classic motorcycle forum

So where did your sidecover come from.
Is it the civvy type one ?

Secondly, after setting the proper piston at TDC and backing it down a bit, it doesn't seem to matter how much I rotate the points backing plate, I get no reaction from the test light.

Something to bear in mind is that when setting the timing, you should ALWAYS rotate the engine forward to get to where you want it to spark.
Otherwise, all your backlashes can accumulate, and the timing will be in nowheresville.

And until you can get your timing light to show something, its not going anywhere either, is it !
Obviously we can't see what you have done, but if you open the points manually the light should come on or go off.
And until it does, you need to work on it.  Having something earthed or not isolated is a common cause of this
- but we can't see what you have done ...
Have fun !

Quite so. But I was putting them in context.

This would seem to indicate that the speedo for the D1 to D3 was the same.
https://www.classicbikepartscheshire.com/speedometer-tachometer-c41/bsa-bantam-d1-d3-genuine-smiths-speedometer-0-55-mph-refurbished-p3062

The later 150cc and 175cc ones would likely require a few more mph on the scale ...
Hopethishelps.

was there much heavy industry in Oz 1920/30s ? did they gear up for the war effort?

I'm not sure that motorcycle manufacture would be 'heavy industry', they'd be light industrial ?

There was a thriving industry in the teens and 20s for taking JAP engines and slotting them into locally made frames and cycleparts.
Probably a dozen brands or more that made quite a number - well more than a mere one or 2.
And lots of engine types/gearboxes/frame lugs/cycleparts were involved in this sort  of manufacture also.
There are pages and pages devoted to this in Rob Sawards A-Z of Ausatralian made motorcycles.


Much Australian industry was involved in the WW2 effort.
Many a car maker and other industries were making guns and tanks and trucks and ammo etc etc.
At the end of the war, Oz had the 4th largest airforce in the world.
Mostly spits and and mustangs and B17s etc as lend/lease imports, but many an engine was made/rebuilt locally.
We diverge ..

There's little evidence that Villiers engines were built into locally made frames though.
Photos of any such assembly are in very short supply - even from makers who were reputed to be doing this
Full imports seems to have become the norm in the 1930s and postwar ?

flat tracker...........huh, not even as if such a thing existed in this country back then.

Perhaps not in that exact form.

But 'speedway'  and 'dirt track' and 'grasstrack' may be not be that far removed ...
A Rudge and a Duggie, in mortal combat

and presumably the rebadging was done to give a local connection with a possible/hopeful increase in sales?

I'd suspect that the rebadging was done so that the local distributer didn't get his nose out of joint by another retailer selling the same brand as he was
- and for which he had the EXCLUSIVE franchise !

We mentioned Tom Byrne in Sydney selling Excelsiors just postwar, and down the road 100 yards were Waratahs, identical except for paint and decals.
And a quid less expensive ...

If you don't know who Barry Mckenzie was,

I think he met his match in Patsy and Edina  !!

But we diverge ....