3 year Velocette rebuild

[GoFarKid]

This has been a long time coming, but I am going to try and post the story of my rebuilding of an Old friend...
When I was about 16 I bought a 1950s Velo, that my sisters boyfriends father owned. The bike was originally from a motorcycle repair shop that he had, and the velo had been sitting a barn for perhaps 15 years at that point. I cobbled it up, got it on the road, and used it as my every day transport for about 5 years...went to school, to work, all over the UK, and even to the Bol D'or in 1984. Then I got a job, got married, had kids, and 35 years later decided it would be time to take him out of the cardboard boxes, and get him back on the road. Here is the story. I will post a bit at a time.

First off, this is me, with him, and a few mates, a long time ago...in Suffolk, and in France

 

[GoFarKid]

So, then I took him out of the boxes, and had a look at what I had got, and it was a bit of a rusted, incomplete heap. First off, I sent a few of the big bits of the frame and swinging arm and oil tank off for powder coating

 

[GoFarKid]

Next off, have a look at the end-float on the crank, split the cases, and put a few helicoils in where the PO (or perhaps me as a teenager?) had stripped the threads. I got a bit of help from my son (ish)

 

[GoFarKid]

Moving on, I took the head down, took the vales out, and let it soak in a bucket of paraffin,

 

[Jimbonaut]

Welcome to the site mate, this is gonna be fun to follow. Great that you kept this bike through the years, must be cool wrenching on it with your son (ish)

 

[GoFarKid]

Next up, the Carb was a mess, so stripped it down, put some helicoils in the stripped threads, cleaned all its important little places, shined it up, and stuck it back together.

 

[GoFarKid]

The Valves were shot - the inlet was bent from some "enthusiastic" teenage riding, but you can still get the Heopolite replacements, so in they went, and got ground down to a nice mating finish. I cleaned the old carbon off the head, but didnt go nuts polishing it all - nobody is going to see it!

 

[GoFarKid]

Then, after cleaning up the crankcases a bit, and checking out the crankshaft / big end. I decided to put it back "As is". there was about 3 thou of play in the big end, and on reflection I should have replaced it now, but i didn't - More to come on this later in the story! With the Velo, you need to heat the crankcase up to about 150 C before taking out, or putting back the Oil Pump, so the barbecue was perfect for that, on a nice frosty day! It helps to freeze the pump too when you are putting it back in

 

[GoFarKid]

I didn't look too closely at the Piston and Rings - which was a mistake, but they looked OK, so I popped them back, and didn't do anything to the barrel either. All of this comes back to bite me in the ass later...

 

[GoFarKid]

Anneal a new Copper head gaskit, pop the head on, and torque it all up, and I have (sort of) got an engine back together.

 

[GoFarKid]

With it in a single lump, I measured the volume of the combustion chamber, and calculate an 8.5:1 Compression ratio...which was close to where I wanted to be

 

[Maritime]

Nice work so far. Signing up for more.

 

[GoFarKid]

So the Magneto was in a very sorry state. In 1984 it had given me a lot of issues, but i didnt realize at the time how shot it was inside. The Pickup brush had snapped off, the pickup ring was heavily pitted, the bearings and roses were buggered, and the capacitor was shot...All in all, it should never have kept going, but the little guy had plugged along faithfully. So, New Ring, Pickup and Capacitor from BrightSpark. A couple of helicoil inserts, and I turned up a brand new end-cap.

 

[GoFarKid]

More Maggie pics

 

[GoFarKid]

With a frame back from the Powder shop, I had to install new bushes in the swinging arm. Once you have pressed them in, you need to use an adjustable reamer to open them out so the new trunion is a snug fit.

 

[GoFarKid]

The gearbox was in pretty good condition, so just a case of cleaning it out, and reassembling

 

[GoFarKid]

Then the Engine and Gearbox started to come back together, A few threads needed sorting out, and it was time to sparkle things up a bit...

 

[GoFarKid]

The Clutch is always a paiin to assemble on these bikes...but I used to do it so often that I could still do it in my sleep!

 

[GoFarKid]

The fork sliders got a quick coat of paint. i bought some new stanchions.

 

[GoFarKid]

Next up was a rebuild of the Speedo and Tach. I had never taken one of these apart before. Not to complicated, but working with small bits. i had to make up a TINY bronze bearing, and roll a new bezel on. All good fun