Recent Posts

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21
Identify these bikes! / Re: L'il Villiers
« Last post by 33d6 on July 25, 2026, 03:16:45 AM »
Looks like a regular pre-war Model 0 Excelsior to me but with the slightly sturdier pressed steel forks as used on other model Excelsior at the time. Easily identified by the frame number. The post war Excelsior had both a different frame and the gear change through the tank nonsense. We all know that the Waratah was simply a rebadged Excelsior  and this is just another example.
The frame number will tell all.

The prewar model looked quite different from the postwar job with its utterly different exhaust layout and different inlet manifold. Nothing that makes any difference to the performance but just makes the beast look different from the other hordes of 9D powered bikes. The tight money woes of the thirties plus the looming war clouds where everyone knew petrol would be scarce and fuel economy was going to be a big thing led to a surprising number of manufacturers to bring out a 9D powered bike. I have a 1939 Montgomery and a 1940 Excelsior on the bench at the moment. There's little difference between that Waratah and my 1940 Excelsior.
22
British Bikes / Re: Troubleshooting a JAP Special
« Last post by Rockburner on July 24, 2026, 10:00:09 PM »
So, I couldn't help myself and wandered back over to the workshop this afternoon. :D

My first intent was to sort out that banjo union.

I started by taking it apart and discovered that I'd done it up so tight that the washer under the bolt had disintegrated!


But weirdly, I still don't believe that was leaking!

I started examining all the bits as closely as possible and started to get suspicious about the banjo union itself:


I then dug through all the old odds and sods that I had from Dad's workshop...

And eventually I discovered that I had a nearly new Amal nylon filter!


I think this was part of the upgrade parts I bought for the Monobloc - that's where I found it anyway, in the amongst the Monobloc stuff. It definitely does NOT have that lip.

So, I fitted it, and re-did the petrol pipe on the banjo union as well and ... er... it seems to have fixed it! :D :D

I also found I have a couple of competely useless twin feed banjo unions...


So while I was waiting for fuel to seep through the filter, I had a mooch around the rest of the bike...

And found this:


Buggeration!

So, I started stripping the rear mudguard off the bike:
First off - the catch-tank holder.




That long screw is what holds both the mudguard on, and the catch tank!


Removing the upper bolts


All undone, and it pulls out actually surprisingly easily.


You can see the "cut out" on the side clearly here, and this is the cause of th cracks.


The larger crack is clear :


Sorry - did I jump ahead of myself... yes there's 2 cracks
Lower end


Upper end


Cleaned off the inside and marked the end of the cracks with a white paint pen.


The holes were drilled easily after judicious use of a centre punch


3mm each should be enough. (They look a bit bigger because I cleaned then up a bit with a larger bit.)


The mudguard went back in fairly easily too.
First getting that long set-screw in place


I was sweating having to take the rear wheel out, but I didn't need to: the set-screws at the bottom end are allen-heads, and there's enough clearance to get the long set-screw out of the bracket, luckily.

Once I had the mudguard back into place.. I had a close look at the fitment.... and now I'm wondering why the hell the cut out is there!


I then fitted the tank strap.

First I got the tank out of the way - there's just enough play in the fuel hose to allow this :



More ultra-lightweight fitments...


And I locked-wired the R-clip just to be safe.


The other end of the strap is yet more in the  ultra-lightweight theme


Fitted the seat


Fully bolted down



A while ago I decided that I don't like the Unity Equipe screen that comes with the nose-piece, so I made up a lower, darker version.


It needs a bit more work, the top corners need to be curved off and tidied, but that shouldn't take long with a dremel.



I fired it up again in order to try to get the tick over improved (it either hunts and dies, or revs like crazy at the moment)
Didn't realise that strap was actually pushing against the downpipe... oops! :D


Gassed myself, obvs!


The last piece... Dad's home made primary chain cover.


There's nothing left to fit.


I pondered taking it out at that point..... but realised I'd run out of daylight!  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

I am interested to see how it runs ... I expect there'll be a fair bit of carb tuning to be done.

Hopefully soon! :D
23
British Bikes / Re: Troubleshooting a JAP Special
« Last post by Rockburner on July 23, 2026, 10:24:00 PM »
Quote from: Rex on July 23, 2026, 09:30:56 PM
Good stuff.
I know you believe it to be the fuel filter lip, but on most recent new carbs I've bought the very thin fibre washer is too stiff to flatten and seal, but after a night of soaking and swelling, a quick tighten the following morning sorts it.

I can see the fuel weeping from the upper part of the banjo union, the upper part is wet when the lower part (where the washer is) is dry.

The only other explanation i can think of is that the metal banjo union itself has a flaw, it's the next thing i intend to look at.
24
British Bikes / Re: Troubleshooting a JAP Special
« Last post by Rex on July 23, 2026, 09:30:56 PM »
Good stuff.
I know you believe it to be the fuel filter lip, but on most recent new carbs I've bought the very thin fibre washer is too stiff to flatten and seal, but after a night of soaking and swelling, a quick tighten the following morning sorts it.
25
British Bikes / Re: Troubleshooting a JAP Special
« Last post by Rockburner on July 23, 2026, 07:20:19 PM »
And so begins the teething issues....

This damn banjo union will not stop weeping.


I have pissed about with it for a couple of hours now, and discovered something.

The bloody filter plastic has a partial lip in it!  I have a spare one and it has it too!
You should be able to just about make it out on this macro shot:


It "keys" to this area of the mating faces where the filter plastic overspills from the float-bowl body:


You can't make it out, but in this shot it's slightly skew and so sits proud a bit.


I don't know if that lip is enough to prevent a petrol-tight seal... but I do know I can't get the fecker to seal, no matter how tight I get the banjo bolt.  I was getting worried I'd strip the thread in the (new) float bowl!

It's definitely coming from the upper part of the banjo union. 


FFS

I may head over to the Ardingly AutoJumble on Sunday (if I can), the AMAL specialists are normally there so I can ask them about it in person (with the community of old bike geezers face to face tends to get you more information).

If that reveals nothing, then I'll have a go with Hylomar or something like I did with the Monobloc reservoir cover, it might help.

And I figured I'd stick the end-can on too.
(after a quick polish :D )
26
British Bikes / Re: Troubleshooting a JAP Special
« Last post by Rockburner on July 23, 2026, 07:17:19 PM »
It's a nice Thursday afternoon - I really ought to be enjoying the sunshine.

Hey ho, back to the shed.

First thing I did was have another go to see if the mag was producing sparks: It was, they're not huge, but they're there.



So I pulled down the tank, after pondering which needs to be fitted first - seat or tank. 
It's a bit easier to fit the tank first.
Here's the first problem...


Petrol hose is about 2-3 inches too short now. :(

Luckily I had grabbed Dad's filthy bag of filthy hoses last time I was at the old folks home. :D


Found some nice unused braided fuel hose, which matched what was already in use, and there's plenty of it.
I still trimmed it a short as I thought I could get away with.
(The whole bike is built up "as if" it were a race bike, lightweight, minimalist etc, so I may as well carry on that theme where I can).


Re-fitted the oil lines.


I then tried to get it spinning enough to check the oil was flowing, which proved a thankless task. I even pulled the feed off the pump to check there was flow from the tank, which there was.

So, I stood looking at it for a bit....

Then realised I may as well give it a kick, so splashed some 98Ron E5 into it...



https://youtu.be/uREKeUSCjrE

HOLY $%^&&ING SHIT!!!  IT'S ALIVE!!!!

MUWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!

I genuinely swear to any deity you choose, that was the 2nd time I kicked it with the plug in!! :D :D :D

I will admit, the first kick was promising.... there was a "crack" of a very definite ignition, it just didn't catch.

I am SOOOOO $%^&&ing chuffed right now!!  When I stopped the video I was laughing manically and couldn't stop myself for a minute! 

  :banana-wrench:  :banana-wrench:  :banana-wrench:  :banana-wrench:  :banana-wrench:

I still can't believe it fired up so easily!!

There's still a fair bit to do before it's road-ready, but most of it is tinkering, then tuning the carb a bit and making sure it's the ignition isn't "too" advanced - but $%^&& me... I am gobsmacked.
27
British Bikes / Re: Troubleshooting a JAP Special
« Last post by Rex on July 23, 2026, 05:09:58 PM »
It's like watching one of those comedy semi-porn films of the 1970s, where you whizz through all the "do your windows need cleaning again Mrs Bloggs?" boring bits to get to the good stuff..... and there's no good stuff.
Or so I'm told... ;)
28
British Bikes / Re: Troubleshooting a JAP Special
« Last post by cardan on July 22, 2026, 11:38:33 PM »
That head has so few fins! Good luck with the start-up.

Leon
29
British Bikes / Re: Troubleshooting a JAP Special
« Last post by Rockburner on July 22, 2026, 02:38:00 PM »
So... er...  another installment.

This is how I left the engine:


I started the evening by fitting the front engine plates:


Nice and easy.


I then remembered I wanted to safety wire the sump plug


Not my finest work, but should be good.


Then I fitted the output nut


Can you say "f****** tight" on air?


So far so good - the bits I have left...


Managed to fit the needle into the carb (middle position of 3 for now)


Had to disengage the other end of the cable to do it though!  I've a nasty feeling that I may need to make/buy a new cable to be honest.


Because there's an extra ferrule at the twist-grip end to allow the cable to fit snugly into the adjuster for the quick-action twistgrip (why a quick-action?? why not!)
But with the ferrule fitted, the slide doesn't drop all the way to the bottom.
I ended up removing the extra ferrule for the time being.


I then tried the clamps on the rear engine plates again...


And took the legs off the engine...



Can you tell where this is going.....

Can you??

In the immortal statement the actress said to the bishop....


"IT'S IN!"

:D :D

Took me a only a short bit of sweating and straining, with some liberal swearing for good measure, then some fiddling about to get the engine bolts into place after they all had a good brass-brushing!
The thing is fugging heavy, and I've just remembered i was going to weight the thing before I fitted it.... ah sod it. :D


Started to re-fit all the other little bits: this is the new coil:


I wasn't happy with it sitting right over the exhaust, so after some faffing about looking for a spacer:


I fitted it on the other side of the head steady


nyloc


Primary chain


little fishy swimmy swimmy! :D



The oil pipes: eventually I want to fit transparent ones here so I can see the oil flowing, but they do tend to go foggy rather quickly... so.. maybe.



I WAS tempted to leave the exhaust off... but decided that would be childish. ;)




Carb is on too....
Note to self - those nuts are a bit of a git to fit - you need to hang the carb at the very end of the studs and work it down because the studs are so close to the body, the nuts can't be spun down if the studs are protruding all the way through, ie if the carb is "in situ" right up against the manifold..


Cable routes, again - not brilliantly happy, but we'll see - the throttle cable might be better off OVER the frame rail... then then it might bash on the tank underside... we'll see.  The slide does seem to be free to move.


The plug wire seems a bit long... that may be trimmed a bit and the old NGK cap fitted.


The coil in situ



Routing for the mag-coil loom, again TBC


Did the plug up tight


That slightly long engine bolt at the bottom left IS used, and not just for to hold the cases together - the primary chain case has a bracket that is mounted to it (IIRC).


Kill switch wiring, again, TBC.


The only things left to fit are the tank, seat and chain cover.

Then... err.. it's time to kick it, I suppose....

I tried rotating it by hand... and I CAN get it over compression by hand... soo... that could mean it's lower than I thought (or maybe I'm heavier than I look??)

I'm not sure what to think at this point... it could be an abject failure, it could fire up straight away....

30
Identify these bikes! / Re: L'il Villiers
« Last post by cardan on July 21, 2026, 09:03:50 AM »
Excellent: the new photos show that the headlamp is indeed the "prewar" VEC item with the flat back, so I can officially lean back towards "late pre war" rather than "early post war". It would be good to ask for engine and frame numbers: so far as I know the 9D number is on top of the gearbox (best viewed from the left side) pre war, then vertically on the back of the gearbox just post war, then easy to read on the right end of the gearbox from around 1947-8 or so. But I don't know where the frame number is on an Excelsior Universal/Waratah is in these years???

Leon
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