New Purchase - Rosy the A65

[brewsy]

Hi All,
I joined the forum a short while ago and have already posted a quick 'Hello'.
The bike I joined with has been named Rosy by the family and she's a 1964 BSA A65 Thunderbolt. One of the PO's got some details from the factory/register(?) that show that this is a replacement engine.
As I understand it the most recent PO had started/done(?) a restoration but didn't fully complete it so my mate purchased it on my behalf.
I live in London and Im tired of the tube for my commute so want a bike again. The issue is that theft is so endemic round here that any modern bike that Id like would get stolen in mere moments!!
Hopefully an old bike that is a) kick start, so they wont be able to get it going b) heavy, so they cant use their mates scooter to give them a 'pushy' and c) foot controls on the wrong side, so even if they do try they'd crash and (hopefully) hurt themselves badly!! 

Aims are to go through all the stuff that might have been missed e.g. loose bolts etc. and also to modernise for reliability and to try to make as leak/drip proof as possible!

Cheers,
Marc

[brewsy]

One of the first jobs was a very leaky fork leg. The oil that was left in the legs was relatively new but I was quite surprised as how much 'shiny' was in them..
As I'm finding with a 61 year old vehicle lots of nuts, screws and bolts are either worn, wrong or BOTH! 
In this case the screws were old and knacked and the fibre washers were actually too large so that they were being 'dished' before they even contacted the sealing surfaces.
I bought new screws and correct washers and then carefully 'flattened' the sealing surface at the bottom of the leg so that the washer had some good area to seal against.
Im confident that it will be leak free as only one of the legs was leaking in the first place so hopefully one job 'done'....

[brewsy]

Oil.
When I get the bit between my teeth I do a lot of research and it seems that whilst the A65 engine is generally considered to be a good engine people feel that the plain bearing on the timing side is a weak area and is usually the cause of engine failures when it gets blocked and then starves the other side of the engine. Personally I don't think that's a fair assessment as its actually going to be dirty oil causing that to happen which is a) a consequence of the designers/bean counters not including an oil filter (but then that's 'of its time') and b) bad maintenance.
As such Im going to be thoroughly cleaning the system and adding a modern spin on filter kit.

My mate had cautioned me, and Id read, that the oil tank can get lots of sludge so I decided to go ahead and drain the oil and then clean it out.
Why oh WHY did they put the oil tank on the RHS of the bike if the side stand is on the LHS? It would make draining the oil MUCH easier if you could just lean it that way and then drain...
And also why place the plug in such a position so that it just goes EVERYWHERE, even when you think you've got a funnel and a tray in a good place!! 
If you look at my avatar picture you can see how much sludge was in there. Id hazard a guess it was 3-4mm deep!!!
If you look at the picture of the oil tank you can see the sludge 'twinkling' at the bottom.
Used petrol to flush it through, forgot to capture the first flush which went straight into my waste oil container but the ones after I put into my drain tray.
As you can see that's a LOT of large particles left after the petrol had evaporated.

Next was the oil filter kit that I bought from Paul Goff. It seems like a nice design and should fit nicely behind the gearbox and be accessible for changes. Will let you know how the refitting of the rear mudguard goes though.. 
Not Pauls fault but when I examined the filter head you could see a load of casting flash on the inside where the oil is entering the head.
Out came the dremel to remove this and to do a bit of porting so that there is less resistance to the flow entering the head, I want the scavenge pump to be pushing oil rather than creating pressure!
Decided to use petrol, as I had it around, to clean the swarf up and inadvertently removed all the paint on the inside which upon reflection is no bad thing...

[brewsy]

.

[brewsy]

More Oil.
Next up was the sump or rather the lack of drain plug...
Picked up a generic A50/A65 ally sump with magnetic drain plug, new longer studs with reduced OD nuts and a new SRM gauze filter.
The sump is a nice bit of kit and ended up fitting well BUT 'a little use of a dremel to clearance it' was a slight understatement!! 
Had to clearance the new ally sump to fit the larger A65 gauze. Used the A50 style gasket as a template on the old sump and then transferred to the new sump and got dremel'ing.

Anyway thats all done now and its on and torqued down to 5lb/ft
NOTE - to anyone else doing this be very careful.. There is a plastic 'spacer' on the mag sump bolt and the kit came with 2x fibre washers. I thought they were just being nice at first e.g. a spare for your next oil change, but BOTH are needed to be fitted as they provide just enough clearance to stop the magnetic part of the bolt clouting the ball valve spigot in the sump!!

Pictures should explain the process.

[brewsy]

.

[brewsy]

Front Brake.
This will be my second bike with a drum front brake but also my first that might actually go faster than 30mph. The first was an old CZ125 25years ago that barely worked so I was mainly concerned with getting it going rather than stopping it!
Wasn't too pleased with how the PO dealt with a cable where the outer was a bit too short.
That spacer meant that the outer wasn't actually retained by anything and was floating around. I don't want to take any risks with my stoppers here in London so got a new cable and found the correct threaded adjuster for the lever end of the system

[V500]

Two things there Brewsy, bikes shouldn't have twee names, and don't believe for a second that the thief will be deterred by the bike having a kick-start!

[brewsy]

Two things there Brewsy, bikes shouldn't have twee names, and don't believe for a second that the thief will be deterred by the bike having a kick-start!

Hahahahah, Take your point.
As a family we name all the vehicles. Current stable is:
Ron the Donkey - modern Fiat 500
Ruby - 1967 Beetle
Red Peril - Honda NSR250

 

[brewsy]

Misc.

Petrol feed. Tank has Ewerts petcocks which I like the look and feel of, although Im not sure how long Im going to feel about that as there seems to be no 'reserve' which may mean a roadside stop in the near future 
PO had done a Tee feed from both outlets to the one inlet on the AMAL but it was a bit short and used jubilees rather than fuel clamps. Took off the banjo and found that the filter was pretty dirty and also that the washers were a bit past it, although TBF it wasn't leaking..
New fuel pipe, clamps, washers and filter have arrived and ready to fit

Rear Wheel.
First time taking off a Brit rear wheel so was expecting one big nut and one axle that goes through the whole assembly. Was (pleasantly) surprised to find that wasn't the case so actually had to RTFM and found that its sort of like a 'quick' release system.
Although there was nothing quick about it as I had to go through all my spanners, including newly purchased Whit/AF ones, to find something that fit!
Found that someone had painted the mounting surfaces where the wheel bolts to the hub so cleaned all that up. Dont want a wobbly rear wheel if I can help it

[brewsy]

Electrics
Planning to convert to 12V and rewire it so that its hopefully more reliable and people can see me coming (headlight) and see me stopping (when I press the rear brake of course). Had a look at the front brake switch things but frankly adding another coupling into the front brake wire sounds like a bad idea to me wrt efficiency so will just make sure that I always use a bit of back brake to signal my intentions.
Looks like the light switch is one of the replacement types which Im pretty certain are 3D printed and actually 'deeper' than the original. As you can see the bowl has been pressing on the back of it and would eventually cause that green wire to short.. Have a new Lucas (shorter) part on order
I work in computers/tech so read around and this article makes sense so I will be using this strategy with a modern 4 wire reg/rec to manage the electricity generation
http://www.norbsa02.freeuk.com/goffyalternatorwiring.htm

It seems that the because of all the different generator coils being switched on/off by the various switch positions there are several contacts in there that do the same thing, so I plan to try to reduce voltage drop/resistance. Basically Im going to run some nice thick wire 2.5mm or 3mm from the reg/rec to & from the bowl and then use 2x circuits in the switch, one for the ignition, rear brake light & horn and the other for the main lighting so that the switch contacts themselves also carry less current.
And will also be going back to OG style bullets rather than these plastic type thingies

[DAVE BRADY]

Hi,

Use the right hand tap for main fuel and left tap for reserve. The tank has a slightly different shape on the left underside to give a bit moire reserve capacity - well on my later tanks they do.

Dave.

[brewsy]

Hi,
Use the right hand tap for main fuel and left tap for reserve. The tank has a slightly different shape on the left underside to give a bit moire reserve capacity - well on my later tanks they do.
Dave.

Thanks for that Dave.
I'll give it a try although I may see if I can find/make a calibrated measurer using a composite of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin 

Marc

[brewsy]

More Oil.
Got PG's filter head mounted. If you're reading this Paul the hole size in the bracket was a touch small so I ended up using a 10mm drill to open it out a touch (no clue if 'my' bolt is original though).
Bracket was spot on and instructions clear and easy to follow.
Took the plugs out and used the kicker to turn the engine over as fast as my leg would allow and got a few spurts of oil out of the correct side of the filter head, so was pleased its mounted the correct way.
I cleaned all the pipes as best as I could of debris/oil before sliding and clamping the lines and removed copious amounts of paint off the spigots on the oil tank.
Was itching to start it and test but couldn't as I had removed the washer on the oil tank drain plug, actually cut it off as I knew Id be tempted to do that and then would have to deal with a possibly leaky old washer and 3litres of oil!!

[brewsy]

Forks
Just filled the LH leg after doing the RH last week.
Pleasing news is that the RH drain plug was still dry where previously, with the incorrect washer, it had been very leaky.

Even so I found my biggest best fitting flat blade and gave them both a good tweak!
🤞🏽