21. BSA A10 Ain't that a kick in the head!

Today should be the day that my1961  BSA A10 Super Rocket comes to life. All I have to do is fit the carburetor, the fuel tank and the fuel pipes and the engine should run!

I stripped the carburetor and polished the casing then blew out all of the airways  with compressed air, fitted all new jets and gaskets and reassembled it. 


I then fitted it onto the inlet manifold with a new stainless steel drip plate and  a nice new long bell mouth.

The fuel tank dropped on and secured in place with the central nut and rubber bung cover and the securing strap underneath and on went the new braided stainless steel fuel pipes.

With fuel in the tank it is time for the first kick. I kicked - nothing!, I kicked again - nothing! I kicked and kicked and kicked but apart from a very occasional backfire, it showed no signs of life at all. What a huge disappointment.

I took out the plugs and fitted new plugs and new HT leads, I checked the spark and there was one, if a little weak. I checked the fuel was getting through. My thought was that I must have got the timing wrong, although I was very careful when I set it. So I stripped the timing side down again and re-timed the ignition. Reassemble the engine and tried again. NOTHING.

There only one thing for it, I needed an expert. I have learnt over the years that the secret of good D.I.Y. was to know when to stop and I had reached that point. After scouring the Internet there seemed to be only one good choice. A company called SRM Engineering in Aberystwyth, Wales. I spoke to them over the phone and they were very helpful, so I arranged to take the bike the 170 miles and have it with them first thing in the morning so that they could have a full day on it.

So I left home at 05:00am and got the bike to them by the time they opened. I then had to occupy myself in Aberystwyth for the day (Not easy). However at 400pm I got a call to say that it was running, and rushed back to see for my self. Sure enough it was running and sounded great. So what was the problem? If you remember earlier in my blog, when I was stripping the bike, I had a problem removing the magneto and eventually I knocked it out and it hit the floor. Well it is possible that this was the cause because the problem was a bent armature in the magneto. So slight that with the plugs out, you got a spark. But with them in the magneto could not work as the armature was just touching the windings. I am not certain that the drop I gave it caused this, as the reason I stripped it in the first place was because I could never get it to run correctly. But anyway it now runs.

Geoff, the mechanic, said "Oh by the way, you've got a bit of an oil leak"   I thought "never mind I can fix that when I get back". So back home I went another 170 miles but feeling good.

Back in the workshop, I proceeded to do the wiring on the bike with a new loom and fit the speedo and tacho. It was obvious when I started the bike that it wasn't charging and the tacho wasn't working.

I took the tacho and speedo to a local expert called Russel Smalley, who took one look at the tacho and said "what bike have you got?" I told him "A10 Super Rocket". "and where are you driving it from?" I said "The oil pump drive". He said "It will never work!" It turns out the the tacho I bought was off a BSA 500 Gold Star. That engine turns the tacho clockwise. The A10 turns the tacho anti-clockwise. He proved it by putting it on a machine and turning it the right way and sure enough it worked. I asked could he do anything with it and he informed me that he could machine the mechanism and add another gear to make it turn in the right direction. Great.

Now the speedo. "What bike is this off?" he said. Again I answered "my A10, I took that one off the bike my self". "No it isn't, it's off a Triumph".  OMG again he proved it by showing me that the gearing was wrong for the BSA and that it did not show the correct speed. Someone must have swapped it at some point in the bikes 50 year life. He told me that he would have to fit a complete new mechanism and I said OK and left them both with him. A week later I had them back and they looked brand new and worked perfect.

 Back to the electrics. The problem turned out to be the old regulator, so I bought a new electronic one and hid it inside the old mechanical regulator housing, inside the tool box. Hey presto! it now charges.


With the electrics working and the clocks, time for my first ride up and down the car park outside my factory unit.

WOW! it is fast and sounds magnificent. But just when I was feeling really good, I looked at the ground and saw a huge oil trail following my path up and down the car park.

Close inspection showed that all of the oil in the oil tank had gone in four short trips.

More on this in the next blog


"Under Pressure"

 I would love to read your comments on this blog. If you would like to make some please click "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)" at the bottom of this page. If you would like to be automatically informed when a new episode is posted then please tick the "Join this site" box at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading. Kevin

 Copyright K. Hopcroft  11.05.13 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

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!!!

 I would love to read your comments on this blog. If you would like to make some please click "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)" at the bottom of this page. If you would like to be automatically informed when a new episode is posted then please tick the "Join this site" box at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading. Kevin


 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

19. BSA A10 Exhausted Time To Sit Down

The next stage on the renovation of my BSA A10 Super Rocket is to fit the exhaust. All of the original exhaust parts were pitted and dented in fact the only parts worth keeping were the two finned heat sinks. So I re-threaded them to take 8mm Allen key stainless steel bolts and polished them as best I could between the fins and that was the total of the old exhaust renovation. The old exhaust pipes and silencers I put on eBay and despite a very honest description and photos of all the dents and damage, they sold for excellent prices. So that went a little way towards the cost of the new exhaust system.

I then decided to buy a pair of stainless steel swept exhaust pipes off eBay and new Rocket Gold Star silencers from Lightning Spares. Until I spoke to them I had not noticed the difference. Super Rocket silencers are the same cigar shape at both ends. Rocket Gold Star silencers taper towards the front of the bike. You live and learn! The picture above shows the original exhaust.

I offered the new pipes in place along with the new silencers and it was immediately apparent that I would need a couple of spacers, where the silencers bolt to the frame to hold the new front pipes away from the engine casing, so I set about making some aluminium spacers and also replaced the rear foot rests, which hold the silencers in place, with new polished stainless bolts. No need for the foot rests as I'm putting a single seat on it.

At the front of the new exhaust pipes were two welded on small tubes set at right angles to the exhaust pipes. I soon figured out that, as these new swept pipes did not follow the line of the frame, they could not be bolted to the frame to secure them. The answer was to fit a bar between the two pipes and through these tubes to secure them to each other. But what to use? I found that the inside diameter of the small tubes was 10mm and that started me thinking about what I already had. My firm uses a lot of 10mm stainless steel threaded rod so I measured the required length and cut a piece off. Next I measured how much thread I needed either side of the fixing tubes and marked that. This left the long bit in between the two threads. My first thought was to cover it with a tube, but then a friend suggested that it would be better to simply put the rod in my lathe and turn the threads off, leaving a smooth bar in the middle. Brilliant!. Having done that 10mm nuts were acquired and a chamfer turned on all of the nuts so that they could bottom on the fixing tubes without hitting the exhaust pipes. All polished and fitted it looked a treat and allowed me to adjust the distance between the two pipes to ensure crankcase clearance.

The standard BSA exhaust clamps just did not look good enough, so I pulled out a card that I had collected at the Newark Classic Bike Show, in January, and phoned the man. He had exactly what I wanted beautiful 42mm stainless Allen Key clamps ready polished.

Now just a case of fitting it all. It originally came as a surprise, when I first stripped the bike, to find that there was no secure fixing for the exhaust pipes into the cylinder head. To ensure that I did not get leaks I put a liberal coating of high temperature silicon sealant around the pipes before fitting them and behind the finned heat sinks. All then bolted in place and it looks just great.

Just as I finished fitting the exhaust, my seat brackets arrived. I had been waiting for them for weeks. Having decided to fit a single seat, I had seen the one I wanted on a photo on the web and after making enquiries, I found out that it was originally off a BSA Lightning. Finding a stockist on the web was not too difficult, but when it arrived it was obvious that none of the A10 fixing points lined up. This meant that I had to design a seat bracket system from scratch. So I set about making one out of aluminium. See picture on the right.

I also had to re-drill the front  seat mounting fork to bring it nearer to the A10 frame mounting. That done I had sent the aluminium bracket off to have a proper and stronger Stainless one  made.

Now at last I could try it in place and offer the seat onto the bike. I fitted the new bracket into the seat and the new support bridge piece onto the mudguard and tried it in place. It fitted but the seat was a little off to one side. Not surprising really as aluminium is so easy to bend . But it only required one hole being re drilled on the bracket under the seat and it fitted perfectly.

It had occurred to me that I deeded to remove the seat easily to get at the battery. So the bracket was designed with the two studs sticking down, which passed through the new mudguard seat support bracket. I then turned two large aluminium knurled knobs to fit the studs and hold the seat in place, putting two rubber washers between the knobs and the bracket to stop them vibrating off.

Now, with the Gold Star petrol tank just sitting in place, the seat could finally be fitted and a first idea of what the bike will finally look like could be seen. What do you think?

 I would love to read your comments on this blog. If you would like to make some please click "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)" at the bottom of this page. If you would like to be automatically informed when a new episode is posted then please tick the "Join this site" box at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading. Kevin

 Copyright K. Hopcroft  10.03.13 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

18. BSA A10 The Generation Game

The continuing saga of the BSA A10 Super Rocket rebuild. Time to look at the dynamo, I had removed the dynamo back in February 2012 and it had sat in a draw in my workshop ever since. Stripping it was not too difficult but the inside revealed the usual signs of old age along with large quantities of oil. I can only assume that with the bike standing still for so long, the oil tank had slowly emptied itself into the sump (known as "wet sumping") and then when eventually the previous owner had got the bike running the oil was forced past the old oil seals and into the dynamo. Needless to say the coil was soaked along with the armature and the brush gear. I stripped it down completely and inspected each part and then contacted a chap who advertises himself in the BSA Star magazine as "Dynamo Dynamo". He was extremely helpful and advised me on what parts I needed and the costs. Basically I replaced everything except the armature and the body.

Once I received the parts, I selected all of the items that could be seen on the outside, including the main body and the brush gear cover and sent them away for chroming. I then set about polishing the aluminium end caps and cleaning up everything else.

Sometime later the chromed parts arrived back and I set about reassembling the dynamo. The idea was first to do a "dry build", just to see that everything fitted and that nothing was missing. This turned out to be a good idea, as as soon as the coil and the armature were bolted in place, it was obvious that the armature would not turn and was fouling on the coil. I spoke to the Dynamo man and he informed me that you needed a special tool to tighten the coil in place, but that also sometimes you just needed a slimmer coil. After due consideration, I decided to send the whole thing back to him for reassembly. I've learnt that sometimes the secret of DIY is knowing when not to!

The reassembled dynamo arrived back a week later and was perfect. Time to offer it onto the engine. I fed it through the dynamo clamp OK and with its new cork seal in place it fit nicely up against the back of the inner timing cover. Time to go into the draw and pull out the dynamo drive sprockets. For those of you you are following this blog, you may recall that on my 1st December blog I said that the eagle eyed BSA experts would notice that something was missing from the inner timing cover picture. It was at this point that I found it. Laying in the draw was a strange steel bush with two holes in it and a large flange. I had no idea what it was, but it looked important. All sorts of warning bells were ringing, had I got to strip the whole engine again?. I worked my way through the parts book until I found it. It's called the camshaft oil breather and it fits on top of the cork pad on the end of the camshaft, located by the peg that sticks through the cork pad and through the inner timing cover from the inside.

This meant removing the inner timing cover again along with the oil pump and tacho drive and of course a new gasket. The other thing that happens as you remove the inner cover is that the centre timing gear comes off with it and the valve timing is lost. So I reset the valve timing fitted the oil breather, checked the end float, fitted a new gasket and reassembled.

Now at last I can fit the dynamo sprockets, along with another cork spacer behind the big one and then the drive chain around the two sprockets. It was then simply a case of rotating the dynamo to tighten the chain. A hard press on the dynamo to make sure that the cork gasket seals against the back of the inner timing cover and tighten the dynamo clamp. Now the oil pump and tacho drive can be refitted and at last the outer timing cover fitted.

This final picture shows the rebuild a little further on with the exhausts fitted, but I'll cover that on another blog.

For those of you who follow this blog, you will have noticed that there has been a gap of about 6 weeks since the last one. This was due to the decision to buy a box trailer to transport my bikes in to shows. The huge amount of work necessary to make the box trailer usable accounted for the missing progress on the A10 and will be featured in another blog later.




I would love to read your comments on this blog. If you would like to make some please click "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)" at the bottom of this page. If you would like to be automatically informed when a new episode is posted then please tick the "Join this site" box at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading. Kevin

 Copyright K. Hopcroft  17.02.13 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

17. BSA A10 Renovation Rear Guard Action

After a very long wait, the custom made stainless steel rear mudguard brackets have finally arrived and they fit perfectly. All I need to do is get them on the buffing wheel and polish them to a mirror finish and then bolt them on to the hockey sticks.

At last I can try the new stainless mudguard in place and to my surprise it does not need cutting at all as its length is perfect. However with the mudguard drilled and fitted to the new brackets there was one small problem. Whilst the mudguard is pressed thinner at the front, to pass between the legs of the rear swinging arm, the designers have failed to account for the two gussets on the swinging arm where the arms meet the cross tube. These gussets prevent the mudguard fitting snugly into the swinging arm and also hold the two "U" brackets, that bolt the mudguard to the frame at the front, too far away from the mudguard. The answer was to mark the mudguard where it touches the swinging arm gussets and allow for the up/down movement of the arm. I then took the mudguard back to my friend who cut out the two marked areas and welded fillet plates in place. One more check in the frame and it now fitted perfectly. So back onto the buffing wheel to re polish the mudguard  and then it was time to bolt the mudguard in place.


I made some small aluminium spacers to fit between the "U" brackets and the mudguard and some black flexible plastic gaskets to fit between the "U" brackets and the frame. Then on with the brackets with nice stainless bolts and dome nuts and the fit was excellent.

I had already decided that I did not want to re-fit the old BSA A10 number plate and rear light to the new rear mudguard and was looking through a vehicle wiring and accessories catalogue, when I came across
the perfect answer. A beautiful replica rear light with a shaped chrome housing and would you believe it, the firm was only 4 miles away? So I got into the car and went to have a look. The light was even better than I expected and although it was a bit expensive, I couldn't resist it. Of course that also meant that I needed a new number plate. So onto the Internet to order a pressed aluminium black and silver plate.

Fitting the rear light turned out to be a longer job than expected as, not only did I have to drill the rear mudguard, but one of the fixings had to be vertically down on a sloping surface and once drilled, I then had to make a sloping spacer to allow it to bolt securely onto the mudguard without distorting it.

Even the bolts needed to secure the rear light had to be countersunk to fit the housing and they were not supplied with it. So I set about turning some countersunk Allen key stainless steel bolts on the lathe. All very time consuming, but at this stage there was no point in bodging the job.

With the rear light in place it was time for the number plate and what a disappointment! I was expecting one like I had fitted on my scooter. A black plate with polished aluminium digits showing through. When I got it, it was painted black and then the digits had been painted silver on top of the black. This certainly was not good enough, so I decided to polish the digits on the buffing wheel to a mirror finish, which of course destroyed the black paint as well, and then mask off the polished digits and respray the plate black again. It worked and with the aid of two more spacers to stop the plate rattling against the mudguard, the plate was bolted in place.

One finishing touch left was the rear reflector below the plate and the job was done.

Next step; the dynamo.

 I would love to read your comments on this blog. If you would like to make some please click "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)" at the bottom of this page. If you would like to be automatically informed when a new episode is posted then please tick the "Join this site" box at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading. Kevin

 Copyright K. Hopcroft  13.12.12 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

16. BSA A10 Chain Reaction

It's now time to address the chain case and all things contained within. Having already polished the inner chain case, I offered it onto the crank case, with a new gasket and plenty of blue sealant and tightened the two internal fixing bolts, which are drilled to accept a locking wire that passes between them. The two original bolts went in OK but as I tightened the second one, it snapped! leaving the thread in the crank case. OMG! I removed the other bolt and the inner chain case again and to my horror there was no thread sticking proud of the crank case to get hold of. How to remove it? I took a long thin screwdriver and poked it through the other fixing hole to see if it was a blind hole or if it went right through into the crankcase. It went right through!. That was more bad news as it meant that, if I drilled out the broken thread, the metal swarfe could drop inside the crank case and require a full engine strip again.

I decided to measure the one remaining good bolt and work out how much thread was left inside my crank case. I then put a collar on a small drill to prevent the drill going right through the broken bolt thread, allowing me to drill a blind hole in the stud. I centre punched the middle of the broken stud and drilled, very, very carefully. There was always the chance that if the drill bit into the broken stud stuck, it could screw it straight through the crank case and deposit it inside the engine, but fortunately the broken stud was well stuck. Once the hole was done I then took a small "easy-out" (which is like a left hand thread tap) and screwed it into the hole. As it bit, to my relief, the broken stud unscrewed out of the crank case in one piece. Brilliant!!.

I was then considering re-assembly when I was going through my draws containing parts I had removed from the bike, when I came across a large round flat plate. It was obvious that this plate was the same shape as the inner chain case where it fits to the crank case. Obviously a spacer. It turns out that in order to line up the inner chain case with the frame where it fixed at the back of the bike, BSA introduced a spacer to space the inner chain case off the crank case and this was it. So I now needed to order two new fixing bolts and two new gaskets, one to fit each side of the spacer. Once they arrived the inner chain case and spacer could be mounted in place and the two new bolts tightened and secured with the locking wire. Also the adjustable plate that fits behind the clutch was fitted with new bolts and the felt seal to prevent oil leaking out of the chain case onto the gearbox. The securing bolts for this plate could not be tightened as the plate moves with the gearbox to adjust the primary chain tension, once the chain is fitted.

Time to fit the clutch and cush-drive. The outer clutch bell fits with 20 loose roller bearings which are held in place by the inner clutch bell (or basket). Having fitted the centre washer locking plate and nut, I was disturbed to notice that the only thing holding the clutch together was the thin tab washer. This did not seem right, so I sent photos to Lightning Spares and they confirmed that the washer under the nut was the wrong one and that a much larger and thicker washer was needed to hold the inner bell onto the splined shaft in the centre. I also sent pictures of the clutch plates  and was advised to change all of the friction plates as these were soaked in oil. I had assumed that the clutch ran in oil, like my Lambretta, but was was informed that the small amount of oil in the chain case only sits in the bottom to lubricate the primary chain and that the clutch runs dry.

So on with the new clutch plates, and after making a screwdriver with a slot in it (for adjusting the clutch spring tension), the outer pressure plate with it's four springs and adjusters, the clutch is now in place. The cush drive was fitted and the two sprockets aligned and the nice new chain run around the two sprockets. The cush drive was fitted with a new special SRM hexagon nut/plate and torqued to the correct setting and the gearbox could now be adjusted to tension the primary chain to the correct half inch play tension. Then the adjustable splash plate behind the clutch could be tightened in its final position. Now just a case a fitting the outer chain case cover and job done! Excellent.

 I would love to read your comments on this blog. If you would like to make some please click "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)" at the bottom of this page. If you would like to be automatically informed when a new episode is posted then please tick the "Join this site" box at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading. Kevin

 Copyright K. Hopcroft  07.12.12 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

15. BSA A10 Chain Gang

Now that the gearbox is in place, it's time to fit the final drive chain and the chain guard. I felt that it was not a good idea to re-fit the old chain as I have no knowledge of how old it is or what kind of life it has had, so I bought two new chains. The final drive chain and the primary drive chain, which  I will fit later.

The final drive chain came with a split link so it was simply a case of running the chain around the two sprockets and fitting the split link. Easy.

Fitting the chain guard was not so easy. Having been tempted by a lovely custom made stainless steel chain guard, on EBay, I offered it up to the frame to find that none of the mounting holes lined up. In fact two of them were missing. Not to be put off I decided after much thought that it was best to use one of the existing holes in the new guard and re-drill the frame. This involved marking the rear chain guard lug lower down than it's original top hole and re-drilling the lug in the new marked position. This gave me a pivot point in the correct position. The guard could then be set at the right angle and the two front mounting lug holes could be measured from that point. These measurements were then transferred to the guard and marked on the guard for drilling.

You would think that to drill a flat piece of metal would be straight forward, but this stainless steel turned out to be exceptionally hard. Despite the fact that I was using a pedestal drill, nothing seemed to touch it and I managed to ruin two drills before I realised that I needed another approach. I phoned my friend who has been an engineer all his life and he informed me that to drill hard stainless steel you need a very slow drill and once you start drilling, don't stop or the surface you are drilling will harden. The drills I had in my workshop were all too fast, but I remembered that I did have a variable speed drill at home that I had never used. With the variable speed drill in the pedestal and a small sharp drill in the chuck I tried. Hey Presto! through it went! I just then increased the drill size 1mm at a time until the holes were done. Isn't knowledge wonderful?



With the holes all done the chain guard fitted beautifully, but it left the bottom rear support lug dangling down from the swinging arm and not being used. It had to go. But I did not want to remove the swinging arm again and I could not get a hacksaw in. The answer was a Dremel with a cutting disc on it and after about 10 minutes the lug had gone and the raw metal repainted. It was now just a case of bolting the guard in place. I decided to put the bolts through from the right side of the bike to allow me to fit polished stainless steel dome nuts on the left side. This done it was on and looked beautiful.

If you have ever built a show bike, or car, you will know that the process is on-going and as you do one thing a new idea emerges that makes you change your earlier decisions. This happened with the chain guard dome nuts. I decided that they looked so nice, I would change all of the nuts on the bike, wherever possible for dome nuts. So I have re-ordered all of the crankcase and engine and gearbox mounting nuts and will change all of the already carefully polished stainless ordinary nuts for domes. More expense!

 I would love to read your comments on this blog. If you would like to make some please click "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)" at the bottom of this page. If you would like to be automatically informed when a new episode is posted then please tick the "Join this site" box at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading. Kevin

 Copyright K. Hopcroft  01.12.12 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