classic motorcycle forum

Peter,

Of interest might be the valve and ignition timing information at the bottom of the 1929 catalogue entry:

Inlet opens 0.5 degrees before top dead centre, closes 13mm after BDC
Exhaust opens 17.2mm before BDC, closes 3.3 degrees after TDC
Ignition: 0mm fully retarded, 8mm BTDC fully advanced

Cheers

Leon

Hi Peter,

My French is OK, and I'm happy to help with translation if you have specific questions from the info you have.

There are also online translators that will translate entire web pages, but they sometimes get a bit flakey when technical stuff is involved. In the pre-internet days I remember reading a motorcycle book/article in French that described the springs as "ressorts à boudin". With no knowledge of the word boudin I went to the dictionary and came up with "sausage". Sausage springs? At least from that day I still remember the term for "coil springs"!!

Cheers

Leon

Motivated by all the new info, I cleaned up one of the later? taps, which has both "C.M.C." and Enots brands, plus the patent number above. What a lovely object, and much more interesting than the usually-seen repros. Also it has the correct number of hexagons!

The tin I'm delving into had quite a few taps, and I can make a few observations. Almost all of the taps were nickel plated, with only one chrome plated, and a couple in plain brass. The brass ones are old (1950s) no-name brand, so probably just cheap parts originally. Some taps are unbranded, some have the CMC brand, some the brand and the patent number, and some like the one in the photos with Enots, CMC and the patent number.

As 33d6 commented earlier, the name "concentric" was used to describe these taps, and in the 1924 Show number (for the 1925 season) Best and Lloyd exhibited concentric taps, with round ends. It looks like all the concentric taps were licensed under the patent GB194036 at they are all much the same, with variations only in the detail of the pushers.

Anyway, thanks everyone as it's nice to learn something about which I had no ideas at all two days ago.

Cheers

Leon

Have a look at the top thread on this page of the Ariel Owners Club forum: http://forum.arielownersmcc.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=4

If no joy, you can join the forum for free, even if you are not a member of the club.

Good luck.

Leon

I've been sorting out my petrol taps. Most of my old bikes use lever taps, so I don't know much about the sliding type with cork seals. In what era were the HexagON type (i.e. push the hexagonal end to turn fuel on) introduced? Very clever idea. Some are labelled CMC and others are both CMC and Enots. Who were CMC?

Thanks

Leon

I'm not an expert on either Brough Superior or Harley Davidson, but there are plenty of them around. Yes indeed Harley used a fork with a triple crown from veteran years into the late 1920s, so I agree the fork is probably not Harley. In that case it likely came from the Brough works, because no other bike of the period used a fork like this. The French built a lot of Harley replacement (knock-off!) parts in the mid 1920s, but I doubt anyone at Brough would fit a no-name fork to a 1930-mph racer. I assume the fork was custom-made at Brough for record breaking.

Speaking of knock-offs, the bike in your colour photos at the top of this thread has a different frame, engine, gearbox, magneto, etc. to the bike on which GB is sitting in the b&w photo. Does someone claim it is the same bike that has survived?

Cheers

Leon

Wow, that's quite a machine. Thanks Chris.

My Australian-made Victor Blackburne is a couple of years earlier, and has a more conservative frame, but is otherwise similar. I had a friend with vintage Moto Guzzi who claimed his flywheel was bigger than mine - when I pulled mine out he conceded defeat immediately. The crank assembly inside the crankcase is quite light - just the crank and counterweights - so the outside flywheel did it all.

I like the Griggs with the V-twin motors, but before this thread I had never seen one.

Cheers

Leon