classic motorcycle forum

Thanks 33d6. I suspect that unless you had one of these bikes you'd know nothing about it! Even if the bike was at a rally, I doubt anyone would notice the double rails under the tank. I'm certain the bike is Excelsior, so time to scrape off the glossy powdercoat on the top left of the head lug to look for an Excelsior-style frame number. It will be there.

There is a reason Excelsior had so many frame variations. In the later teens they were bought out by their long-term lug suppliers R. Walker and Son. As well as making and selling bikes, the company carried on making frame lugs and parts for other makers. These parts were often somewhat different from those used in Excelsiors, but are recognisable none-the-less. In the 269 Villiers era, there are a number of Australian bikes (Elliott, for example) that are almost indistinguishable from the 1919 Excelsior Villiers, even though the Excelsior design went off in other directions - wedge tank - at the same time.

It turns out that the gearbox lug used by big Excelsiors from 1921 is one of the more popular gearbox lugs for Australian bikes using the Sturmey Archer CS, and in Adelaide lots of bikes used so many RW&S parts that their parentage in Excelsior is quite obvious. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the parts we associate with AG Healing & Co in Melbourne in fact came - at least originally - from RW&S. I have a few adverts for R Walker & Son frame sets, but I'd dearly love some commercial catalogues!

Jealous about time spent in the State Library - fond memories of the reading room, and librarians bringing crusty volumes from the stacks... amazing place.

Leon

I have a new thought that fits in well with this old thread...

During the week a friend showed me photos of an "unidentified" frame, which the owner sort-of-thought was Excelsior but maybe not. It certainly looks Excelsior, style-wise, but the unusual feature is a "double tube" arrangement to support the tank. I went to my magazines but couldn't find a mention of this feature, which is presumably around 1923-24 since the final drive is by belt. For 1924 there were a couple of barely-mentioned models that are contenders: a 247 Villiers and a 250 (not the long-standing rather boring 293) JAP. My guess is that it is one of these. (Apparently Blackburne engines that came with the bike were clearly too large...)

I found one photo of a surviving Excelsior with a 247 Villiers https://www.carandclassic.com/car/C1468206 and I fancy I can almost see the front end of the "double tube" arrangement under the tank. Tank, fork etc look identical.

Can we verify that the "double tube" is an Excelsior feature? The frame is Excelsior 247 Villiers 1924? A couple of years later the Excelsior Minor (see above) used much the same layout, but with the 147 Villiers and a funny front fork  [edit: but without the double tubes].

Cheers

Leon

You could try Classic Fasteners in Adelaide: https://www.classicfasteners.com.au/

Do you need anything special, or just plain nuts?

Leon

I like the head - viewed from above, the angle of the inlet and exhaust ports look to give a nice swirl.

The "sideways" nature of things does seem weird, particularly for a vertical single cylinder. But there was precedent in the sporting ohv Douglas twins, beginning with the Sports model in 1920, running through the Dirt Track and into the 1930s. Like the Matchless, all very sideways! Even earlier was the racing Matchless ohv V twins in the 1914 (?) TT, which used an unusual MAG (Motosacoche) twin with sideways heads. I wonder if the Matchless designers had one of these engines in mind when they began work on the LR in the early 1920s.

The missing bits - particularly all the top end of the valve gear - is certainly a problem, but it's the sort of thing that lurks in sheds as a curiosity, interesting but useless!

Leon

Brilliant. Enjoy.

Leon

I love a good map! Hope to see an illustration or photo of the Albion Works soon.

In the past week I've been looking at the relationship between Precision (Moorsom St), Sun Cycle & Fittings Co. Ltd (Aston Brook St) and A.H. Haden (Princep St) in relation to frame lugs. Interestingly these three are clustered just to the northern side of Birmingham, while Albion (Upper Highgate St) is a couple of miles away on the south side. It was a hot bed of manufacturing in the early days.

Leon

Yes the lubricator is a ripper, but I could imagine having a ritual where the oiler was filled before each ride and allowed to slowly drip in just to keep things topped up. Looking at period illustrations and survivors is seemed to last only for a couple of years after WW1.

Re the longevity of the boxes themselves, I call the model illustrated above "Gen 3": the first of the vertical boxes. It ran from early postwar (say 1919 but effectively 1920) to the end of 19221, and it mostly used the same remote lever in a tank-side gate as the horizontal "Gen 2" (mid 1915 to 1919). For 1922 there was an entirely new arrangement, with the gear change mechanism coming out of the front of the gb case rather than the end cover, with new change levers to suit.

Of course in Australia we often ran a bit behind the times. For example the 1922 models from Elliott Payneham here in Adelaide used the last of the 269 Villiers engines (Mk V) and the ageing horizontal "Gen 2" Albion gearbox. The gearbox was shown in their not-very-clear line drawing, listed in their parts list, and has survived on a couple of very original 1922 survivors. The saddle tank was pretty modern for 1922 though.

Leon

Any questions?
 

Brilliant! I have questions!

Do you have a spreadsheet? I love a good spreadsheet.

So take 1931 for example. Here's p1 and p2/3 of the spare parts list for 1931-on Midget gearboxes. They call the non-ks model "B.J.", and the model with ks "C.J.". The part numbers are like BJ1/BJ2 and CJ1/CJ2 for the cases.

Was the first number for 1931 BJ001, or BA001? I assume BJ001?

In which case, were there 9000 "B model" gearboxes built before 1931 - numbered BA001 to BI001? (From my BTH magneto spreadsheet I found that BTH skipped the letter "I" in their dating codes, to avoid confusion with the number "1". Maybe Albion skipped I, too.)

Cheers

Leon