DPO Repair and Modification - inspired by Pat at Pacomotors.

beachcomber

TJ - Beachcomber
DTT SUPPORTER
"Dreaded Previous Owner" - repairs and modifications [ nightmares ].

I was about to start a thread after reading earlier in the chat room, and then Pat came along and suggested it as well - so I dedicate this one to Pat.

There were loads of little anecdotes along this theme which I had intended to incorporate in the Tales from the Day, but somehow they never seem to have stood up as a whole subject matter.

Maybe I will.

I'll start off with another brake story.............. Back in my early days of Cafe Racers I bought a very cheap 500 AJS twin. It was bought for next to nothing as a runaround when I was "in between bikes". They were actually quite a pleasant little engine, if totally underrated / unloved. In those days as soon as you bought a bike the first thing you did was to wring it's neck to see just what it would do. So I did, and that was very nearly the end of Beachcomber. I bought the bike after seeing it in some blokes driveway. The engine ran well but we couldn't get it out for a trial run. I made sure all the gears were operating - and that was it , the £10 duly changed hands and it was mine. He even agreed to drop it off for me as his brother had a Thames van.

SO, start her up and whizz down the road at maximum velocity .... only to realise I wasn't stopping at anything like maximum retardation. And there was a horrible smell coming from the front drum accompanied by what looked like whiffs of smoke. Brakes were notoriously bad in those days so I didn't think much of it. However, the braking effort seemed to be much worse that usual. With the weekend coming up and a ride out with the lads planned for the Sunday I thought I'd best get some new front shoes for it.

Anyone want to guess ?

On pulling the brake drum off I couldn't believe my eyes. The DPO had replaced the brake linings alright ..... with lengths of shaped bent hardboard !!

At the time brake linings / rivets were readily available from most bike shops and were relatively pennies.
 
That's a good one. I've collected some of the PO things that I've found into one box. Soon, I'll need a bigger box!
 
I lost count of the times I came to do a routine job that required removing cotter / safety pins.

Fence staples were the usual replacement and whilst not being the correct item were generally strong enough. As long as the ends had been bent over acceptable.


What wasn't quite so good was a Super Rocket I had - with a PAPER CLIP used on the rear wheel spindle nut !! To be fair to the DPO - he did use TWO clips.
 
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