Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:50 am
I managed to make a little progress before I fly to the US for two weeks on Sunday. My friend, Keith, promises me a trip to the Barber Museum in Birmingham AL. We went a year or so ago but it was difficult to take it all in....
A set of repro handlebar grips are on their way from Ted's Special in Japan.
http://www.ted-spl.com/forsale/parts/gr ... _grip.html
I took a pile of cycle parts to my local bead-blaster in Derby. They normally work on train parts but I get the impression that the lads who work there like working on motorcycles. They were pleasantly surprised that I don't need the parts for two weeks. That means that I will have some clean and bright parts to work with when I get back in August.
Things are looking good for the difficult to find parts now but I keep uncovering little differences that these '61 bikes have. Very early '61s have vertical bolt patterns on the rear air filter brackets but luckily my frame uses the same as later bikes with a diagonal pattern.
Next up on the 'must-have' list is an early rear brake plate which has the torque bracket positioned at a different angle. This in-turn, works with the longer aluminium brake stay which, in my case, is 385mm between centres. Even those brake stays come in different lengths.
Alan Curtis kindly traded his 1961 rear fender (different cable routing) for some good fork parts so we are both making progress.
I still have to find or make the steering damper parts which also differ from later models. I'm about 50% there with those as shown in Alan's picture, below.
Steering damper by graham.curtis, on Flickr
I am going to get the pair color-matched to the original color in the headlamp. Notice the handy ammeter grafted in there? Judging by all of the charging traumas on the forum, it might be handy to keep it.....
headlamp by graham.curtis, on Flickr
G
A set of repro handlebar grips are on their way from Ted's Special in Japan.
http://www.ted-spl.com/forsale/parts/gr ... _grip.html
I took a pile of cycle parts to my local bead-blaster in Derby. They normally work on train parts but I get the impression that the lads who work there like working on motorcycles. They were pleasantly surprised that I don't need the parts for two weeks. That means that I will have some clean and bright parts to work with when I get back in August.
Things are looking good for the difficult to find parts now but I keep uncovering little differences that these '61 bikes have. Very early '61s have vertical bolt patterns on the rear air filter brackets but luckily my frame uses the same as later bikes with a diagonal pattern.
Next up on the 'must-have' list is an early rear brake plate which has the torque bracket positioned at a different angle. This in-turn, works with the longer aluminium brake stay which, in my case, is 385mm between centres. Even those brake stays come in different lengths.
Alan Curtis kindly traded his 1961 rear fender (different cable routing) for some good fork parts so we are both making progress.
I still have to find or make the steering damper parts which also differ from later models. I'm about 50% there with those as shown in Alan's picture, below.
Steering damper by graham.curtis, on FlickrI am going to get the pair color-matched to the original color in the headlamp. Notice the handy ammeter grafted in there? Judging by all of the charging traumas on the forum, it might be handy to keep it.....
headlamp by graham.curtis, on FlickrG
