Spanners and sockets

[Rex]

With an equal, if not greater quantity of BSCy for good measure. The only BSW I can recall on my old MAC was the cylinder base studs, but there were probably others.

[cardan]

A thread pitch gauge is the restorer's friend!

Leon

[R]

And a bolt size gauge is useful too.
My local bolt supplier gave me this, as a freeby.
Its primarily for metric and UNF/UNC, but just sorting those out helps sometimes.



A reference collection of nuts & bolts helps sometimes too..

[Rex]

Handy for very late BSA/Triumphs and Japs/Continentals but not much use for anything older in our spheres of interest.
Only ever encountered UNC on one bike and that was a Springfield Indian.

[Vreagh]

I'm restoring a 1930s Francis Barnett Black Hawk with Royal Enfield hubs and was supprised to find the spindles on both are 7/16 unf. Perhaps it was done to ensure the correct nuts were used. I would have thought that unf was quite rare in the 30s.

[R]

My big 30s Enfield cush hub has 11/16 Cycle thread nuts.
Try finding those in the local hardware !
I'd suspect your axle has been remade ?
A smaller axle I had remade was 26 tpi  British Standard Cycle thread
(Or CEI, before it was renamed in the late 1940s)

For Rex, depends on the variety of your herd.
Commandos are UNF in the cycleparts.
This from W. Marples Sheffield for checking diam sizes of BS (British Standard) bolts.

[Vreagh]

I too though they may had been remade but they're  not from the same bike and looked to be coated with vintage muck.

[Oggers]

As a rough guide for bolt size I use my AF spanners as calipers and use a few known BSF screws/bolts of the common sizes to compare and contrast in order to ascertain if it is BSW or something else.

[iansoady]

I am allowed another question surely? I understood that in general, BSF was used on most stuff....

It depends what you mean by "most". BSW was generally used for threads into softer material line aluminium alloy eg barrel studs. Most British manufacturers tended towards Cycle rather than BSF although Velos used more BSF for some reason. My Francis Barnett uses almost all Cycle including the unusual 1/2" 26 tpi version (more often 20 tpi). Nortons were almost exclusively Cycle till the Commando when they then had an unholy mix of Cycle, BSW. UNC and UNF. UNF and Cycle are just close enough (28 tpi / 26 tpi) that it's easy to start the wrong nut and it's only when one or both parts are wrecked that the error becomes clear.....

[Rex]

For Rex, depends on the variety of your herd.
Commandos are UNF in the cycleparts.

As I said earlier, late Triumphs and BSAs use UNF too, but I was talking of UNC specifically. Did the Unified changeover get completed before Tri/BSA went belly up, and did some UNC fasteners make it onto the later bikes? Who knows?

[mini-me]

Ariel two strokes were the first to use UNF nut and boltery, drove me nuts as  a teenager trying to dismantle one,

Is Oggers confusing thread from with head size? lots of examples of smaller /larger spanner sizes as would be normally found.

whitworth and UNC I always understood to be the same,unless you are an ultra purist.

[Rex]

1/4 Whit and 1/4 UNC seem to be sold by some suppliers as being the same.

[Oggers]

Is Oggers confusing thread from with head size?

No he's not.

BSW=BSF (head size) - understood
BSW does not equal BSF (thread) - also understood

Question answered by Ian - Velos use more BSF than others - many thanks

[iansoady]

Ariel two strokes were the first to use UNF nut and boltery, drove me nuts as  a teenager trying to dismantle one,

Yes, I rebuilt one a few years back and had to resuscitate all my A/F spanners that I thought I'd never need again.......

Of course the previous owner had decided to use metric gutter bolts all over the place. Some people shouldn't be allowed near a motorcycle.

[mini-me]

Velos use more BSF than others - many thanks

thats because they were cheap skates, always on the verge of bankruptcy, I'm not a Velofan, never have been, worked on LE Velos for met police though and they were nearly all 1/4 BSF.

There is a reason for the use of 26tpi cycle and that is because fine threads are less inclined to vibrate loose.

It is rumoured that spanner size is irrelevant to Velo owners as they use the famous hammertite mole grips, one size fits all.

mostly I used a gas axe  on the ones I scrapped.