In Other News

Got this off the Bay the other day. Not sure why but I did:-

Not too bad at £33 plus some postage.

New Engine

Took Friday off on leave to get cracking on my Velocette rebuild. This is as far as I got - new (original) bottom end assembled and ready to go back in the frame. Oil pump fitted, all timing gears in, piston on the conrod, magneto fitted:-

Got the old engine out of the frame as well:-

Need to give the frame a lick of paint in places before the engine goes back in.

My garage. Its a bit congested in there at the moment:-

1913 Ariel TT (front left), 1978 Honda C70 (front centre), Honda Fireblade (rear centre), 1938 Ariel Red Hunter (rear right). Hiding is the 1954 Velocette MAC, 1928 Ariel Model D, 1952 Ariel VH, 1920 Ariel 500sv and up in the loft a 1959 Norman Nippy. Lathe, drill, mountain bikes blah blah.

Crazy Horse

Off to the Forest of Dean for the Crazy Horse rally this weekend. Decided to take the Velocette. Fairly uneventful ride there. Loads of beer Friday night. Start the bike in the morning - no problems. Go to set off on the run and it went thud. No compression and very stiff to turn over on the kickstart. So I went out in Huws sidecar. Again.

Got recovered home on Sunday morning (no point wasting a good weekend) and started to investigate.

Rocker cover off - no sign of damage - but nothing was moving when I turned the engine over.

Timing cover off and I found this:-



A bit of metal about 10mm square jammed between the crank pinnion and the intermediate timing pinnion.

This is where it came from:-



Its a BTH automatic ignition timing device. And they say X never marks the spot - it does this time. Not drawn by me I might add.

So the bit of metal has jammed the timing pinnions, shearing the crankshaft woodruff key. Complete engine strip down then. Again.

New Wood

New deck arrived today courtesy of Skateboards of Choice. And its got front wheel wells.

Sunday Drive

Went to Skate Extreme in Newport. Nobody turned up to open the place. Drove home.

This Week I Have Mostly Been Listening To...