1
British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 28, 2026, 10:39:31 AM »
Penrite Transoil 250. It's oil, it's really thick, and it comes with a tube in the cap to squeeze it into the box.
Leon
Leon
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2
British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 25, 2026, 12:34:58 PM »
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
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
3
British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 24, 2026, 10:33:33 AM »... it mostly used the same remote lever in a tank-side gate as the horizontal "Gen 2" (mid 1915 to 1919).
It didn't, actually: the Gen 3 has a Gen 3 lever. But no matter...
Up until 1923 all Albion gearboxes were "lightweight", to suit motors like the 269 Villiers and the 293 JAP. For 1923 Albion introduced the "featherweight" box, a 2-speeder for engines with "Max 2 h.p." - 200cc. It looked just like BF436 (the subject of this thread), but had a remote lever, so no lug on the box for the lever. I think that came about 1925, but you could get plain, clutch, and clutch+ks versions from the beginning.
So there were Albion boxes that looked just like BF436 from about 1925.
Leon
4
British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 22, 2026, 07:52:30 AM »
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
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
5
British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 21, 2026, 01:43:39 AM »
Thanks for all the info, 33d6. Fascinating. (Yeah, it's probably sad to be fascinated by Albion gearbox numbers.) I went back to the VMCC Register and I see less chaos now I get the B, BA, BAA thing. Boy they must have made a lot of gearboxes. Have you ever seen a guess at the total number?
Mixed in with the "usual" numbers there are prefixes like MON, but if you allow the possibility that (say) Monet Goyon might have been amongst the thousands of customers who used Albion gear boxes... it makes me worry less. I certainly don't intend to pursue the serial numbers further.
From my perspective, I'm specially interested in the veteran and early vintage end of things. I think I have the nailed the early progression, from the early "flat" boxes (with the main and lay shafts in the same plane) through to the first of the "vertical" boxes (with the shafts above one another), which seem to have started post WW1, and their various change lever configurations. I suspect the switch was pragmatic: the vertical boxes were shorter, and could be squeezed into frames designed as direct belt drive. At the Bendigo swap meet last year I saw a 2-speed Albion box that was labelled "Levis". I pointed out to the seller that the word Levis was not cast into the gearbox itself, but into an adaptor that sat atop the box to allow it to bolt straight into the single-speed Levis frame. Of course I had to get to the bottom of that puzzle when I got home - see below.
Cheers
Leon
Mixed in with the "usual" numbers there are prefixes like MON, but if you allow the possibility that (say) Monet Goyon might have been amongst the thousands of customers who used Albion gear boxes... it makes me worry less. I certainly don't intend to pursue the serial numbers further.
From my perspective, I'm specially interested in the veteran and early vintage end of things. I think I have the nailed the early progression, from the early "flat" boxes (with the main and lay shafts in the same plane) through to the first of the "vertical" boxes (with the shafts above one another), which seem to have started post WW1, and their various change lever configurations. I suspect the switch was pragmatic: the vertical boxes were shorter, and could be squeezed into frames designed as direct belt drive. At the Bendigo swap meet last year I saw a 2-speed Albion box that was labelled "Levis". I pointed out to the seller that the word Levis was not cast into the gearbox itself, but into an adaptor that sat atop the box to allow it to bolt straight into the single-speed Levis frame. Of course I had to get to the bottom of that puzzle when I got home - see below.
Cheers
Leon
6
British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 19, 2026, 05:27:08 AM »Brilliant! I have questions!
Any 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
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British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 18, 2026, 11:49:08 PM »Deciphering the Albion gearbox numbering system is another thing altogether and isn't very helpful as you still have to deal with the slightly different versions of the same box which the numbering system doesn't seem to recognise.
OMG - I had a look at Albion gb numbers in the VMCC Register and quickly gave up. I could see no real pattern in the numbering, but I guess somewhere out there is/was someone who spent the time to figure it all out! Given Albion's involvement with bikes, mowers, and all manner of mechanical devices, I guess they made tens (hundreds?) of thousands of gearboxes in hundreds of different designs. But it certainly seems that the particular box we're discussing is indeed motorcycle, from the early 1930s.
Leon
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British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 18, 2026, 11:37:27 PM »Gosh that gearbox is tiny !
Not just tiny... officially "midget"!!
I'd not realised the Excelsior version used foot change, something usually seen only on Isle of Man racers at the time! When hand change was used, there was a simple lever pivoting between the main shaft and the clutch cable boss - no external gate as used during the 1920s. Cheap and cheerful.
Edit: Here's a less shiny one https://www.andybuysbikes.com/archivehtml/6625exc.html# - foot change below
Leon
9
British Bikes / Re: Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?
« on: May 11, 2026, 08:05:32 AM »
There were many variants of Albion boxes! This is the 2-speed + clutch variant. In the 1931 catalogue for "Albion Midget Gear Boxes" this model (identical?) was referred to as the BJ. I know nothing, but maybe BF was an earlier model, say 1927?? In 1931 the EJ gave 3 speeds + clutch + ks.
Anyway, no reason it couldn't go into a bike from the 1920s, although Australian made stuff (for example, I'm thinking Waratah) tended to offer 2-speed no-clutch for a base model, or fancy 3-speed + clutch + ks. Although by 1927 maybe even the basic 2-speeder needed a clutch.
Also, chain final drive was taking over from belt around 1927.
Leon
Anyway, no reason it couldn't go into a bike from the 1920s, although Australian made stuff (for example, I'm thinking Waratah) tended to offer 2-speed no-clutch for a base model, or fancy 3-speed + clutch + ks. Although by 1927 maybe even the basic 2-speeder needed a clutch.
Also, chain final drive was taking over from belt around 1927.
Leon
10
British Bikes / Re: Tiger cub valve timing.
« on: April 22, 2026, 11:51:57 PM »
Yes Rex you're absolutely right, but reducing the inlet charge by 3% is more-or-less like reducing the CR by 3% - there's less gas in there to squish. Of course when everything is spinning at 6000 rpm all the static calculations are out the window anyway!
Leon
Leon
11
British Bikes / Re: Tiger cub valve timing.
« on: April 22, 2026, 06:51:44 AM »
I've calculated the change in compression ratio, guessing that a Cub con rod is about 4 1/2" long.
Delaying the close of the inlet valve from 55 degrees after BDC to 60 degrees after BDC changes the (static) compression ratio by about 3% - if it was 9:1, it would drop to around 8.7:1. Not sure how that feels in real life.
Leon
Delaying the close of the inlet valve from 55 degrees after BDC to 60 degrees after BDC changes the (static) compression ratio by about 3% - if it was 9:1, it would drop to around 8.7:1. Not sure how that feels in real life.
Leon
12
British Bikes / Re: Tiger cub valve timing.
« on: April 22, 2026, 03:00:01 AM »
Hi Keith,
You could certainly give it a go.
The inlet valve closes when it does because someone at the factory has determined that this is the point, when running "normally", that gets the most mixture into the cylinder. For a sporty little engine like the Cub the inlet closes quite late, because running at higher revs there's a lot of intertia of the gas flowing from the inlet port into the engine. So the cylinder keeps filling even though the piston is moving UP the cylinder on the compression stroke.
Cub timing figures attached, from www.triumphrat.net/attachments/cub-useful-data-page-with-timin-specs-1966-jpg.755483/
At starting, the engine is spinning very slowly. Let's imagine that we turn it really slowly, say by hand. Letting the inlet valve close later will mean that the piston is slightly higher up the bore before the inlet valve closes - the extra volume of gas (equal to the distance up the stroke times the area of the piston) has been pushed backwards out the inlet valve, so the amount of gas to be compressed is less. We could calculate it, but I really doubt it could make too much difference to the compression on the first rotation of the engine. Once spinning, the gas flow is a very dynamic thing and depends on all sorts of stuff I'm not qualified to talk about!
What it will almost certainly do is cause blow-back through the carb when the engine is running.
But give it a go and let us know how you get on. Good luck!
Leon
You could certainly give it a go.
The inlet valve closes when it does because someone at the factory has determined that this is the point, when running "normally", that gets the most mixture into the cylinder. For a sporty little engine like the Cub the inlet closes quite late, because running at higher revs there's a lot of intertia of the gas flowing from the inlet port into the engine. So the cylinder keeps filling even though the piston is moving UP the cylinder on the compression stroke.
Cub timing figures attached, from www.triumphrat.net/attachments/cub-useful-data-page-with-timin-specs-1966-jpg.755483/
At starting, the engine is spinning very slowly. Let's imagine that we turn it really slowly, say by hand. Letting the inlet valve close later will mean that the piston is slightly higher up the bore before the inlet valve closes - the extra volume of gas (equal to the distance up the stroke times the area of the piston) has been pushed backwards out the inlet valve, so the amount of gas to be compressed is less. We could calculate it, but I really doubt it could make too much difference to the compression on the first rotation of the engine. Once spinning, the gas flow is a very dynamic thing and depends on all sorts of stuff I'm not qualified to talk about!
What it will almost certainly do is cause blow-back through the carb when the engine is running.
But give it a go and let us know how you get on. Good luck!
Leon
13
British Bikes / Re: Tiger cub valve timing.
« on: April 21, 2026, 12:17:29 AM »
Yes getting older presents a few challenges. I'm lucky that (heading into my eighth decade in a couple of years - wow) I can still start and ride and maneuver bikes around, and get a lot of my enjoyment from researching and fiddling in the shed. I have to admit that I do lots more riding on my ebike than I do on old bikes these days, and I do the riding off road to minimise the chances of being cleaned up by increasingly dangerous traffic.
I was going to suggest starter rollers as a solution to your starting problem, but getting the bike on and off the rollers has so many opportunities for disaster that it might be best avoided.
With new knees, have you considered an ebike? If you have low-traffic places to ride near home it's great fun, and - if what I've read is correct - good for knees and general health. Mobility is such an important part of our lives.
Must be frustrating, though, looking at the that little Fanny B... dream machine!
Leon
I was going to suggest starter rollers as a solution to your starting problem, but getting the bike on and off the rollers has so many opportunities for disaster that it might be best avoided.
With new knees, have you considered an ebike? If you have low-traffic places to ride near home it's great fun, and - if what I've read is correct - good for knees and general health. Mobility is such an important part of our lives.
Must be frustrating, though, looking at the that little Fanny B... dream machine!
Leon
14
British Bikes / Re: Tiger cub valve timing.
« on: April 20, 2026, 10:12:52 AM »
Pity the blipping thing doesn't have a valve lifter!
15
British Bikes / Re: Tiger cub valve timing.
« on: April 20, 2026, 07:54:54 AM »
No, sadly it won't make any difference.
I assume the piston has a high dome. You could either change it out to one with a flat top, or put a decent spacer - say 1/8 or 3/16" - under the cylinder. The only thing to watch out for is that the combo of the pushrods and valve adjusters will accommodate the change in height.
Have you enlisted an enthusiastic kicker to start it up?
Good luck!
Leon
I assume the piston has a high dome. You could either change it out to one with a flat top, or put a decent spacer - say 1/8 or 3/16" - under the cylinder. The only thing to watch out for is that the combo of the pushrods and valve adjusters will accommodate the change in height.
Have you enlisted an enthusiastic kicker to start it up?
Good luck!
Leon