With the head and barrels off and a look down the bores and “Olay”, l could see the faint swirl marks left through the honing stage in finishing barrels. Those swirl marks show that all is well between pistons and barrels, this engine had b

This particular Honda 400 is the 1977 F model the mastery with this engine is its simplicity in its layout and construction, horizontally split crankshafts and there usual sandwich of barrels, head and cam cover make it a joy to work on. Th

The inner races of roller bearings can be very difficult to remove from there shafts without the correct tooling or extractor. You can trawl the web and find all manner of ways to remove them. The most common way is to heat the inner race a

Brake drums are manufactured in several ways and are made employing different materials. Bike drum brakes have a cast iron shell cast into the hub but the shell may also be made of steel. Some drums are made of only cast iron so no shell is

Since we have made so much replica petrol tanks in mild steel sheet, I thought it about time to mention the making of one, and what procedures I employ. Someone lucky was in ownership of a 1912 Ariel motorcycle with a rust eaten tank. The t

At first sight the engine looked in fairly good condition painted in heat proof black spray, with no apparent oil leaks. The engine also seemed to be devoid of those horrible marks and nicks left on cover joints when they have been more the

The bike was delivered to us as a rolling chassis plus 2 boxes of engine parts and frame fittings, the engine was in a total nut and bolt strip down and all was jumbled up. The first thing to do was to rebuild the engine . The cases were no

This particular triumph Bonneville was more or less a bit of a barn find since it was used for 52,000 miles and then layed up in the back of a shed in 1972 where it languished under an oily sheet. The shed was obviously dry and airy as when

Since the birth of the motorcycle the preferred way of joining the hub to the rim of the wheels are with wires called spokes that had a bend on one end to pass through a hole in the hub and a thread on the other end to pass through the cent

Finally I’m back after what seems a long time. Sometimes life gets in the way of bike building. I still haven’t finished the Honda 750 four project yet, but I felt it was time to to start another project bike. I am re-thinking s

What is stainless steel? Stainless steel is a metal with high chromium content. Chromium does not oxidise or rust. What types of stainless steel are available? Stainless steels come in a vast variety of metallurgical make ups and finishes b

I am not going to go into to much detail regarding cutting threads on a lathe because its boring and i want to keep you, the reader interested in this short article about cutting or generating a four start thread on my Dean, Smith and Grace

Restoring museum artifacts come with an array of difficuties. Ancient clay pots can be pieced together using  glues that leave no visible sign of repair. Pieces of pot can be replicated and used to fill in the missing parts of the damaged p

Stainless Steel Petrol Tanks We regularly have enquiries from people asking if we can make stainless steel  petrol tanks for their vintage and veteran cars or bikes. Our reply is “of course we can, as long as you supply have a pattern