Norwich & District
Section of the VMCC
Norwich & District
Section of the VMCC
TONY'S TALE
PART 2
I have had an interest in model engineering for
most of my adult life. Over the years I have built up a comprehensive
home workshop. In 1997 following the privatisation of my employer I took
up the offer of early retirement. My wife had already taken early severance
from her employer some months previous to this. You have to have a bit
of luck sometimes! The change in lifestyle has been much appreciated
by both of us. The number of new friends made has been a totally unexpected
feature of retirement.
For many years I had wanted to restore an old British motorcycle and early
retirement gave me the time to do this. I started looking for a girder
fork single cylinder machine. Condition was not a major concern, providing
it was not crash damaged as this was to be an engineering project. I purchased
an Ariel 350c.c. WNG from the Norfolk Motorcycle Museum on 19th September
1998 in a somewhat neglected state.
The collection of this machine coincided with a bike
run from the museum. I recall one chap saying “I trust you’ll
have that done by teatime!” Research has revealed that this machine
was delivered new to RAF Tewkesbury on 16th September 1942 but did not
see service overseas. I decided from the outset that I would give this
bike the appearance of a late 30’s machine rather than WD khaki.
The bike was cleaned down and stripped with the exception of the engine and
gearbox. The resulting pile of rusted parts was quite depressing and when
I came to strip the engine I became convinced that I must be totally mad
to take this on. The piston was seized solid at bottom dead centre and after
removing the cylinder base nuts no movement of the crank was possible. After
several weeks I managed to get the engine apart but the damage to the cylinder
barrel was beyond repair, two of the crankcase studs had to be machined out
before the crankcases could be split. The main bearings were rusted solid
but came out easily when heat was applied. The gearbox, or at least what
I had of it, was in reasonable condition.
I had now reached a stage where I knew what was missing and what needed replacing
and what could be repaired. The frame parts were grit blasted and the slow
job of rebuilding began. Parts were sourced from autojumbles where possible
and through contacts with the Ariel Owners’ Club. Paintwork I did myself
and over 400 parts were made in my own workshop.
My diary entry for 29th July 2000 reads ‘Finished petrol tap, made
up a petrol pipe and connected to a tin can, gave bike one kick and it started,
oil circulating OK but charging circuit not working. Bike exhaust quite noisy,
cat disappeared for over an hour!’
One particular part that I couldn’t locate was the 14 tooth gear for
the front wheel speedo drive. This left me with no alternative but to make
one. The toolmaking to make a single point gear cutter of the appropriate
involute shape took quite some time but the resulting gear was excellent.
The photograph shows the finished gear on the mill with the cutter withdrawn.
For those who like useless information, this gear has made in excess of 31
million revolutions at the time these notes were written.
When I acquired this bike I had no plans to ride it, but as the restoration progressed I knew that after all that work I had to ride it. Over thirty years had gone by since I had ridden. It was with some trepidation that I first rode it, but, of course, I thoroughly enjoyed it and have now covered over 13,000 miles on this machine.
