Well lots of parts have arrived since the last blog and I can now carry on with the renovation of my 1961 Ariel Golden Arrow. The parts to fix the chain tensioner have arrived and the parts from the Chrome platers, so where to start first?
I decided to get on with the reassembly of the primary chain
tensioner (mentioned in the previous blog). The new parts had arrived
and, as I had stripped this four times, I was pretty familiar with how
to put it back together. The tensioning plate, which is actually a
spring, slid into the aluminium boss on the crankcase end plate, the
nylon tensioning block screwed onto the end of the tensioning rod and
the rod slid through the spring plate and into place. Now it was just a
case of re-fitting the primary chain cover with another new gasket. That done, I could now insert the nylon tensioning bush into the hole in the end of the chain case and locate it onto the end of the tensioning rod. The end of the rod is squashed to an oval and the hole in the tensioning bush has an oval hole in it so one should fit inside the other. However if the rod has the slightest bend in it, then they don't line up and mine didn't. I was determined not to strip the casing for a 5th time and decided to try and bend the rod with screw driver poked down the hole. Useless! So I came up with another alternative and got the nylon tensioning bush and ground a slight taper on the inside of the oval hole with my Dremel, just enough to allow it to find it's own way onto the rod. Success!
The tensioning bush could now be turned with a screwdriver until the nylon block inside bent the spring plate and added the correct amount of tension to the chain so that it just had 3/4" movement. At last! The end bung can go in to cover the tensioning bush and it's done. I decided not to fill the primary case with oil until I was sure that the clutch worked OK.
What next? Well typical of me, I love fitting the shiny parts so a dip into the chrome plated bits revealed the new centre stand spring. So I decided that was a nice easy place to start.
I removed the temporary wire rope, that I had fitted in it's place to stop the bike rolling off its stand, and hooked the new spring into the top "C" shaped bracket. Then with a piece of strong wire hooked through the other end of the spring, I wrapped the wire around a wooden handle and stretched the spring onto the bottom hook. And there it is, the bike is now safe and secure on its stand.
Take a look at this picture, you will notice what looks like a drain plug on the side of the gear box. It's true purpose will be revealed later in the blog!
As you can see, it was now possible to fit the rear brake pedal and the rear brake lever, chromed of course. The angle of the brake lever is quite important, fortunately I had taken photos before I stripped it so re-fitting it wasn't a problem.
So now the big one, I could at last fit the back wheel. If any reader has built an Ariel Arrow, they will now be shouting "NO". So in went the wheel closely followed by the back axle, the spacing bushes, now chromed, washers and the large nut on the near side. It looked great and also allowed me to fit the rear brake lever, actuating rod and long plate that stops the brake back plate rotating. You can tell that there is a problem coming but at this point ignorance is bliss.
Now with the wheel in place and the final drive chain around the rear sprocket, I could at last, check to make sure that the gear box is working correctly. So with the gear lever temporarily clamped to the selector shaft I selected the first gear and, with no spark plugs in the engine, turned the back wheel to see what I had got. Well after much pulling on the gear lever and rear wheel rotating I can tell you that I had three gears and no neutral. Bugger!!!
Well this meant a gear box strip again. My first hope was that I could remove the outer cover and maybe find something wrong with the selector mechanism. I removed the outer cover and tried selecting the gears with a screwdriver, still the same 3 gears and no neutral. So that meant taking all of the gears out again. (This picture was taken when I first stripped it, hence the dirt.) Well I looked at the gears but could see nothing obvious. It was then that I decided to take a look at the rubbish manual that I have bought. It is a photocopy and all pages have been reduced in size so that two pages fit onto one A4 sheet, making it almost impossible for a man of my age to read.
I took the manual into my office and carefully scanned each page, on the gearbox, into the computer. Then, using Corel Photopaint, I blew up the pages back to A4 and adjusted the contrast until it was readable again. I could even make out the grainy photocopied pictures. I then printed each page off back to full size A4.
As this had been such a rubbish manual so far, I had little hope that it would help, but anything was worth a try. Placing the new pages on my bike lift, I slowly followed the instructions step by step, gear by gear and reassembled the gear train. I re-fitted the the gears and inner casing and then went on to read the final assembly of the outer casing. This is where that "drain bung" comes in. The book said "Remove the bung and rotate the gear selector until you can see the neutral indentation through the bung hole". Ah ha! apparently nothing works unless you do this first. That done, I then read how to set the kick start return spring, which involves winding it up fully tight like a clock spring and ensuring that the kick start pedal sits at the correct angle to the actuating lever. This is trial and error and I had to move the spring around a notched sprocket several times until I found the correct position. The outer cover could now be re-fitted and it was time to try the gears again. Fingers crossed. Four gears and neutral, fantastic!!! I even filled the gearbox with SAE30 grade gear oil and no leaks.
I thought it would be nice to fit the carburettor next. So I stripped every jet, bung and gasket from the carburettor and then polished the body and all external parts. Amongst the new parts that had arrived was a complete set of carburettor gaskets and jets that I had ordered. So after blowing out all of the orifices I reassembled the carburettor complete with its newly chromed choke lever and fitted it onto the bike.
The original rubber hose then fitted in place and the throttle cable could be fed up and under the tank towards the handlebars.
Feeling that I was "on a roll" I thought I would fit the clutch cable and connect it to the clutch lever temporarily fixed to an old pair of handlebars to see if the clutch worked. Easier said than done. I could not move the clutch lever on the gearbox enough to get the nipple on the cable into it. I made a lever on a 4' bar to hook over the clutch lever and finally got the nipple in, only to discover that the clutch was now permanently disengaged. The outer cable was too long and didn't allow the clutch lever to fully engage. This was a problem. How do you shorten the outer cable without damaging the inner cable and without removing the soldered on nipples? Well the answer was to use my trusty Dremel with a miniature cutting disc on it. After pulling off the "crimped on" outer cable end cap,I carefully cut around the outer cable 5mm from the end. I then cut along the length of the 5mm piece on opposite sides and removed the 5mm pieces. Then with the plastic outer cover cut away 5mm I slid the outer cable cap back over and tried the cable back on the bike. Brilliant, it worked and I now have a working clutch.
What next, well I felt that I could fit the air filter. I had bought a new one, but the back plate didn't fit the Ariel frame and the front plate was painted black. So I repainted the old back plate white and had the front plate chrome plated and now with the parts back from the chromers I could re-assemble the air filter and fit it. That said, I have a personal dislike of hose clips (Jubilee Clips), I just think that they are ugly and that was what was originally holding the air filter on. So I managed to find a stainless steel exhaust clamp of the right diameter and polished up it fit just fine and look so much better.
Well that brings me to the final bit and why I said earlier that fitting the back wheel was a mistake. I decided to fit the chain guard. This is in two pieces. The top half is steel and the bottom half is glass fibre. Why I don't know and I'm not convinced that it is original, but that is what was on the bike when I bought it. It had been repainted with everything else and so I felt that now was a good time to fit it. Take my word for it, "you can't fit it with the back wheel in place". So the back wheel had to come off again and after much struggling I finally got the two halves of the chain guard together. The problem is that the glass fibre half springs open wider than the top half that it has to fit into and when you flex the bottom half to fit it the paint flakes off. I then discovered that I didn't have any stainless bolts long enough to pass through the guards to secure them. So they are currently in place with temporary bolts until the correct ones arrive that I have ordered. You can just glimps the guard in place on the picture above.
So that's where we are. Slow progress but I will get there eventually.
Copyright K. Hopcroft 25.05.15 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
On the last blog I was awaiting the arrival of the correct bolts to hold the chain guard in place. Well they finally arrived and, as you can see, the chain guard is finally in place along with the back wheel. You will note the large stainless penny washers behind the chain guard fixing nuts. This was a decision I made to hide the flaked paint around the fixing holes on the lower, fibreglass, half of the chain guard. The washers on the top guard are purely cosmetic so that it matches the bottom half.
Anyway the first step is to assemble the head light unit. So the new shell received it's new ignition switch and light switch, its refurbished speedo and a new 12 Amp Meter. The only problem here was the speedo mounting bracket. The original was missing and had been replaced by a piece of meccano and was unfit for re-use. I set about making a new one, which you can see in the picture. I then discovered that the wiring loom that I was given when I bought the bike (which did not fit) had these rather nice connecting sockets to fit on the ignition switch and the light switch. What a stroke of luck. I thought that would have to solder all the wires onto the terminals.
