Innehållsförteckning för January 2021 från Real Classic

It's not every day that the phone rings and a voice says; 'We're moving house and there's an old motorcycle under a tarpaulin in our garden. Would you like it?' The mind immediately jumps to the mental picture of a Gold Star or some 1930s V-twin, or at least an A 10. The picture-bubble hovers as I ask in trepidation; 'What is it?' 'My dad's old Bantam .. .' Sound of a bubble bursting! How long, I wondered, had it been there? 'It must be 35 years: The mental picture of a pile of rusty wreckage appears. I promise to go and have a look - but I won't rush, I think to myself. Curiosity is a powerful human trait, so the next day I find myself lifting the corner…

My first cafe racer was a 1948 350 AJ5 which I bought with help from the bank of mum for £30 sometime in 1957, when I was earning about £9.1 passed my test on it but had trouble keeping up with my two mates on Triumph Tiger 1 OOsIt smoked and burned oil, so I took off the head and barrel; the piston was barrel-shaped as there was so much side-play in the crank. It was re-shimmed with a new piston and run-in carefully. It took me to the TI and Manx GP from London and around the race circuits, and was my main transport to work. I later converted it to swinging arm with bits from the great scrappy at the Fourth Crossroads in Twickenham. I painted it by…

The finish on the engine cases shows a life of mild abuse from previous owners. I'm a big fan of satin finishes and the work done by Russel Mitchell of Exile Cycles. My chosen finish for the engine cases and any shiny bits  is to give them a good rub down and ' scuffing' with Scotch Brite pads. I have no idea how many I went through, but at least 25 of the things. The standard T140 mudguards also got a bit of a trim and then a good scuffing too. I removed about 3'off the back of the rear mudguard, and about the same from both ends of the front mudguard to give it a bit more style. The original carbs were stripped down and rebuilt to standard spec.…

‘It all happened because I took the magneto off a Panther engine and saw ' the "shelf" below it and thought it could be just the place for a second cylinder. I discussed it with members of the Panther Owners' Club. It turned out a few people had thought about that, but couldn't work it out, partly because there was nowhere to put the second camshaft as the oil pump would be in the way. It was one of those impossible jobs, so I thought I'd try it .. .' Geoff Stray's Panther M240 V-twin has been five years in the making and has appeared at the Bristol Classic Show for the last three years in various stages of development. First it was an engine, then a mock-up with exhausts…

Back in the 1970s my old mate Tuck had an old grain barn in the village of Holt in Wiltshire that attracted motorcyclists from far and wide. Tuck's barn was a cornucopia of British motorcycles and parts, with a number of interesting machines and rolling chassis tucked away in the dark recesses under the floor. As one of Tuck's minions, I spent some time under that floor moving machines around. I was always intrigued by what looked like an Ariel Huntmaster but with a bent top tube, and parts of the front down tubes missing. It turned out to be a Huntmaster frame modified to take an Ariel Square Four motor and gearbox. I helped Tuck move his collection, six HGVs' worth, to Devon in the late 1980s and remember…

'I bought my W650 with a couple of thousand miles on it, and proceeded to ride it for 30,000 miles over three or four years. The W650 seemed to me to be a very well put together twin and (unsurprisingly) it reminded me of Yamaha's XS650 from some years ago. The Kawasaki was my main bike, used all year round, and it stood up to British winters quite well, never letting me down other than misfiring when the carbs iced up in really cold conditions. 'The W650 didn't need a great deal of looking after but, even so, it wasn't a complicated device to keep in good fettle. I particularly liked the spring-loaded sliding rocker arms which allowed straightforward access to the valve shims. The bikes can develop noisy bevel…

 the specification may have been more about moving great loads large distances reliably rather than outright speed or handling. The engine and box are of unit construction and a single oil change lubricates both with filtration via a large gauze insert in the sump. The gearbox itself is four speed with a heavy, dry plate clutch, changes being effected using a heel and toe shifter. Unusually for a Guzzi of its age, the NF is chain drive and not shaft, a carryover from its lineage perhaps. The frame is massive and appears to be a conventional twin downtube design that, on mine at least, was welded by confused drunks. There is a swinging arm with twin shock suspension and telescopic forks of Guzzi's design for smoothing the bumps. This package…

Brush painting a motorcycle frame is a whole lot more satisfying than painting a window frame or any other household woodwork. Applying careful, deliberate brush strokes to the sound of classical music - I particularly like piano concertos - is highly therapeutic and you're adding personal craftsmanship to the aesthetics of your motorcycle. Saving a few bob is a good thing too. The golden rule for brush painting has always been to buy the best quality brush to produce a good finish, and this advice still stands. Picking loose brush bristles from your freshly applied paint work is soul-destroying certainty if you buy cheap brushes. But there's another consideration. For me, the best brush is no longer the traditional decorating brush made of bristle; they're just too stiff and coarse…

Were I an advert copywriter, which happily I am not, I might describe Kawasaki's W650 as sweet, neat and fleet of foot. You can see why I'm not an ad copywriter! But in fact that silly set of words sums up the bike pretty well, because it is all of those things, as I discovered for myself, only a few decades after everyone else on the planet had ridden one and made up their own minds. No need to rush things, I feel. We were progressing swiftly enough along a Herefordshire B-road, light traffic, clear views, with endless changes of direction and elevation - a great road for trying out an unfamiliar machine. Except... except that the Kawasaki felt instantly familiar. So much so that I wondered for a while…

My first motorbike ride was on a FS1 E in 1976 when I was 16. A couple of years later I bought a Suzuki 250 Hustler, passed my test, went straight out and bought a Triumph Trident Tl 50. I rode this for about two years while most of my mates moved on from British bikes to thrashing their new Japanese machines. I wanted a new bike but couldn't find anything I fancied. There was talk about a new British bike, the Hesketh V1OOOand , I followed its development. On a cold Saturday morning in September 1980 I rode my Tl 50 to the Alexandra Palace motorcycle show to see this new Hesketh. WOW! What a bike it turned out to be, elevated in all its elegance and looking gorgeous.…

Following on from last time ... Not all flywheel magnetos overwind their Low Tension ignition coils with the High Tension winding. Another option eventually appeared, using the'ignition'winding to power an external HT coil. The most obvious way was to connect as if it was a battery, and this was incorporated into the Villiers 225cc 1 H ignition system - possibly because they chose to use the 'ignition' coil also for trickle charging. As suggested in part 1, it is a fairly obvious move. However, from personal experience it is apparent that an ordinary DC ignition coil does not work very well, and Villiers developed the M2533 coil especially for it. This system was not replicated for the later 250cc 2H single and 2T twins, which instead adopted an 'Energy Transfer'…

Filing, the ignoble art of converting a nice neat round hole into something else, is a restful pursuit. This is particularly true when the round file you're operating - with full protective gear of course; hard hat, steel toecap boots, visor and a face mask in case the steel bits are infectious - is considerably elderly, and is being operated by someone who has no idea at all how a file can be maintained or kept sharp. If it even can, of course. The key to success on the creation of a creatively un-round hole is comfort. So decent gloves, a heater, a comforting bottle or two and a stool are all essential. Rounding up these things can take time. Taking time is fine. In the lockdown daze many of…