}
A while back a friend approached me about buying a old British bike, he had little idea about them but had clearly bought into the recent fad of long beards and vintage bikes. Although his knowledge was non existent and he had zero mechanical skills he was adamant that he wanted to go down this route.
So, I agreed to help him find the right bike and deal with any issues it may have and trust me they all have something wrong with them. Over the following weeks we scoured the classic bike magazines and online sites, many bikes came on to the short list but for one reason or another I rejected them, many had non original parts or were in poor running order.
Being a younger guy my friend "Lionel" was impatient and couldn't understand why I kept rejecting his suggestions. Despite my explanations that if he was not careful he would find himself with a bucket full of problems, he kept on pushing me to get something purchased as quickly as possible. I wasn't going to be the one responsible for buying a wreck so continued with my considered approach.
After about three weeks it seemed that his patience got the better of him, a message popped up on my phone, "Iv'e bought a bike! it's a BSA "A" something model". Holy shit he doesn't even know what he's spent his money on, a sense of fear came over me. He had purchased the bike off Ebay sight unseen and it was being delivered after he paid for it. A hour later with five minutes to spare I messaged back "don't pay for it, you'll have no come back if it's a heap of shit"!
Too late, a response comes back, "oh, iv'e already paid it's being delivered tomorrow". WTF why ask me for advice and then go do your own thing, this was not going to turn out well. All I could do was wait and see what arrived in the back of the delivery truck.
BSA "cafe racer"
This is what we unloaded, on first inspection it looked OK it was a old school "cafe racer" built around a A10 super rocket with some extras added on. On looks alone I thought hey he's not done too bad, a proper period "Cafe racer" is a rare beast to find.
Within minutes I knew I was in for some serious work, Lionel informed me that he wanted the bike returned to original condition and didn't like the bent forward style of the racer. Then why the hell did you buy it, if you want original you should buy original, spares for these are as rare as rocking horse shit.
They say first impressions are not always what they seem and with this bike that really turned out to be the case. After a lot of playing around I finally got it to start, but stopped it quickly, it sounded like a bag of nails. Looking around the rest of the bike it was clear that Lionel had got himself that bucket of problems I warned him about.
"Dude, this bike is going to need a total rebuild" was the bad news I had to tell him and that was not going to come cheap. After a lot of discussion he made the only choice he had and agreed to just that.
For a bit of background on the bike I contacted the previous owner, it turned out the bike had been a ornament on display in the back of a motorcycle dealership. Not used for over 20 years, this explained a lot but left me wondering what was going through Lionel's mind when he agreed to buy it. Damage done I took the bike into the workshop and started to strip it down for what would be a long project.
Engine out now the gearbox.
That done we have the rolling chassis to disassemble.
Along the way I take plenty of photos of cable routing and make notes of where every nut and bolt belong. Most of these will be replaced but it's good practice to do this as things can get quite confusing weeks down the line, as you can see there's a lot to leave to memory.
A maze of cables and wires.
Now that everything is stripped, labelled and stacked neatly on the shelf it's time to get down to business. All of the frame parts are going to the powder coating guys, they will sandblast everything then zinc prime before giving it all a gloss black finish, say goodbye to the very wrong red. This is the only job that I will farm out.
We will see how the paintwork looks later, while waiting a few days for that my first job is to rebuild the gearbox as I have all the necessary parts. The engine is another story and I have to wait for many items on order.
Strip it down.
Polish and fit new bearings and bushes.
Now replace the gears, hopefully in the right order.
That's the hard work done just pop on the outer cover.
Just in the nick of time because the frame and other parts are back from the powder coater's, all looking super shiny. Can't resist putting in a couple more hours to get the rebuild going. Also the engine parts arrive a day or two so busy times ahead. First job get the frame on the workbench and refit that shiny reconditioned gear box
Back to black.
Oh yes heading in the right direction now but enough for one day, this was a long project and it will take more than one post to cover it.
Hope you are enjoying my efforts so far, next time I get the rolling chassis back together and rebuild that rotten engine. Until then stay safe folks!