I am contemplating the restoration of my 1966 BSA 650 Spitfire Mk11, I have owned this bike for almost 49 years and look forward to getting it back on the road by our 50th anniversary. I bought it off a close friend in 1973 for the princely sum of 35 cents, the price of a McDonald's cheeseburger at the time. He had bought it in 1969 as a used bike from a BSA dealer. It's a survivor, almost everything is original with the exception of the GP carbs which had been replaced with concentrics before his ownership, a common swap at the time. I have a folder full of receipts dating from 1969 including his purchase documents.
I rode the bike for a few years until the swing arm pivot seized solid effectively making it a hardtail. A few years later I finally removed the swing arm by hacksawing the pivot tube on both sides of the swingarm and started rounding up parts to reassemble the bike which was then and remains today completely disassembled. Life got in the way and I acquired a 1968 BSA 750 triple to ride and the project was mothballed. Coincidentally I sold the triple to the same friend and he still owns it today. I went on to riding a 1980 Honda CBX and a 1979 CBX before I stopped riding following a crushed spinal cord (not bike related) and a triple level spinal fusion in my neck.
I have been lurking here for a few months and am looking forward to asking questions and sharing my restoration once I start on it.
Here is the bike circa 1974.
Mike
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Welcome. That all sounds brilliant and wish you lots of good luck. All the parts you will need are generally available. So go for it. I can't ride now either.
Mike 8) 8) 8) 8)
Hi Mike and welcome to this very, very helpful site.
A few years ago I started a similar project on my 1965 A65 Lightning and asked a lot of questions (way too many I think), and received a lot of excellent advice, from the good folk here.
It's 'A65 Lightning Project': https://www.bsaownersclub.co.uk/bsaoc_forum/index.php?topic=6819.0
You might have some of the same problems (hopefully not all of em...), and might find some of the answers there.
Good luck with the project,
Dave.
Hi Mike,
Looking forward to following the story of your restoration - I'm sure you will get plenty of excellent help and advice here.
However, should you decide that it's all too much and wish to turn an immediate profit, I would not hesitate to offer you the price of a full Big Mac Meal. In fact I'll even go large on the fries!! Now you don't get an offer like that every day. ;D ;D ;D ;D
All the best,
Bernie
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Hey come on now don't be cheapskate. you offerred me a "coke" as well.
Mike 8) 8) 8)
Wow, these offers to relieve me of the burden of this project sure are tempting.
My friend had graduated college and taken a job out of the country. His parents were moving to another state so he lost his storage place and by that time he had become tired of fixing it and was not riding the bike. He basically gave it to me but he took one last shot requiring a cheeseburger as payment. At least with no upfront investment I can spend some money on a restoration and not be underwater.
He had recently taken it to a mechanic of dubious nature to replace the rod bearings and it started to show signs of a rod knock again. I found the problem right away, the oil lines had been plumbed Triumph style. Fortunately he routinely kept the oil tank overfilled enough that the return line (now suction line) was just below the oil surface and kept at least some oil to the engine. He had used the same "mechanic" several times so who knows what I will find inside the engine. Once the weather gets somewhere north of freezing I will start pulling some parts from their home in the garage attic and evaluate what I have. I did obtain a new swing arm pivot tube and bushings, everything to rebuild the front forks and several other parts back in the day but I had to spread the tabs on the frame enough to get the hacksaw in there to cut out the old tube so that will need to be addressed first. My son worked in a body shop for a long time but recently changed jobs so I lost my free paint and the use of a paint booth so I will be doing that job myself. The plated parts will have to be re-plated as time and humidity has taken a toll. Hopefully I can salvage some of them. It will be a slow process as I have several other old cars that I am working on or waiting in the wings and time is becoming short.
My friend lives out of the country but still has my old 750 triple and a Norton 850 from another friend, he keeps them at his son's house in KY. They are both complete original survivors but could use restorations. Yesterday I got and email from him where he is proposing updating them to modern bike standards with all disc brakes, new forks/shocks, modern wheels and digital dash. He is into sport bikes and has a late model Honda crotch rocket where he lives now. I have some time to talk him out of it. He, myself and the PO of the Norton have been close friends since there were only 48 states in the US, probably longer than most of the people on this forum have been alive so we can apply some reasoning pressure to him.
I found your comment 'I can spend some money on a restoration and not be underwater.' intriguing. Is this possible? Since retirement, I have rebuilt a sixties Triumph, a pre-war Norton and now a 53 plunger A7. Enormous fun but I have stopped keeping track of costs as they've always exceeded the final value of the machine. I'm also keen my wife doesn't find out just how much I spend. Am I alone in this?
Short answer. No! I have never costed what I spend when restoring a bike. You either want to do it or not.
Quote from: idie on 09 Feb, 2022, 22:33
Short answer. No! I have never costed what I spend when restoring a bike. You either want to do it or not.
I usually don't either but it is comforting knowing that it is worth at least what I have in it.
I used to keep tabs on what I was spending on the restoration projects but stopped after the obvious final cost-up was way over what they were worth. I look at it now as more of a hobby which I enjoy and when the projects are finished someone gets a bike that has had loads of cash thrown at it!
Hi,
It is better than fishing were loads of money is spent on bait etc. that gets thrown in the water. Even the fish go back in.
Dave.
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My son in law plays golf and that costs him a hellava lot more than my bikes cost----I think.
What else is you is gonna do wiv it!!!
Mike 8) 8) 8) 8)
I do not even think about what it costs to keep my bike on the road
I took the first step on the journey yesterday. I went up into the garage attic and brought down the rear fender. The last time that I was up there the chrome pieces looked to have a film of rust and I was worried that replacements might be in order. I had decided to try some Quick-Glo chrome cleaner after seeing it used on the YouTube channel "The Mighty Garage" to clean some Norton Manxman parts. After washing off 40 years of dust and dirt I tried the Quick-Glo per instructions and the chrome quickly came back to about the same condition as it was when I parked the bike. I am happy with it, although the chrome isn't like new it's pretty good. The left 2/3's of the fender is the "after" side, the right side hasn't been polished yet.