A BSA called Marge

I finished last week’s blog with the exciting news that my rear mudguard was available at the Argos click and collect. What I didn’t realise is that my Argos being within the Epsom Sainsburys I would have to join the supermarket queue that went literally half-way round the car park. Anyway an hour later I emerged with an enormous cardboard box – perhaps that should have given me a clue. I mentioned earlier that I had seen exactly the right sized guard at Kempton but decided to wait until by next visit when I had more luggage capacity. Having tried to contact several of the regular auto-jumble stand holders I drew a blank and went for one of those advertised in eBay – you know “only one remaining” etc. Absolutely no complaints with what was in the box, it was a steel mudguard with nicely rolled edges, except it was too wide, much too large in diameter and too long, otherwise perfect. I quickly went back to the advert and realised that the diameter (i.e. the radius of curvat...

In the last Chapter I left Marge, or at least the engine and main frame, teetering on a sack barrow but have made some tangible progress this last week. I realise it was way back in Chapter 9 that I dismantled the functioning BSA in as little as half a day. Painting has gone far better than I expected although of course now I’m getting comments along the lines that “If you’re so good at painting bikes…..” and you can guess the rest. Anyway, with a sense of excitement I have started the process of putting it all back together. I remain convinced that it’s better to do a dry build with the frame unpainted, then dismantle paint and reassemble. Even now I have managed to get a couple of chips, easily fixed, but at least I know everything fits together and I shouldn’t have to cut, file or worst of all weld anything. I had marked all the engine mounting studs and trimmed them to length as I slowly started putting the frame back around the engine. Fortunately Jane was able to help me li...

I must start with a correction or at least a clarification of the description I gave for the alignment and balancing of the Harley crankshaft last week. Something prompted me to go back and find my old data from 2014, which was when I carried out the work on the engine. My recollection of the initial figure for misalignment was in the right ball-park – it was 0.008” but that was compared to the tolerance of 0.002” per the HD data – i.e. it was 0.010” out. The final figure I achieved was 0.0035” but that was the absolute figure – here’s the data. That Alan Milyard video I was watching was his Kawasaki six – where he got the crankshaft within 0.001”! Unit of measurement Limit First dismantling Final-Final Assy torqued to 175 lb ft Sprocket Shaft 0.001" 2.0 0.0 1.6 Left Flywheel 0.001" 2.0 2.0 2.0 Right Flywheel 0.001" 2.0 10.2 3.5 Pinion ...