Finished rebuilding the clutch 03/22/2010 0 Comments   I finally got all the parts for the clutch, and got it all put back together. Heres the bits all laid out, ready to assemble... All of those bits are supposed to go together like this: And thats where it got complicated. Unnecessarily complicated.  The first hurdle was the realization that 1) the mainshaft was to dinged up for the clutch center to fit over and 2) the clutch hub I got was a piece of crap and only very roughly the right size. Probably stamped by drunken Pakistanis who were working off a sketch on the back of a cocktail napkin.....Nothing that a LOT of grinding and filing couldn't fix. Heres the shaft after I worked it out with a small stone in my power drill. (The chain wheel is installed already) I almost gave up on the clutch hub. It was the wrong dimensions in almost every way. The grooves were too small for the friction plates, the splines were too wide for the center plate to slid  over it, and the dimensions where the mainshaft goes in were wrong so that the studs didn't have enough clearance and would lock up the chainwheel when it was tightened up.....I ground, bent and filed it for a couple of hours to get it right, and still had to fabricate a spacer out of a body washer to make it fit. I probably would have been better off sending it back to Waldridge cycle and getting a new one somewhere else, but I'm stubborn. You can see in this picture how much I had to file off each of the tabs to make it work.... Paragraph. In the picture above, you can see that tab A doesn't fit with Slot B....... But finally, it was all good.....Time to assemble everything. Now we're getting somewhere! Here it is all installed and adjusted. I think. These 6 bolt clutches are a bitch to get even! I think I got her though..... Here's the cover back on. I replaced the stock, worn out, Phillips head screws with a set of stainless fallen heads of of E-bay....All done and buttoned up with the exception of oil and a gasket. Just hope I remember that by the time I get done with the rest!  Next I think I will be removing the magneto, getting a generator, and having both rebuilt.... Thanks to Brett at Skin and Bone Customs for help finding most of the parts I used on the clutch, at a good price too....Theres a link to his shop in the appropriately titled "links" section of this site....... Later gators.   Getting to know each other 02/12/2010 0 Comments   So this is the story of my 1953 BSA B33, a 500cc single cylinder, hard tail product of the Birmingham Small Arms company. I bought it from BIR brother Neil "Morto Maniac" Olsen, making a trip out to Missoula to pick it up. Overall, everything looks pretty good for being 57 years old and sitting in a barn for God know how long. Engine kicks over, but theres not enough bits there yet to see if she'll start.  I've done a general cleaning, started inspecting the engines guts, flushed the oil tank and lines, and pulled the clutch apart. The clutch was pretty shot, so I am in the process of collecting the parts to rebuild it. Unfortunately, I have about 1,000 other projects fighting for my time, so its slow going with the BSA, but I'll keep plugging away. I would really like to have her on the road this summer, w'll see. Check back for updates and pictures as I move it along.... How she looked when I first saw her Mocked up in my carport. Probably gonna look a lot like this when she's done.

Erik Da Vikings 1953 BSA B33 Follow the progress here as I try and bring this old girl back from the dead.  Archives March 2010 February 2010 Categories All RSS Feed

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