Closing down and a discovery

A few days ago while delivering the mail to one of my businesses, I spied in a pick up there a couple of old relics. One was a mid 60ish Honda CB72 or CB77, not really sure which. It was in a bit of a state but recoginizeable. The other was a BSA which was in a bad way was well. From the looks of it it could have been either a C15 or a B40 as it had a distributor on it  and was from the early to mid 60s before Amelia the Starfire was made. Haven't had a chance to talk to Andy, the owner, to find out about the BSA.

The closure was of a bike knackers warehouse in the local area. I heard through word of mouth that the place was closing as the building had been sold so everything had to go.

Too bad I didn't have the money as there may have been a few things such as helmets or whatever to be had at a good price. I also didn't find out abou tthis until after the fact so it was too late.

The last time I was there was about a month or so back to check on something trivial. As they had mainly bikes from the Orient there, I didn't even bother about parts for Amelia or Vicky. But I did see a couple of Yamahas and Hondas that were from the time I started riding, back in the days of the dinosaurs, the 70s.

Oh well, there's still the bike shows such as New Ulm and eBay to get stuff.

A rainy day

Today started out quite wet and it looks like it'll end that way too. As I was off today from the salt mines, I didn't get wet which is always a good thing.

But I did go into the shed for a bit. As I have run out of wet-n-dry paper to sand the frame some more and to get rid of any gunge I decided to do sommit else that didn't require any sanding.

I attacked the rear wheel, specifically the hub and bearings. Started out, after getting the wheel on the bench, I went to take off the plate that the speedo drive sits on while in the swing arm. This is an easy thing to do, just unscrew it from the hub.

This is even easier when you turn it in the right direction, which in this case is to the right as it is a reverse thread. However Muggins here knew to do this but insisted on turning it to the left as per normal threading. It took a minute or two before I realized what a daft twit I am and then proceeded to do it right.

The plate came off, as well as the sandwich of three large flat washer type seals, one of which is made of felt. Very high tech these classsic machines!

Then it was a couple of quick blows using a small lump hammer and suitable drifts and both the wheel bearings came out.

Even though I used drifts to get them out without damaging the races, I'm still gonna replace them as "Great Britain" is stamped into the outer edge of the bearings which tells me that they are the originals and even though still may be servicable, they need to be updated.

Unfortunately there isn't a local BSA agent nearabouts, so that means a trip down to the local bearing distributor for the replacement items. As they cost about $10 or about a Fiver each in hometown money, it's a good deal.

Later on, I'll put it all back together and the wheel will be good as new, especially after cleaning the rim up and replacing the tire. This also will apply to the front as well when I get to that one.

And seeing how I've gone through the experience with Amelia, I'll be in familiar territory and know what I'm doing.

Until next time.....toodle pip!