A blast from the past

Today before going to the Postal salt mines I went to the shed to get some reading material to...well...read. Took some back issues of Classic Bike.

So while in our break room prior to clocking in I was going through one of them which had articles on welding, wiring up old BSAs (very informative) the best 100 classic bikes that are between 100-5000 GBP and also some reports from various shows and such.

I noticed there was one from a Scottish show and guess whose picture I happened to see....

 

none other than my mate Kawa and one of his Kawas. If you're not sure which one I'm blethering aboot, he's in the upper right corner, just above Rick Parkington and his project BSA A7 that he did up for the rag.

So it goes to show that you never know who or what you'll see from day to day.

Some work

Yesterday and today I've done a small amount of work on Vicky. By small I mean hardly anything at all but something was done.

What I did was put the bottom half of the motor into the frame while the frame is still suspended in the air. Basically I wanted to see if it was gonna be difficult all by my lonesome to put it in, it wasn't, just getting it situated so the lug holes lined up right.

Then I decided to put the outer casings on to see how it was looking. Was starting to look like a motorcycle instead of some tubing hanging by straps from the rafters of the shed.

However there is a small matter of the small index pins that are used to line things up on the outer casings. Seems that there is one on the timing cover and there's one on the inner timing cover in the exact same place. Makes it difficult to get everything to close up as needed. Sooooooo.....one of them has to come out.

Here comes the tricky bit, how to get them out! Tried to use a heat gun on both the casings but to no avail. Can't use SWMBO  oven in the hoose as I can already predict the outcome right now and it wouldn't be  a pretty sight.

But not to worry, Bodger will come up with a solution. There's no hurry on this as parts still need to be procured and this was all just a dry run of sorts to see how things were looking.

Sorry no pictures, but SWMBO has decided to "liberate" the digital from as hers went belly up. Will get something figgered out shortly.

A wee quiz

I just got off eBay a timing cover for Vicky as the original has a small chunk missing from it. This was my second attempt at getting one and this time sucessfull.

Whaddya mean "this time sucessfull?" Bodger you may be thinking to yourself. It's like this....I got one off some geezer a ways back and when it showed up I unpacked it as eager as a wee sprog at Bah Humbug time o' year.

When I pull the cover from the box and saw what I had, a perplexed look came over my face. Instead of what I ordered I was holding in my hands something completely different.

Here's where the wee quiz comes in:

For those of you in know about MC parts, can you tell what part I got and what part I didn't? Answers on a scrap of paper mailed to the following:

Bodgers Mystery Quiz

Third Tree Stump Along

The Old Spooky Lane

Kings Sutton,

Banbury, OXON

The person with the correct answer will be rewarded with the knowledge that he/she knows more than the geezer who sent the WRONG part and and then through numerous e-mails called my diminshed eyesight into question until the offending part was returned and he could see for himself he got it WRONG.

But in the end, everything was set right and a full refund was received.

Now that the part I need is here, that's another piece to the scavenger hunt to rebuild and restore Vicky.

Sanding and a snake

As the title suggests I did some sanding.

I used some of the wet-n-dry on the side stand that I have recently purchased to get it ready for priming. Also use the wee wire brush wheels on my Dremel to get to the hard to get bits such as nooks and crannies to get rid of any rust and some oil/grease residue.

For those who don't have or use a Dremel tool you really ought to as these come in very handy for getting into tight places where hands and fingers can't or sandpaper might be to bulky to use.

Anyway when the weather gets warmer I'll be get a few rattle cans of some primer that I've heard about that both primes for painting and fills in small areas such as scratches or nicks. Just spray on, rub it down for the next coat and repeat. If it works well, then part of the job is done.

After that the hard part of the actual painting and rubbing down a few coats of actual paint will take place on the frame and all the associated parts such as the oil tank, battery tray, swing arm, etc.

When all this happens pictures will of course be posted to show the work in progress. None have been taken at this point as sanding parts is you'll agree a little boring, akin to watching grass grow each day.

Oh BTW, forgot to mention in the last post about one of the roving security alarms came face to face with a legless lizard or commonly known as a SNAKE and not just any snake.

No sir, this just happened to be a Copperhead variety that if it had sunk it's little fangs into the four-legged

alarm could most likely have killed him.

But it was not to be as the bugger was dispatched with a stick and will longer be a bother.

Bodger 1, Snake 0

An update of sorts

Sorry sports fans, but it's been a long and boring few weeks of late.

The only thing even remotley bike related has been to get some wet-n-dry paper to do some more sanding on the frame and other bits prior to prepping for prinmer and then paint in the near future.

I  have been on Face Ache, sorry, Face Book looking at different sites/profiles and "talking" with people such as Kawa, GBC and a few others such as Anth, Heidi, Alex George (yes, The Alex George) and Graeme Crosby (yep, it's him). Both real down to earth guys from the looks of it.

But now hat it's starting to warm up, it's time to get back out into the shed and getting Vicky ready for painting.

With that, I've had to come up with an idea for a collapsible, transportable paint booth. Basically it'll be four 4x4s with metal joist hangers set up so 2x4s can be inserted to make a square frame and then have plastic sheeting stapled or tacked in place on all sides and the top.

This whole contraption will be set up outdoors near the shed and all spraying can be done with plenty of natural light and minimal fear of overspray covering everything.

I think that'll do the job and be easy enough to knock together.

Until then.....