classic motorcycle forum

I'm going with "cheap and cheerful". Actually these things only look really cheap 60 years later when the fork spindles have rusted solid in place, and the nose of the saddle and the handlebar levers have 1/4" free play.

So come on R, time to give your little Waratah a wipe over with an oily rag and a light reconditioning. If the original finish shows unambiguously that it was a Waratah from birth I think it's worth leaving it rather than repaint, so just the mechanicals? But not before you dig down to the Healing frame in the shed and get that frame number for me!

Leon

Their whole world seemed to revolve around their race to the bottom of cheap and nasty. Price seemed to be the sole criteria for the majority.

"Race to the bottom" is 2020's concept. Theirs was more likely to be "a penny saved is a penny earned" which given the financial hardship of the time, made perfect sense. Profit margins were low to non-existent on bikes made purely for commuting, so every little cheese-paring helped with the bottom line.
You want grease nipples? Buy a Brough, McAvoy, Coventry-Eagle etc etc.

Fingers crossed that the buyer has the combination of expertise, parts and information to restore the bike. The comment about the frame number is a good one, as the old bike movement seems to have drifted into an era of "dating by blatant assertion". Even "identification by blatant assertion" is applicable for Waratahs given the Excelsior origins! At least this one comes with the provenance of an original (or at least very old) tank transfer, and enough remaining original parts with numbers to make an decent guess at the date.

Anyway, here's a "1939 Waratah" from Old Bike Australia a few years back. Or it might be a 1945 Waratah, or maybe a 1941 Excelsior, or....

Cheers

Leon

Today's session the JAPton fettling is brought to you by the letter P and the number 2!

I'd been pondering the oddity of the tell-tale and realised I'd fitted the selector lever the wrong way around, as evidenced by the orientation of the nut and bolt holding the rearset push rod to the lever.  So I flipped it over and refitted it and the tell-tale does up nice and tight without interfering with the selector lever movement.


Then I rtv-d the the rocker cover again.


I then took a breather and started eyeing that Pilgrim Pump.... and eventually decided that it need a fettle

First remove the oil feed and let it drain.


Then the head feed.


The initial thought was to just loosen off the 2 bolts that hold both pumps in place.


A sharp blade was used to try to gently lever off the pump


I came away easily enough.



"Spare" pump on left and current pump on right.
There WAS a gasket between the 2 pumps after all.


There's also an o-ring around the main feed exit point
As you can see - there was still a lot of oil all over the place.


The gasket was not in good shape


I hadn't actually planned it, but the other pump came loose and revealed something that , tbh, I had been worrying about.
This hole, which is the main feed into the crank, had a web of 3-bond over it.  The web WAS perforated, so the crank WAS getting oil, but it wasn't ideal in any way.  So, bit of luck really that I decided to look at it, and that the secondary pump decided to come loose...


I've no idea what was used as the gasket between the pumps... but it sure had a lot of ink on it!!!


The o-ring on the main feed exit was knackered


I found a suitable replacement which wasn't totally sunk into the recess.


I made up more gaskets...


One of the tricks I find works well for cutting the inner web out of a gasket is to cut small amounts, in a straight line, and to rotate the paper under the knife - it makes for a neater curve than trying to cut a curve with a straight blade.


I cut the gasket wider than o-ring to allow the o-ring to mate to the body of the secondary pump, hopefully  that will help it seal.



The replacement gasket for the secondary pump


The best tool I've found for scraping gasket off is this: an old bit of hacksaw blade, a few layers of tape over the cutting edge and it's strong enough to scrape, but flexible enough to (mostly! ) not scratch.


With the surfaces cleaned off, I dug out another tool: This pin should keep the oil feed passage clear while the 3Bond goes off.


The timing chain seems fine. Has to be said that this mating face wasn't sealed... but didn't seem to be weeping, although there was a lot of oil on the mating surface of the timing chain cover.  Not sure if I'll try to seal it or not.


I didn't use a lot of spooge.


Spread it as thinkly as I thought I could get away with, and mated the whole lot together


Left the assembly to go off before trying to refit it.



This is an embuggerance.


It's the nut that holds the head-feed banjo on, and (I'm guessing here) it's a BSP thread, which means I need to source another one, I couldn't find anything in my odds and sods (yet... there's a few more boxes to try....)

Always something to be done!

I wasn't sure what I was going to work on today, and was just mooching so didn't take a lot of photos at first.

I had a quick go at tightening the head bolts, on the basis that a heat cycle or few may have loosened off the head gasket slightly, and while I did get a little bit of movement on the ones I can reach...


This one is a no go...


I then took a decision about something that's been bugging me for a while.
The weird double clamp that Dad had fitted to the exhaust downpipe.
You can see it clearly at the top of this photo.


I've always hated it, it's messy, cheap and traps the oil that drips off the engine.

So I ripped it off


Cleaned up the pipe again, although there's a patch of damaged surface which was under the clamp.


Then I re-used the clamp around the frame as a secondary hanger, using the thread on the clamp holding the end-pipe on.


It certainly "looks" cleaner... but we'll see if it makes any difference.

While the gearbox shell is off, you can see the bend in the lower-rails from where they where spread to get the engine lower.





I then said "$%^&& it" to myself and decided to refit the gearbox shell, including the weeping kickstart shaft and I'll sort it all out properly later, right now I want to ride the bike for a few more weeks where possible.

Started out by 3bonding the shell, I figure it sealed ok without a gasket before, so this should work fine.



Again - we'll see - if it leaks, I'll fit a gasket.

Fitted the clutch cable to the lever in the box.


I also spent a while spinning the nut up and down the cable adjuster because the threads on the ferrule were a bit knackered.



Which mean I could start putting the clutch back together




Fitted the pressure plate


And did my best to get the clutch action smooth and the "lift" balanced, and get the amount of play required (to allow for thermal expansion) right... may need some adjustments ! 

Then I went back round the other side to have a go at the gearbox levers
The friggin kickstart was a pain, as per..


Fitted the tell-tale



Primary chain



Realise that the kickstart bolt was proud... pulled it out and it's mullered itself



So I had to faff around finding a replacement, and eventually came across this, which will do nicely


It's a bit long, but it does the job and went in clean.



I then obviously span the engine a few times... and then put a plug in... and realised that as it goes over compression... there's a hissing noise.

It's obviously the pressure in the combustion volume leaking away "somewhere".... which is helpful...

I'll see if it'll run, next time, but I'm definitely thinking that the head will have to come off again for a valve-grind again, and probably a new head gasket?  I am thinking that the barrel may even need a slight bit of machining to ensure that the head-gasket is being properly compressed.

<sigh>