I carried on restoring bikes as the fancy took me.  Some quite challenging work.  I built a 1926 V twin Royal Enfield from a kit of parts, more frame repairs were needed and I had to have a casting done for the 8 inch front brake.  I made the pattern from an old Cortina brake drum and John Goodall supervised my use of his massive lathe for me to machine it.  His only condition was that I took all the swarf away, so I set off home in our car with three big boxes of oily swarf in the back.  Unfortunately, I had to do an emergency stop and they all fell over.  Not good as I had to clean it all out of the back of the car by 5 o’clock before a prospective buyer for the car turned up.

I still have the Enfield and use it a bit, it is like a two-wheeled earth-moving vehicle and even two up you almost never have to change gear.  It is heavy on petrol though.

I also bought a 1926 Ariel model E super sports.  These bikes were guaranteed 90 MPH out of the factory.  Which was a lot in 1926.  This particular one had been used competitively before the war and then completely stripped and put under the floorboards of a cottage in Norfolk, not being rediscovered until sixty years later.  It made a very nice bike and a pretty easy restoration as it was all there.  I mainly built it for Shelley to start riding again but she found it simply too quick.  I rode it to work for a couple of years and eventually swapped for another 1923 Ariel, which is an easy flat tank bike to ride and very original spec.

I eventually got to the point where my ability to run and jump onto my Precision engined 1912 Victoria which I had had since selling the Indian twenty five year before, had become unreliable, so I put it up for sale and it went back to its country of origin Scotland where it is getting a lot of use.   (Pat kindly lent my brother John the Victoria to ride in the Pioneer Run to Brighton for Veteran Motorcycles.  Eddy)

In the end I decided to give up working for others and sold the Vincent to fund my earlyish retirement.  I had had it seventeen years and have to say that it was superb as a do anything go anywhere bike at a decent speed and comfort. 

I still ride a fair bit for pleasure and do the odd restoration.  I have just finished a two speed Scott as I had never had one before.  When I rode it, it took about ten miles to show me I did not like its frenetic style.  Far too twitchy and quick for me, giving no time to look for rats.  So, I swapped it with a friend for a Douglas which seems quite nice and calm.

In summary, I came to motorcycling by necessity of living in an isolated area.  It turned out I liked doing it, so when it became a practical solution to London commuting, I went back to it and simply kept going.  I fixed my own bikes because I could not afford to pay someone else to do it.  I also like learning new things.  So apart from learning to do things mechanical, I learnt to weld, machine, build wheels, etc etc.  It is amazing what others can teach you if you just ask the right person.  Pat Davy taught me to align flywheels, John Goodall taught me about machining accurately, Brian Walker taught me to time the valves on a V twin when my mind went blank on the issue.  Motorcycling has given me a wealth of friends.

I have been riding for 50 years, owned and ridden about 45 different machines.  The worst being an Ariel Pixie, BSA Star Fire, Square four and a 1903 Clement Garrard, which nearly gave me a heart attack at the age of 37.  The best, the Triumph 6T, the Vincent Rapide and the Ariel 1929 Model F.  The latter has given me more smiles per mile than any other.

Motorcycling has given me a wealth of stories memories and observations, I have managed to ride in every part of the UK and every county, on 15 different marques, and what a pleasure and privilege it has been.

They say that certain things in life you choose to define you.  For me part of my self-definition is as “a Motorcyclist.” At the end of my working life, I earned a lot of money and told a lot of people what to do.  I remember walking into the vice chancellors office in November and getting out of my gear, and changing my shoes.  Someone looked at me and said.  “Why do you still ride that thing, can’t you afford to drive a car?”  It was said in jest but still grated, but I was able to use a reply I had recently read on someone’s T shirt.  “If you have to ask that, you’ll never understand.”  Pat Robotham

Roller Swaging by John Goodall

I was asked by my good friend Pat Robotham if I might be able to make some push rod tubes for the Ariel Owners Club Spares Scheme, this was about four years ago and I agreed I would try and do something? The requirement was for one tube to be reduced to a smaller diameter to fit and slide within another It needed to look as near as possible to the original item. Pat said he would provide the CDS 2 steel tube that he had already bought for the job. This is a tube made by curling flat sheet into a ring and then continuous welding down the resultant join longitudinally to make the tube and is much cheaper to buy than drawn steel tube, which has no seam. CDS2 does however have some drawbacks when you try and alter its shape as we intended. The weld introduces hardened areas on the weld edges that can cause cracking and embrittlement during work.

 On the left, tubes that split and on the right, the swaged tube before trimming the end off.

I had considered fabricating the reduced diameter by using two different diameter tubes one fitting inside the other and welding or brazing the junction to produce a tapered transition to look like the original which had probably been made on hydraulic press tools. I gave this idea up as being too time consuming and difficult to get a neat, or good enough transition and together with suspect repeatability that would not be acceptable.

During my apprenticeship which was completed in 1959 (that long ago blooming heck??), I recall roller swaging being discussed either at Technical College, or maybe it was actually a process carried out at FNF, but today I am not sure I can remember. Anyway I knew very little about it now, but thought it could offer the solution. I made a mandrel to fit inside the tube and reduced down at the outer end to the calculated inside diameter and with a groove lengthwise to clear the weld join. I then mounted a short piece of tube in the chuck of my Colchester 2000 Lathe with the mandrel inside. The mandrel is necessary to prevent the tube distorting with the high clamping forces of the chuck needed to drive the tube and prevent creeping as the work progressed. I then found a a large single knurling tool holder and found a ball bearing which would fit the tool and proceeded to apply it to the end needing reducing. It worked sort of by working the tool back and forth on the main carriage, but the action was accompanied by the tube pushing away from the mandrel on the opposite side with a lot of flexing and it needed something better, it also cracked on the weld due to the excessive flexing?

I thought if I could get one of the knurling tools that have two rolls mounted on two arms joined by a screw which makes the operating diameter adjustable and replace the knurling rolls with a large ball race this could well bring success.

Two knurling tools alongside John's tool for swaging

The opposed forces would now be equal and opposite and so largely cancel each other out. I looked in all the usual tool suppliers on eBay etc, but nothing seemed up to the job either size wise, or for robustness. So I set to and made one, as shown in the pictures. A hefty T piece formed the holder with milled slots cut precisely in the two arms and well fitted pivots to prevent excess side movement.

The swaging tools set up in the lathe with mandrel and tube.

The first trial was not good as the tube split down the weld again, but demonstrated it could work as it was almost to finished size. The tube now tended to go to a dumbbell shape pinched in the middle but far more controlled with less flexure. So I persevered and after grinding chamfers on the bearing outer diameter this gave a nice transition for the neck and reduce the stresses hopefully, eventually I developed a method for getting a repeatable result without splits by starting with the rollers set further apart for the first plunge in on the cross slide followed by working end wise. I next adjusted down in size and proceeded as before to finished size. A little like roughing and finishing cuts on the lathe. Because one is reducing the diameter this results in a thickening of the metal and it also extends the length as the displaced metal has to go somewhere. This proved an advantage on a couple of occasions with tube that was cut 1/8” too short, but after the swaging operation they turned out to be the correct length. Lucky, or what? The job went well from here with the ends just needing trimming to length.

Finished swaged tube with its mating tube                   Mating tube with a shorter reduced end

The result was a very cheap way of replicating the original item in comparatively small quantities compared to the way the original tubes were probably made. The Ariel Club must have been reasonably pleased with the outcome, as they have been back for another batch recently.  John Goodall

Ariel VNH update part 4

I wanted to make sure the motor could be worked on in the frame and the heads and barrels could be dismantled without having to take the engine out. It also made the unit lighter to put into the frame with no heads and barrels fitted.
One of the things I didn't want was the front mudguard to hit the exhaust pipe or front cylinder head with the forks compressed. This is why the frame was stretched a little. I also needed to have the detachable front down-tube to ease fitting the engine in and adjusting the front cylinder exhaust tappet as stated in part 3.

        Extended frame in jig.                                                                    Removable front down tube.

After fitting the bottom part of the engine in the frame I assembled the heads and barrels. The front cylinder has a plate under the rocker box bolts. This has a detachable tube fitted to it which bolts to the frame, under the headstock. There should be a picture about to show this. It also makes the engine part of the frame for extra rigidity. There is also a bracket that the small HT coils bolt to which is part of this assembly. These coils are external to the electronic self generating magneto, which I also made. This fires the 55 deg V twin engine. It has built in adv/retard for easy starting and no kick backs. This bolts to the front of the engine and is on slots to adjust any timing.

The primary chaincase screws to the engine and lines up with tapped holes in the standard position, the bike also uses the standard Burman gearbox and clutch. The engine plates I made out of the same thickness material as Ariel used, steel, but parallel with no kinks like the original plates. This helps, because I had to make different size spacers on the gearbox to line the primary chain with the engine sprocket and clutch chain wheel.

The oil tank had quite a large crease on the outside. I decided to cut the back out and knocked this out from the inside, cleaning 45 years of sludge out of the tank at the same time. I then brazed a plate over the hole and because it faces inside can't be seen. The rear guard is from a plunger model, I will keep an eye out for the correct guard, but at this time its better than nothing.
The battery carrier is not Ariel but pre war Triumph. It’s a similar design. The forks were treated to new springs bushes etc and built up and fitted. I made my own wiring harness using std colours. All the connections are Japanese type and I used a company called "Electrical Supplies" which stock everything for the budding the electrician/arsonist. Unfortunately, there is no charging system.  I will run LED bulbs throughout. This will give many hours of light and I don't really plan to ride to many miles at night. Sometime in the future I'll fit some sort of charging system onto the bike.

One of the things I wasn't too happy about was the old exhaust pipes. I made these some years ago and decided to have a set of stainless bespoke ones made. Not cheap, but I thought the bike deserved it.

So far, most things I had were in my stock so its cost very little to this stage. These pipes are mated to a standard Ariel silencer. The Siamese exhaust pipes on the timing side of the bike leave room to fit a better prop stand. I didn't have a standard prop stand, so I bought one off eBay for about £10, complete with bracket off some Jap bike. I've used this type on a number of bikes and they work well.

Tank painted with custom transfers fitted.

Since the above I have done about 50 miles and have raised the gearing a little. I am very pleased with the way it goes and is an improvement all around from the first incarnation.  Tony