tech17

In a gathering of old friends the talk moved to one friend's BSA
Victor that needed to be restored. The plan for that a year before was
for me to freshen up the engine (fix all the oil leaks and a general
inspection during the complete engine tear down) and my long time
friend to take care of the chassis. Well, a year passed and the engine
was long done and the chassis still sat in the corner in its'
un-restored state. The talk went along how much to do it right and a
number was quickly calculated and presented for the group to
scrutinize. This seemed like "beer talk" at the time so I agreed to
handle the chassis if I could do it "my way, the right way, no corner
cutting". I thought at the time "well that's the last of that, once
the $2000 estimate for parts only settles in". But low and behold, my
friend's brother shows up at my door with the check in hand from his
brother. Clear the decks, one restoration project was about to start.

The bike is a 1967 BSA 441 Victor Enduro that has a Weslake 500 cc
conversion, Cerriani forks, ugly yellow plastic fenders, a "repaired"
gas tank, an after market cast aluminum swinging arm and many desert
off-road miles. The engine I had done the year before showed signs of
heavy usage and a catastrophic crankshaft failure by the previous
owner in 1967, as my friend bought the bike from the original owner in
1968. The rear engine mount had been welded up where it had broken 25
years ago. Engine modifications had been irreversible done to install
the Weslake 500cc kit including boring the case barrel mouth to fit
the Weslake barrel and an engine to primary oil modification.
Unfortunately the desert riding conversion mods were done quickly and
crudely. The bike had sat unused for many, many years and was covered
in baked on oil and dirt.

At this point the bike was deemed by me as probably not a good
starting point for a restoration as BSA Victors are very plentiful and
cheap even in a restored state. This one was a well used dirt bike
that had been seriously abused. But my friend would have none of this
common sense as this was "his" bike and he wanted "his" bike restored.
No other Victor would do. So damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.

The first project was to get as much oil glop off the chassis as
possible. I had recently purchased a power washer for use on our
motorcross race bikes and it did a very good job of blasting away the
grundge after about an hour of playing the wand back and forth. The
"uncovered" core chassis had its' set of problem. The frame was broken
in two places. The oil tank's support bracket had broken and was
"fixed" which resulted in the tank leaking from the fixed area. The
front wheel, from a 1960's Honda Scrambler, had a rusted rim and
spokes, and the aluminum hub was discolored from leaking fork oil. The
rear wheel rim and spokes were also rusted but the hub eventually
cleaned up nicely with Fritz metal polish. The silver paint of the
Cerrianis was about 30% gone and the fork oil was 100% gone. The
handlebars and all the controls where rusted beyond salvage. The gas
tank, it was decided, was to be the center of attraction, highly
polished all over similar to a Gold Star or a B40 Enduro Star. The
starting state of the tank was a home done faded yellow paint job
whose main function was to cover the body filler filled dents. The
seat was another home made item including the base, badly needing
"finishing" touches on the seat base in order to reuse it. The plan
was to shorten it to the length of a B50MX seat, stopping at the point
on the bike near the rear shock mount. Of course, all the lighting had
been stripped off and the box of stock take-off parts lost at least 20
year previous. The plan was a streeterized competition bike using
Dunlop K70's tires, aluminum fenders front and rear, black painted
Cerrianis to emulate the original BSA forks, the front fender low
mounted onto the fork legs, a polished Victor tank, and general
repainting or replacing till the bike looked like new but not "show"
bike quality, just "new" quality.

Everything was stripped from the frame. It was taken to my newly found
expert welder, Mark McDade in Hesperia, where he welded the broken
frame, fixed the leaky oil tank, and cleaned up some home brazing
repairs on the frame. Daytek, in Hesperia got the frame, the bash
plate, the side stand and the engine steady for powder coating. The
returned frame was beautiful. All the welds and warts of the frame
are covered in a plastic like coating that is shinier than the
original English stove painting. Daytek charges for their good work
but it is multi-stepped. They first heat the frame in an oven to burn
off the majority of the paint and grease. Next they bead blast the
frame to make it absolutely clean. They apply the powder coating and
heat it in an oven to make the powder flow like plastic. The results
were absolutely excellent.

The wheels were disassembled, and the hubs cleaned: the front in my
bead blasting cabinet and the rear with metal polish. The hubs
bearings were replaced, five in all, purchased from a local
Victorville bearing house. The English dimensioned bearings were
harder for the bearing house to find but they did find them in doubled
sealed variety, no less. The wheels were laced with Buchanan stainless
spokes and Excel rims, 19 inch WM2 in the front and 18 inch WM3 in the
rear. Interestingly the Excel, a hardened racing rim, was less
expensive than Buchanan's own less strong Sun rim. The original plan
was for Stainless rims but Buchanan only sells alloy rims. We only
trusted him to come up with the unique drilling pattern required for
the Honda front hub, so it was Excels for us. The biggest problem was
tires! We wanted Dunlop K70's for their universal thread pattern for
use off-road as well as on-road but they were seriously back ordered.
I did find the front one at Keith Moore's Cycle Center, but the rear
will have to be the harder rubbered Cheng Shen copy. Even the Cheng
Shen copy K-70 was the last of two remaining in the US at time of
purchase. The rear brake drum was turned to true its' braking surface
and repainted with Krylon Glossy Black.

The forks were disassembled and except for the missing paint were in
excellent shape. Cerrianis are very well made compared to all other
forks I have had apart. Perhaps that is why a used set can set you
back close to $500. The parts were cleaned up and bead blasted as
required. Note to never bead blast bearing surfaces like the tubes
(stanchions) and be careful to mask places that you don't want to
blast or that you don't want to get those tiny little beads into. Use
duct tape as it resist blasting well. This last point is critical
because if you do something like the inside of the engine cases, those
beads caught in cracks and crevasses are sure to come out and ruin the
engine(!). I painted the lower legs and the triple clamps with my
favorite high gloss Krylon Glossy Black paint after an undercoat of a
self etching primer. They were reassembled, filled with the correct
level of 20 wt. suspension oil, and installed onto the frame. The
steering stem bearing set was replaced prior to this but after the
frame was powder coated. Never send a frame to the painter or powder
coater with a good set of bearing races installed in the head or
without some throw away bearing races installed. Painters and powder
coaters always find ways to destroy them. On one bike we had one set
destroyed when they powder coated the bearing surfaces of the race and
we could find no way to remove the bullet proof powder coating. This
current project frame's set had been bead blast to a frosted texture,
which can't be good for the balls rolling on that surface.

The rear shocks were 5 inch travel Curnutts which we elected to retain
as the rear tube of the frame had already been bent up to accommodate
the extra wheel travel and the Curnutts were in keeping with the theme
of the bike, streeterized competition. Their damping was still good so
the bodies were painted with silver followed by a clear coat which
tames down the silvery appearance a lot. The springs were also
repainted (red) and the remaining bits and pieces were lightly bead
blasted to regain that new look.

The aluminum fenders we purchased through Matt Hilgenberg at Speed and
Sport in Long Beach. Matt always seems to have real English
accessories on hand. The rear was fitted so as to have that
competition look with the rear of the fender stopping on a vertical
line that would just touch the rear most part of the rear tire. I
installed a neat little tail light assembly that looks like an 1960's
British one except it is smaller, made of rubber instead of alloy, and
uses a flat piece of rubber for the license plate mount (Keith Moore
of Moore's Cycle Center in Anaheim supplied). The plan was for a low
mount aluminum front fender. I used the stays from a bike on which I
had ultimately used a high mount Acerbis front fender. With a few
manufactured brackets, and the stays and mounts painted Krylon Glossy
Black, it all mounted up without a problem.

Meantime the engine top end had to come off. When I built it last year
it badly needed rings which I could not find. I was given the name of
Deves Ring Company in El Segundo which can manufacture single sets of
rings for almost the same as a production set. I just sent them the
bore size and the piston with the old rings and they went from there.
The Deves rings fit the bore within the 0.008 to 0.014 inch
specification. As you can imagine the Weslake unique paper gaskets are
not available so I made my own. The technique is to place the gasket
material on the part and break the paper over the parts edge using a
ball peen hammer. The resultant edge is sharp and accurate. I use a
hole punch set from Harbor Freight for the holes and the rounded
internal corners and an Exacto knife for the hard to get to cuts.

We had decided to convert the ignition from the stock Energy Transfer
(ET) system to a battery ignition without the battery. This required
changing to a new encapsulated two wire stator, and a Boyer Power Box
rectifier/regulator/battery eliminator module. The entire ET system
was put aside (for sale?). The spark was to be generated by a Boyer
Analog Electronic Ignition module. This gets rid of points, capacitor,
and the mechanical advance mechanism. The ET coil was replaced with
one from PVL. Keith Moore supplied all the electrics. He is very
knowledgeable with all British electrics and is an excellent source of
electrical information. The Boyer Power Box was attached to the
underside of the engine head steady, in the airstream for cooling,
using fabricated brackets. The Boyer Electronic Ignition module was
placed on a frame bracing flat plate under the seat as cooling is not
important for this device, again using a fabricated bracket. The new
coil was placed directly under the carb attached to a frame mounted
engine mounting plate using still another hand made bracket. Of
course, the Boyer Ignition trigger coils and magnets went into the
(former) points cavity on the timing side of the motor. Since the bike
was to be street licensed we used a Lucas headlight off the same donor
bike as the fender stays. The wiring was done point to point,
foregoing the "pleasures" of a bought wiring harness that never fits
and has multiple extra connection. Each item requiring power got its'
own power and ground wire using the positive terminal of the coil as a
common distribution point for (+) and a single stud mounted to a well
cleaned off area of the frame as the single point ground (-). Note
that I wired it negative (American) ground instead of the common
positive (English) ground. The Power Box and the ignition module allow
that. The wire sizes were kept large at 16 and 18 gauge and using
crimp on terminals. Well done crimps do not need soldering; ask the
Military about this. The AC Alternator connections and wiring were
routed away from the rest of the wiring and twisted together to reduce
the chance of false triggering of the ignition. The same approach was
done for the trigger coil wiring.

The seat was also home made and a bit crude. I tore it apart and
cleaned up the seat base, grinding and sanding to remove the crude
metal work. My friend wanted the seat shortened to a point coincident
with the upper shock mount on the frame. The base was shortened as
were the original crude mounts, which were ground and sanded to clean
them up. The base with captive attached mounts went off the Hesperia
motorcycle upholstery guy, Rip and Tear Upholstery for new foam and a
new cover. He has done several seats for me and always does good work
and uses good materials.

The gas tank turned out to be seriously dented under the paint and
body filler so my friend bought a less dented one from Robert Fisher
at British Parts Only in Whittier. My friend was given the task of
"the gas tank" which he took to Mike Joungblood in Fullerton for
de-denting. He charges by the hour and estimated about $50.

I gave my friend a speedometer (in sad shape) which he sent off to
Precision Instrument Repair Service in Georgia. I repaired and painted
the rear wheel speedometer drive unit and greased it liberally. The
pins that held the driven plate in place where replaced with pop
rivets.

The bike was assembled in the following order: frame, forks, wheels,
oil tank, fenders, rear shocks, engine into frame, handlebars and
controls, airbox with hose, electrics (including headlight with hi-lo
beam switch, Boyer Power Box, Boyer Ignition, PVL coil, new automotive
rear brake light switch, kill button, and tail/stop light), oil hoses,
seat, control cables, and gas tank. Brackets were made for speedometer
mounting, front fender mounts, brake light switch, coil mount, Boyer
ignition and Power Box mounts, rear fender support plate and the seat
base was shortened and cleaned up. As much as possible the original
rusty nuts and bolts were replaced with stainless item found at my
commercial hardware store here in Hesperia, Hesperia Hardware. The
original cables were used as a guide to Terrycable (in Hesperia) to
make new nylon lined ones. Terrycables are expensive compared to
Barnet or stock replacement ones, but the feel is so good that I
believe they are worth it.

The exhaust system is to be fabricated by Mark McDade to my friend
specifications: brushed stainless, new headpipe routed under footpegs,
short megaphone with 8 inch muffler section, terminating in a
Supertrap plate allowing disks (up to 18) to be installed with an end
cap for dual sport rides only. For testing purposes I used the
original rusty headpipe which was not easily salvageable anyway.

With the original beat up gas tank and leaky petcock, which required
drill surgery to allow gas to flow through it, and the original rusty
headpipe, the bike started on about the fifth kick and idle smoothly
after an adjustment to the idle speed screw. I, of course, immediately
checked for oil return flow to the oil tank. I ran the bike up and
down the street with no problems. The lights all work including the
adapted automotive brake light switch operated brake light. I am
currently awaiting the exhaust system and the "new" gas tank, but I'm
basically done.

If you get nothing out of this article but an understanding of what is
required to restore a vintage bike then you won. You should also get
the names of businesses that I have found to help you through the
process. But be aware that if you are going for perfect and original
only, you'll spend forever trying to find the correct parts for your
project. A little poetic license on originality makes it all much
easier and tremendously less expensive. In our case we still spent a
lot of money (beyond the estimate by about 30%) because the core bike
was in such bad shape and for the extras my friend wanted. Except for
the engine, the hubs, the oil tank, air box, and the frame all else
had to be new. Believe me it adds up quickly as my accounting sheets
done for my friend show in vivid detail.

As to equipment required to do the restoration, I can only tell you
what tools I have that I find convenient. My lathe made many bits and
pieces. My bead blasting cabinet was heavily worked. My drill press
and my number/letter/fractional drill set drilled many a part. My
bench belt sander was also heavily used to make parts. An air operated
die grinder was used to cut out brackets from sheet stock. Plus, three
sets of wrenches and socket in Whitworth, metric and American sizes
were required. This complete set of tools I find necessary for me.

So now you know what it takes. And it is your turn to do a restoration
project. What do you say?