Albion gearbox BF436 - where used?

[33d6]

It’s got a rocking pedal foot change on the other side. Pretty simple with a two speed box. No fancypositive stop arrangement needed. Push down as far as it will go at one end for low gear. Push the other end down as far as it will go for high gear. Let it flap around in the middle for neutral.

[cardan]

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

[R]

Offered for longer than that short period

[33d6]

I like the oil filling system shown on those ads. A hollow mounting bolt with a cycle lubricator on top. I wonder how long it took to fill the box through that.

[cardan]

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

[cardan]

... 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

[R]

Bit of a side-step here, but has anyone seen a photo of Albions' Tower Works (factory),
in 48-56 Upper Highgate Street, Birmingham.
Demolished, at some point in the 1960s ?, and the area redeveloped extensively.

I've looked at all the usual sources, and a few discussions of this, with zero result.
Sometimes the parts books show a factory view. But not in this case.

Burman, by contrast, was keen to show off their Lee Banks works - parts books view.
https://i.postimg.cc/hGXnwpnq/Burman-and-Sons-Lee-Bank-Works-Brum-1922.jpg

[R]

Jan, one of the military history guys and Enfield enthusiast extraordinaire has located this old map.
But no photo ...

https://hmvforum.s3.amazonaws.com/monthly_2024_07/Schermafbeelding2024-07-21om17_44_45.thumb.png.337e2483db29e31749202dae0ab5dd18.png

The local roads have been somewhat altered since then in the redevelopment, and now is housing and parkland.

We diverge, still.

[cardan]

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

[R]

Nortons were in Aston Brook St for a good many years too.
They built/extended through to Bracebridge St in short order, and that seems to have become their primary address.

Don't think any pics of Albions' Tower Works are about.
Online anyway.
Unless the press or a magazine did a feature on them.
Which might be tough to find.
The factory records might have survived ? and been archived somewhere ?
Which might be equally tough to find...

EDIT  Birmingham City Council libraries have an extensive archive of the city's history.
Including a box with 26 photos of Upper Highgate St.
Let us see if they respond to enquiries ...

[33d6]

Back to Albion boxes. I've just returned from the State Library where I was ploughing through 1931 copies of MotorCycling. The 11/11/31 copy had a paragraph introducing the new "E Junior", a new 3 speed box for featherweights up to 150cc. Weight 12 lbs. internal ratios 1.57 and 2.78 to 1. High gear the usual direct drive 1:1 of course.
Then referred to the the regular 'E' for 200-300cc machines and advised the smallest 2 speed as redeveloped in 1931 was still to be produced.
The new box of course is the good old EJ, probably the most common survivor found today. As the cheapest 3 speed box they made it was calmly fitted by all and sundry to whatever piece of equipment they needed a box for and  absolutely no notice paid to the factories advice it was a featherweight for up to 150cc engines only. It was the cheapest they could buy and who cared if it was ferociously overloaded. Lucky for us it was tougher than the factory thought. Love them.

[R]

We've seen before you rail against the 3 speed box - simply the 2 speed, now with a stump pulling 1st gear added.
You'd wonder that Albions didn't effectively do a close ratio version  ?

The 4 speeds in my old FB 1H seemed quite a good spread.
But that was another 20 years down the track.

I see the Albions instruction sheet for the 3 speed advocates using oil, with up to 50% 'thin' grease added, and well mixed !

[33d6]

Albion introduced their first “Featherweight “ 4 speed box intended for up to 150cc machines in January 1933. Unfortunately the majority of the motorcycle industry were reluctant to take it on for their bottom of the range lightweights as it was dearer than the EJ 3 speed.
Some did but the general attitude seemed to be that they were building cheap’n’nasties and building an optional cheap and interesting version wasn’t going to happen.
I can see why Albion wasn’t interested in making a close ratio 3 speeder when they had difficulty selling their much better 4 speed box intended for the same purpose.

Curiously I’ve never seen any Albion literature advocating a thin grease. Where did you get that?

[R]

https://www.barnstormers.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ALbion-PDF.pdf

About halfway down, beyond the parts list and just under the little lubrication chart.
It does note that too much grease may block the lubrication pathways.

[33d6]

Interesting. I don 't know that I'd be too keen to mix up oil and grease myself but I think I'll look more kindly on that stuff they recommend for vintage car steering boxes and the like. Can't remember what Penrite call it. Thick like grease when cold but quickly liquefies when stirred up. Thixotropic?