1971 B50T Victor 500 Restoration.

[beat]

I may as well spend a few quid and fit a Carrillo.

....and clean the sludge trap and let us know the mud in there ....

beat

[midgie]

the saying 'dirty washing' and public spring to mind!

[lathejack]

Slowly making some progress, I made up some tooling for splitting the crank.

First a hefty jig for safely holding the crank when removing and replacing the crankpin nuts. It might look a bit over the top, but the crank is in excellent unmarked condition and I want to ensure it stays that way.

I also made a Bolster for pressing out the pin, several pumps on my 20 ton press and bang, it's all over and I have a crank in two parts.

I only had time to do a quick check of the measurements of the big end assembly. It appears to fall outside allowable limits, with big end play of 2-3 thou.
Sludge trap plug removal to follow soon.

[beat]

wonder how you get it together....

beat

[lathejack]

Progress has been crawling along over the past few months, the motor is still in pieces, but I have been doing bits and bobs here and there to the rest of the bike.

I did remove the crank sludge trap plug, the trap had about a 1/4 inch thickness of solid muck in the bottom, so not as bad as some I have seen. It still awaits a thorough wash and rinse with a solvent to remove all remaining traces of filth in there.

The bike was still fitted with original rear shocks, so these were stripped, cleaned up and checked. The damping was still fine, with no corrosion to the damper rod or springs, which is all quite good considering their age.

The pair of shocks on the right are some new ones I bought last year, but I preferred to restore and refit the originals on the left.

Once the swinging arm needle roller bearings and hardened inner sleeves were thoroughly washed they were found to be in perfect condition, not a trace of wear or corrosion at all.
After a final rinse and regrease the refitted swinging arm operates as smooth as silk, without a hint of play.

[lathejack]

The edge of the chain tensioner cam plates tend to sit on top of the quite lumpy frame welds in some positions, instead of flat onto the support plates.
So just where required the welds were dressed down a little to allow the cam plates to sit flat, as they really ought to.
My 71 B25 Victor has much neater welding in this area, and the cam plates, which are actually a little larger than those on the B50, already sit nice and flat.

About 90% of the frame and swinging arm original paint is intact, so at the moment I have just touched it up and blended it in where required.
On one hand I feel like this is just cutting corners, but on the other, if most of it is quite good I do like to preserve as much of the original factory finish as possible, even if it is somewhat scratched, chipped and faded in places. I like this direct link with the past, the BSA works and the history it brings with it, or is that really all just in my head?

The front end of the bike has not been touched yet, once the back wheel is properly fitted the bike will be spun round on the bike lift.
The replacement rear tyre is a Pirrelli MT43.

[minetymenace]

I like a sympathetic restoration, far too many over restored machines out there...

[kommando]

You can get oversize rollers to get rid of the 2 to 3 thou clearance on the earlier B44 big end with 1/4" rollers, I used 1.5 thou oversize rollers to fix a 3 thou clearance. All depends on the condition of the inner and outer rings, B50's with the needle rollers may not be fixable that way.

[lathejack]

I haven't felt too good over the previous two or three months, with no energy or inclination for bike and workshop activities. But I felt better over the last couple of weeks, so ordered a few new bits and bobs for the B50 and did a bit of machining.

I bought a couple of 8 inch conical front wheels from the Autojumble, both needing new rims. One of the drums needed the brake surface skimming to remove rust and pitting, about a 12 thou deep cut was required to clean it up enough for use.
The whole drum was bead blasted before mounting on the lathe.

The drum after machining.

Rusty and pitted before skimming.

The grotty brake plate assembly is yet to be worked on.

I knocked up a simple wheel trueing stand, and despite never having built up a wheel before, after a few hours of assembly and fiddling I had a nice new shiny and true wheel. What made this possible was the build video by Devon Rim Company, which are specific to the wheel being built. Plus I had another front wheel as a reference.

[lathejack]

The bead blasted drum was painted inside and out, etch primer first, silver paint then clear laquer, all from spray cans. After first doing a small test piece, the painted drum was popped into the oven and baked at 100 Deg C for 30-40 minutes. A tough scratch resistent finish was the result, which I didn't really expect with rattle can paint.

The finished wheel complete with new Ensign Universal tyre. I chose 19 inch Stainless rims and spokes from Devon Rims, and these are the Valtru Stainless rims which are not highly polished to a chrome like finish, but cost a lot less yet are still more than good enough for the price.

[JB]

Liking what you've done there with the front wheel, I too went for the Valtru rims and with the stainless spokes you've got a something that not only looks good but it should also stay that way Really good to see the B50T progressing and as Grace Jones once said 'keep it up'

[koncretekid]

Well done, and I hope you continue feeling well enough to keep up the good work! I've been thru a fair amount of health issues in the past, and I always find rebuilding my creations to be extremely therapeutic and encouraging, especially upon finishing any project.

Tom

[ShinyShoes]

Really like the fact that you are almost self-sufficient when it comes to machining and manufacturing your own kit, etc. I think you're making a terrific job of the restoration. If my B50SS comes out anywhere near as good I'll be a very happy bunny!

[lathejack]

Thanks JB, Tom and ShinyShoes for the comments. I was hoping to get the bike finished this year, but that might not be possible after all.

The brake assembly was in a very rough state, but nothing was seized up.

It was improved somewhat after bead blasting, spraying and baking in the oven.
New shoes and springs were added. The springs are Morris Minor items at a quarter of the price of those listed for the BSA brake. The Morris springs are a little shorter, but they still fit and work fine.

I have two of these wheels to rebuild, so couldn't resist fitting this one to my 250 Victor to try it out.

So with the shadow of how bad these brakes can be hanging over me for decades, I finaly try one out for the first time.
After the first several applications of the brake the screeching, slight juddering and grabbing fades away to reveal a fabulous brake with superb stopping power. Ok, it's only stopping a 300 lb bike from moderate speed rather than a 500 lb triple, but I am more than impressed, and with the air scoop it looks good too. So that's one more decaying BSA relic that's been saved and reborn.

This is the dreadful state of the rim the wheel came with, totally rotted through.

[lathejack]

I haven't been able to work on anything since building the front wheel, but I managed to spend half an hour examining the B50 cylinder and piston last night.

The cylinder is on standard bore, but is worn and requires a rebore. The bore has a ridge top and bottom, and is also oval and tapered. No wonder it was low on compression with a lot of leakage past the rings when the engine was turned over.
The piston is also worn.

So a plus 0.020 oversize piston is required. Either an original NOS Hepolite, or a new Gandini or maybe stretch to a JE.
I see PES offer Gandini Pistons and forged Pistons, but I am not sure what make their forged Pistons are.

[lathejack]

I have managed to do a little more work on the B50 this month. The front fork legs had some wear and scoring inside the bore near the top, not helped by the slightly bent and worn original stanchions.
The original stanchions and a pair of new pattern stanchions of the correct diameter were a bit of a loose rattly fit in the legs when in the fully extended position. So I set the legs up in the lathe with the bore running true at both ends, then bored out for a depth of 50mm in order to fit a thin walled bronze bush to remove the slop.

The bronze bush I made is bored out to size after it is fitted and bonded inside the leg. After its bored to size the bush has a wall thickness of just 0.75mm, so not much metal is removed from the leg.

The job completed with the thin walled bush fitted and all slop removed, and no mistakes made along the way thankfully.

The new pattern fork stanchions have an excellent finely ground finish to the correct diameter, and now slide smoothly in the repaired legs without play.

[Radman]

Very nice work on the fork leg bushings.
Have been considering this on some old Husky legs that are slightly egg shaped.
I am now sufficently inspired by your work

Rad

[lathejack]

Very nice work on the fork leg bushings.
Have been considering this on some old Husky legs that are slightly egg shaped.
I am now sufficently inspired by your work

Rad

Thanks Rad.
At first I made a true running fixture for centering and driving the legs at the bottom which engaged with the counter bored hole used for the damper cap screw. But that didn't work because the counter bored hole was not central with the bore of the fork legs, so the four jaw independent chuck had to be used to offset the fixture to get the bore of the legs running true at the bottom....BSA's..don't you just love em! Nothing is straightforward.

[lathejack]

The B50 side stand also requires some attention, or rather it has already had some in the past. A hefty reinforcing bar has been fully welded along its length in an attempt to stop its habit of bending.

So I have made a couple of new side stands. These are machined from solid bar, with a hole bored part way up the centre with a solid section left in the area where they are most prone to bending.
The stands are also around 40-50mm longer than standard to stop the bike leaning over so far. I also made a copy of the foot, the one on the left is the copy, with the old original item on the right.

[midgie]

Nice work Gene, looks super.

[JB]

Keep it up Gene, following this with much interest:

[lathejack]

I've been doing yet more machining on parts for the B50. I had to make two new fork yoke stems, one for my B25ss project and the other to replace the worn and slightly bent original B50 item.
The B50 stem on the right is worn top and bottom where the bearings fit. The original dried up and corroded bearings had jammed up and had been spinning on the stem, new bearings are a sloppy rattly fit. I made the two new stems from EN16 Steel bar and screwcut the threads on the lathe.

Unfortunately most of my biking and workshop activities for this year have been killed off. Last week while at work I crushed and destroyed the end of a finger on my left hand...bloody hell!!

[minetymenace]

Hey lathejack, hope its not too bad (and you aren't left handed!)...Get well soon and take it easy old man.

[beat]

wishes you a get well soon..

[lathejack]

Thanks for the get well wishes, I'm back off to the hospital on Wednesday for a checkup.

I still haven't come across a new original oversize Hepolite piston yet.
So, are these really that bad? I have this new plus 20 oversize JP piston, there are no rimgs, which is probably just as well judging by how bad some say they are.
The JP piston with pin is 10% heavier than the standard size original Hepolite piston with pin, so not ideal, and I am definitely not removing chunks of metal from my pristine B50 crank to rebalance it.
There is some paper underneath that is secured by the Pistons weight, in anticipation of a suggested use for the lump.

[zuff]

Sorry to hear about your accident. Had been really enjoying following your project. Hope you get fixed and back to spannering soon.

[minetymenace]

Lathejack, give EdV (E&V Engineering link above) a shout and ask him what his pistons weigh in at?

[lathejack]

Well a couple of months ago I was perusing my usual Autojumble when I came across a couple of very pleasant chaps selling a few bits & bobs, and one of them was Andy Chaos.
I bought this spare B50 cylinder barrell from them, with a couple of used Hepolite Pistons thrown in. But they also had a used forged B50 piston supplied by Mark Cook, are these JE Pistons specialy made for Mark? Not sure if I have read that somewhere or have just imagined I have.
Anyway, I compared the weight of this forged piston to the standard Hepolite and the difference was significant, the piston from Mark Cook was almost featherlight in comparison.

But would using a much lighter piston also necessitate rebalancing the crank? There is still the option of using a GPM piston, which I think at least look very similar to the original Hepolite, unlike the JP item.