Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2022 i Real Classic

I don’t know about you, but for me the restoration of some ancient clunker to its rightful place on the byway is a great moment. And I have always really enjoyed the way it usually happens in stages, too. After *days / weeks / months / years (*delete as appropriate) of studious and diligent spannering, cleaning, fixing and fettling, there comes that moment when you finally accept that the electrics work (or, possibly, just the spark plugs spark – lighting is secondary) and fuel is at least reaching the carb. But what happens next? Do you flood the carb, kick the engine over a few times to get a little flow actually through the carb, then check that the sparks still work, and…Or do you simply savour the ‘ready to…

Manning the VMCC Dorset section stand for the whole weekend at the Bristol Classic Show earlier this year offered me a fascinating insight into the current mindset of the classic motorcycle enthusiast. For sure, the custom Vincent cafe racers, or over-shiny Japanese bikes restored to 110% originality always attract their fair share of attention, but for the first time it was apparent that a large number of covetous glances were being cast in the direction of small capacity bikes liberally sprinkled throughout the club stands, the sort of ride-to-work tiddlers we all cast aside as soon as bigger and better rides came our way. Why would an experienced rider, with a shed containing a Norton Commando, post-Meriden Triumph retro, or even a fabled Vincent ever want to even glance in…

Earlier this year we were asked for more articles about tiddlers. I own several and riding them is great fun. Mine tend to be Italian tiddlers. Through the 1950s, 60s and even into the early 1970s the Italian tiddlers were so much more advanced than other European marques – the Japanese took over most of the tiddler market from the late 60s. Some of the racing bikes from the Italian manufacturers were very quick and seemed quite exotic compared to the offerings from the UK, with a proliferation of overhead cams and quite novel designs. They took the lower capacity class racing by storm in the early 1950s with excellent results (you’ll find more detail on this at Real-Classic.co.uk). A lot of the Italians’ race technology was incorporated into the…

STAGE 3 At last, a real day to remember. Tim arrived early and quickly fixed the fuel gauge. The wiring loom took some head scratching, investigation, more head scratching and finally removal of the wiring in question. It was not clear why connectors and additional wires had been spliced into the loom, but they seemed to be doing more harm than good. The points were reset, engine was restarted and carbs rebalanced. The bike sounded good. So, off up the road, then? It was 15 years and one day since the machine’s last MoT! The Wing is from 1975, so as an historic vehicle now requires no MoT or road tax. When I acquired the bike it did not have historic status. I’d applied some months back; the process was…

Every day is a new adventure in Matchlessland. Most days, Postie rolls up with little bags filled with goodies. Some of them are the right bits and some of them fit. Whether they work is of course a minor mystery at this stage. I truly do miss the glory days of autojumbles everywhere, when I could make a little list, slide it into my wallet so I wouldn’t forget what I was looking for, then drop it and lose it somehow the first time I bought anything — usually a cup of coffee. And then the other day a great big cardboard box landed. It was truly and impressively light. But big. Had I ordered some fresh air for the tyres? Note to self: separate refreshing beer infusion from ordering…

This year sees the Centenary celebrations of the creation of the Austin Seven motor car – nicknamed the ‘Baby Austin’. It was unveiled in November 1922 at the London Motor Show in Olympia, then produced from 1923 until 1939 in the UK, during which time no less than 290,000 examples were built. It was the best-selling car produced for the British market and sold well abroad, too, and its effect in Britain was similar to that of the Model T Ford in the US, since it allowed customers who might otherwise have been unable to afford a motor car to enjoy the benefits of owning one. It was also licensed and/or copied by companies all over the world. The first BMW motor car, the Dixi, was a licensed Austin Seven,…

Back in 1973 my mate Dave bought a very nice 1947 Harley WLD which attracted a lot of attention. Spurred on by this machine and fanciful thoughts about being the next Peter Fonda, I started looking around. After some haggling I bought my first Harley-Davidson in 1974 for £325, a rather secondhand WLC (Canadian Army) 750 sidevalve V-twin. I quickly discovered it had endured a hard life and needed some work, and the suicide foot clutch fitted was not normal. With the mechanicals in better order and a nice Electric Blue paint job I thought I was the bee’s knees. I had several adventures with this machine, like five weeks of commuting in London on a three-speed hand-change, footclutch bike with virtually no brakes. My last big trip on the…

It’s almost forty years since I saw my first MZ ES250/2 Trophy: immaculate, blue and resplendent with leg shields, tucked away in the back corner of the showroom. Its quirky looks appealed as much as the £100 price tag on the headlight. But I was 21 with a Honda CB900 to feed and a CD175 for work. I forgot about her and moved on. I’ve had bikes since I turned 17, never been without one. New and old but now with a RealClassic subscription and a drip feed of interesting machines, I was feeling the urge to join in. But with what? In 40 years I’ve learnt value and reputation aren’t proportionate to the joy or rewards of ownership. That CD175 is remembered more fondly than the 900. A BMW…

Covid got in the way, but eventually I got stuck into playing with the Can-Am. On the chassis side, after even more research and befriending a Stateside flat-track frame builder, I did a fair bit of tuning. I took 1.5 degrees out of the rake, 1 degree out of the swinging arm angle and lengthened the wheelbase 1.25”. I also raised the seat an inch, and moved the right footrest forward about the same, and took lots of rebound damping out of the rear shocks. I always use Rockshocks on my race bikes. Not only is Gary Fleckney who runs the company well clued up on set-up to start with, you can adjust the tuning at home. Gary had originally supplied the shocks with three rebound shims, in accordance with…

I could quite understand it if you have obliterated all memories of my very own AJS Model 16. I have tried, but I keep going back to it, knowing that just a simple tiny tweak will make it run as well as I know they should. So far, it has refused. Soon, then, it’ll end up back on the bench, and further energies and expense will be thrown at it. This will probably have no effect, and after I’ve pushed it home again I will be even more disillusioned. Or not, because I am an optimistic sort. Mostly. So why are you looking at a Matchless, and not an AJS, you may ask, perfectly reasonably. Because it was there. My friend Chris dropped me a note wondering whether I fancied…