The "Good Old Days"...

[slofox]

Some of the things I remember but don't miss about the "good old days" of motorbiking...please feel free to expand the list with your own recollections...

1. "Oil Proof Bikes"...ahahaha. Oxymoron. Specially if they were British. Don't park 'em where you don't want an oil spill...better to leave 'em on some dirt somewhere so the oil would soak away...(oh we were all nasty polluters back then...)

2. CVC regulators. Bastards of things. Before the days of anything solid state these used mechanical means to regulate voltage. Guaranteed to fail at critical moments and leave you without battery charging abilities...and lights eventually.

3. Separate engines and gear boxes linked by a "primary chain". Nothing really wrong with the concept but the chains were usually in an oil bath. Which leaked. Everywhere. See 1. above...

4. "Sprung Hubs" and "Linked Plungers". These were primitive attempts at rear suspension, pre swing arms. Basically they gave no suspension at all, despite one of my mates arguing that his sprung hub was better than a swing arm because it had lower unsprung mass. Never mind the fact that it had a total of about 2mm of travel...the less said about linked plungers the better. Ask anyone who owned a 1953 or earlier Ariel...

5. Whitworth threads on British bikes. Big fat coarse thread. Which stripped as soon as you looked at it. And broke, leaving stud stumps stuck in cylinder heads, crankcases and anywhere else possible...

Right that's just a start. Additions welcome...

[tri boy]

Lucas.
Prince of darkness and frustration.

[kevfromcoro]

One of my 1st bikes was a matchy..
the primary case allways fell off it
corse i still keep riding it with the chain wizzing around .. every now and then it would grab my jeans and shred to bits.

ever riden an old AJS or bessa with a ridgid arse end
can still feel it in my kidneys now

[doc]

4. "Sprung Hubs" and "Linked Plungers". These were primitive attempts at rear suspension, pre swing arms. Basically they gave no suspension at all, despite one of my mates arguing that his sprung hub was better than a swing arm because it had lower unsprung mass. Never mind the fact that it had a total of about 2mm of travel...the less said about linked plungers the better. Ask anyone who owned a 1953 or earlier Ariel...

Additions welcome...

Fark sprung hubs most here wouldn't know about them. As for the rest HD still uses most of those concepts with pride.

[Paul in NZ]

the less said about linked plungers the better. Ask anyone who owned a 1953 or earlier Ariel...

5. Whitworth threads on British bikes. Big fat coarse thread. Which stripped as soon as you looked at it. And broke, leaving stud stumps stuck in cylinder heads, crankcases and anywhere else possible...

Too sick to worry about the other bits but....

Ariel's didn't have plunger suspension... Its was an 'Antsley' trailing link... Quite different and plungers we not normally linked, hence the problem (well one of them anyway)... Where you are correct is saying that all of these rear suspensions died a deserved death - beastly things...

Whitworth threads? Nope - good as gold and sound engineering when treated with respect! They ONLY died because metric made much more sense BUT whitworth was one of the very first attempts at standardising thread forms - we have a lot to be grateful for to these early pioneers...

[allycatz]

I remember but dont miss....the boyfriends who owned the bikes

[MotoKuzzi]

Triumph 650 Kickstarts and backfires. Only time i have ever fallen off a motorcycle, trying to kickstart it, caught a backfire, lost my balance and went over the side.

[slofox]

Ariel's didn't have plunger suspension... Its was an 'Antsley' trailing link... Quite different and plungers we not normally linked, hence the problem (well one of them anyway)... Where you are correct is saying that all of these rear suspensions died a deserved death - beastly things...

My Ariel suspension may well have been the Antsley system as you describe - but it was commonly referred to as "linked plunger"...at least in the world I moved in. Trailing links as you describe (hence linked) with spring loaded shock thingies to absorb impacts. Very little movement available there either so essentially, they did fuck all...and the seat on it was like a greyhound's back as well, so a long journey was quite challenging...

[Motu]

Whitworth and BSF were high quality threads - rounded crests and V's,unlike the cheap and nasty squared off Unified and American Fine and Coarse,and Metric threads.Unified threads (UNF,UNC,sometimes called SAE,and these days incorrectly as Imperial) were dumbed down threads for the mentally challenged Americans,the English thread systems totally confused them in WWII,and decided the world should do it their way.They got the SAE to base the Unified threads on American threads.And the bolt head sizes....

Sprung frames were like the early ''monoshock'' rear suspensions that came out in the early '80's - everyone had their own version,and most importantly,a NAME to call it...a trademark suitably registered.Prolink,Unitrack,Fullfloater.

[Skyryder]

What about those spark advances. Talk about dexterity. Man get it wrong too many times and ya got a flooded carb. Mind you the electric start just does not have that macho image as a kick start. They realy did sort the boys our from the men. And on another unrelated note the good ole days never had the 'shela's riding except on the pillion......... Might have been that kick start thing.


Skyryder

[kevfromcoro]

What about front brakes

anyone have them ...............
back wasnt a hell of a lot better....

[slofox]

What about those spark advances.

Yep. The Ariel had a manual spark advance as well...but mine was "computer controlled" for different octane ratings...(the computer was in my head...actually, come to think of it, it was about as unreliable as modern day computers too...)

[Motu]

Manual advance was good - you could set it up slightly advanced....and mark the lever for regular,super,or the rare time you got to play with some race fuel.

I put an M20 into my swingarm A10 frame,and used the 650 gearbox,although I did have a B31 box lying around.(swapped it for a T100C bottom end).The huge gap from 2nd to 3rd was not a big problem with the 650...but with a 13hp sidevalve single it was a major obstacle.The upshift going up hill was a skillful job - after winding the big flywheels up to worrying 4,000rpm,it was a long wait until the engine speed came down to make the shift into 3rd,during that time I'd put the advance back to half....both clutch and advance levers on the left bar.Road speed would have dropped quite a bit before I could make third,and as engine speed came up,I could advance it back up again.Getting it right for starting,and knocking it back for idle at the lights....all part of the fun of riding a real big single.

[Supertwin Don]

I can go back as far as having a 1953 BSA 350 single - when I replaced the (missing) compression lever with a push bike brake lever I had to be very gentle to avoid the "tinkle" of a push rod dropping out - resulting in 20 minutes of taking tank/covers etc off to re-fit said push rod!

[Big Dave]

Amal carburettors.