seemed unnecessary to respray it, so I gave it a good clean with T-Cut and it came up beautiful. Then it was just a case of sliding it down the inside of the frame and bolting it in place with new stainless steel bolts.

Two more bits can now be fitted. First I spotted the cap that covers up the headstock bearing nuts, in my box of newly chromed parts. However, this meant removing the nuts again, fitting the cap and then refitting the nuts and readjusting the headstock bearings again. On top of the nuts goes a plastic tubular cover to hide them. I had managed to pick up a new cover, but it was in a black plastic marbled finish. So it was into the cardboard spray booth and given a couple of coats of white paint and then slipped in place over the headstock nuts.

The next part to be fitted is the bulkhead, that fits inside the frame after the petrol tank. This is held in place by six nuts and bolts, however the top bolts also hold two of the four cups that the seat locates into. These metal cups had escaped the trip to the paint shop, so it was a case of spray them myself. I took the opportunity to spray the two plastic cones that cover the top of the front shock absorbers  at the same time. These plastic cones seem to be extremely rare as I had tried to buy new ones and found them impossible to locate. I even saw two sold on Ebay for £50!! and I've noticed several pictures of Ariel Arrows that have been renovated with these caps missing. So re-spraying them myself seemed to be a sensible answer.

Now the "good news and bad news". The good news is that I have received the engine block back from being aquablasted and it is now beautiful and clean, The bad news is that I had a call from the crankshaft engineer who informed me that he had fitted the new big end roller bearings and the play in the big ends is no better. It would appear that the wear is not in the rollers but actually on the crankshaft itself. This means that the big end surfaces on the crankshaft will need to be built up with hard chrome plating. A process that he can't do.  I did some searching around and found that my best option was to send off the crankshaft to Draganfy, who do a exchange service on crankshafts. However this posed a further problem. You may recall that, in a previous blog, I mentioned that someone had had a grinding wheel to the end of the left hand side of the crankshaft. As this would only affect the ability to fit standard contact breaker points, I had previously not felt that this would be a problem as I was going to fit electronic ignition anyway. Well now it was a problem as Draganfy would not accept my old crankshaft in exchange for the new one, if the old one could not be renovated back to standard. So now I had to find a replacement left half of the crankshaft before it could be sent off for exchange. The answer came from the Ariel Owners Club, who have a second hand parts service and just happened to have spare left half crank. So I purchased it and then sent off the replacement left half with the original right half to Draganfly.  A little more good news was that the engineer had managed to rebore the cylinders and these have now been give a new coat of high temperature black paint.

OK two more major parts can now be fitted. First, the back half (rear mudguard) of the frame. This needs a black plastic trim around the edge, where it meets the rest of the frame and is held in place by 8 nuts and bolts. This meant supporting the bike and removing the unistrut frame to allow it to be fitted in place and then re-fitting the support frame once the rear shock absorber mounting points were visible through the rear mudguard. I have to say that fitting this part really seems like a huge step forward, as the project is really beginning to look like a recognisable Golden Arrow now. It also allowed me to fit some more of the newly chromed bits. Including the exhaust hangers at the back and the stainless lifting handles.

The other major item that I could now fit is the engine block. The block is mounted on three mounting points on the frame. So it was a simple case of lifting it in place and loosely sliding in the three mounting bolts. After taking a quick look at the mounting bolts, I made a decision to replace them with 12mm stainless steel studs and dome nuts. So I ordered these off the Internet. I should have studied the old ones more carefully as only the front mounting point can be replaced by a stud with nuts on both ends. The other two need to be bolts and thread directly into the engine block. One of these bolts even has a thread running through the centre of it to take an allen key holding the timing side outer cover on. So I wasted my money on two of the stainless studs. But that's what renovation is like. So I sent off the two old bolts for chrome plating and now await their return.

The final two things to be fitted were the inner rear mudguard and the strengthening bracket to support the rear shock absorbers. This strengthening bracket hides two strange aluminium spacers, that I had been looking at for some time and wondered where they fitted. They look like two polo mints held together by a single thin web and whilst I had only removed one off the bike (actually it fell off during stripping and I never saw where it came from) I had seen in the parts book that the bike needed 2. Now I could figure out where they fit, which is between the support bracket and the frame.

That's it for now. Next is the start of the engine rebuild.

Copyright K. Hopcroft  08.12.14 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