| I decided to purchase a restoration Project after I had finished building a Harley Shovelhead from scratch. To put it simply, I was getting bored and needed something to keep me out of the pub! The Velocette was purchased on the 22nd August 2000 from a bike shop called Classic Style Australia. I had found a picture of it on their web site and upon a few enquiries decided to buy it. The machine was in fairly poor condition,and missing a few parts but all the major stuff seemed to be there. The engine was seized and the starter lever was flopping around loose but everything else like the brakes and gearshift seemed to be free and working. I was lucky to hear about a guy in Mount Isa who had "a few" parts available. A deal was struck and the parts shipped by rail. I was impressed when going to pick it up to find two huge crates full of bits and pieces of what used to be about 3 bikes. Some of it was rubbish, but most of it seemed usable and also included some of the parts that were missing from mine. I also managed to get some reproduction service manuals and parts lists from "Bruce Main- Smith" These were a huge help. Another great help during the restoration were the LE Velo Club U.K. (see "my favorite links" on the home page) By joining up with the club, I was able to aquire a lot of parts that I still needed and historical information relating to paint colours etc. THE WORK BEGINS The first thing I wanted to do was to strip the motor and find out just how bad it was.The bike was fairly easily stripped down into large "chunks" and the motor pulled out. After a de-grease, the motor was stripped, again trying to keep it in as big chunks as possible. The first thing discovered was the starter lever problem. With the motor seized someone had obviously tried (very enthusiastically) to use the starter, which. |
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| INTRODUCTION |
| ABOVE: Front view |
| BELOW: Where it's all going to happen! You can also see some of the parts I bought and the Harley in the background (as well as some outstanding oil stains that have to be hidden when the landlord comes visiting!!) |
| resulted in the engaging end of the starter lever shaft shearing off. No problems - I'll rat through the spares and see what I've got. Managed to use components from three different starter shafts to make one good one. Too easy!! I pulled the left hand head off to find the major problem. Yep the old piston seized in the barrel trick.I rang up a mate who used to work on Velocette motors and he said "no worries just smash it out" That sounded a bit drastic, and at that stage I didn't know whether it was posible to just go out and buy a new piston for it. By using a spare cylinder cover, increasingly larger spacers, and plenty of penatrating oil the job was done. By placing spacers between the piston crown and the cylinder cover and tightening it down (gradually!) it finally came loose. There was also a tight exhaust valve in the left hand head. It came out fairly easily using penetrating oil and gentle persuasion with a hammer!! Looking through the spares again, I gathered the best barrel, piston and valves that I had. After reseating the valves and a quick hone (all done to the right hand side as well) I bolted the motor back togethor using homemade gaskets where necessary. I should point out that the bottom end felt ok and I didn't pull it down, mainly because I wanted to see if the motor would run at this stage, and also because I didn't feel too confident of putting the flywheels etc back togethor properly!! I flushed out the carby and then cleaned the points and plugs.Setting up the motor on the bench with a primitive water and petrol feed,I commenced pulling on the starter lever several thousand times. It finally roared into life ( well ok - it sort of spluttered a bit) and then settled down to an erratic idle. I couldn't believe it!!! I then decided to roughly bolt the bike togethor and take it for a ride to make sure that the gears,clutch etc all worked ok. I fitted a new tyre to the front rim and managed to get the back tire holding air for at least five minutes and then off I went. I putted up and down the street a few times much to the amusement of the neighbours. Everything seemed to work,but I found it fairly awkward using the right hand operated gear shift. The bike was very quiet, despite the loose fitting exhaust, and was surprisingly quite powerful considering it is only 149cc. Yep, no doubt about it - I was going to do some serious damage to the skin on a custard!! |
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