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I mentioned earlier that I was bidding at the Bonhams auction at the Staffs show in the UK on Easter Sunday and did a blog on it.....
http://velobanjogent.blogspot.com/2011/04/bidders-perspective-of-bonhams-auction.html
I succeeded in purchasing Stanley and Mildred Woods photo album of their tour to Australia in Dec.1936 to early 1937.
Stanley brought out two factory Velocette's with him...a 350 and 500, both "dog-kennel" engine variants which were left in the hand of Frank Mussett the Australian rider and local agent in Melbourne.
I said I would feature the album and apart from the "touristy" shots featuring Koala bears, views of scenery etc, the motorcycle content follows.....
Left click on the images to enlarge....
Outside Lou Borgelt's Velocette agency in Adelaide, South Australia.
The Woods disembarked in Adelaide for the start of their tour.
They were loaned a car, arranged by Lord Nuffield in the UK.
Stanley rode in the South Australian Centenary TT meeting at Victor Harbour, a combined car and motorcycle race meeting, 26-29th December 1939.
Stanley and Mildred at Victor Harbour.
Stanley won the Junior race comfortably and was in the lead in the senior race at pitting for fuel a pit attendant broke the clutch lever off at the handlebar...Stanley had no clutch and they had a devils own job starting it without a clutch and he fell well back in the placings, finishing 3rd.
Stanley, likely with Lou Borgelt....
Following the races at Victor Harbour, they drove to Phillip Island for the races.
Stanley again easily won the 350 race, but in practice suffered engine trouble with the 500 and had to use his 350, he finished 3rd .
Les Parry was an owner with Stillwell of the Velocette distributorship in Victoria and Percy Williams was from the NSW Velocette distributor, P & R Williams.
At Phillip Island...
The historical significance of most of the photos is that they have never been on public display before and likely never published.....
They are yours to capture, but please credit Stanley and Mildred Woods, whose photos they were.....
If you've been through much of my blogsite you'd realise I must be an avid collector.... my office bulges....
My daughter, Felicity, an archaeologist says to me "Dad, don't keep doing it....you've got to make a stop.."
Aghh, but when you stop collecting and disseminating information and photographs you seem to me to have one foot in the grave....
So this offering is of a small photo album, red in colour for the cover and features photographs taken by an unknown family in the period 1929-1931...
Initially it covers motorcycles before they seemed to move into cars...so I'm only displaying the motorcycling stuff....
Then, asked by Velo man, Tim Thearle about information on the M.L. "Maglita" combined magneto and dynamo I ended up in a copy of "MotorCycles and how to manage them"...the 24th edition which seems to be written around 1925/26...
Around the time of the photo album....so as another fascination for me is the pen and ink sketch and drawings, we'll look at some from the book....
I'll do an item on the Maglita in a future blog...
Left click on the images to enlarge them....
On a 1926 EW Douglas in 1929...
On the Portsmouth road in 1929 on a 1926 Douglas.
A "refit" (??) in 1929..again on the Douglas...
Earlsfield in 1930 on a 1929 Douglas...
1929 in The New Forest on a 1926 Douglas...
Stourport, Wales..1930...
The cover of "MotorCycles and how to manage them"..
Section of a typical two lever carburetter in 1925...
Vapourising details for Senspray, Cox-Atmos and Amac carburetters in 1925..
Brown and Barlow single lever carburetter,1925..
Brown and Barlow two lever carburetter and control levers,1925...
Amac two lever sporting carburetter,1925..
Amac carburetter control levers,1925...
Velocette, in general, used Webb girder forks on their motorcycles from the late 1920's to the end of the 1947 season for their road singles and to 1951 for their KTT racers, this being the end of this model.
Left click on images to enlarge...
So I'll run this blog with some images from Webb information I have....
A 1928/1929 Webb catalogue....
1939 Webb fork drawing for Velocette with the actual dimensions in the small text box.
The title of this current post is a little perplexing....
A Velocette Thruxton MOV....
Of course its a special...but let me explain.
During 1966 I saw the first of two Velocette Thruxton models that were imported into Australia via the Victorian Velocette agent, Frank Mussett Motorcycles....
Yes I wanted one, so I sold my 1961 Venom and stumped up the deposit...AUD$360 from memory on the AUD$990 full price to the Sydney motorcycle agent, Burling and Simmonds of Auburn...the bike was due in January 1967 but subsequent delays saw me not get it until late February.
I lived with my father and sister in Maroubra, a suburb of Sydney and my next door neighbour was Jim Day, a Velocette rider and enthusiast and a lifelong friend.
Some time during the year Jim decided, with the increasing cost of the green slip insurance on motorcycles, which had risen sharply, that he needed a 250cc machine to get into the lower registration bracket.
His father, Tom mentioned he had a 250cc MOV Velocette he'd sold a chap for 12 quid a few years back and that he'd never paid the full amount and really it was still his....
The hunt was on...
By some sleuthing we tracked the bike down and as it turned out it was finally found leaning against the wall of a lane awaiting rubbish removal in a suburb nearby.
Jim waited with the bike, I hot-footed it off to get a trailer and we had our 250.....
Stroke of luck eh.....
But we also had a spare RS Velocette swinging arm frame, so the idea was hatched by Jim to fit the 250 into it, model it on my new Thruxton with some engine work based on the 250 Royal Enfield crusader, an 8" BSA front brake- the cast iron drum lightened with holes bored in the back of the drum with large aluminium plugs and an effort made to convert it to 2LS operation...more of this later....
So all the "excess" lugs were removed from the frame for lightness ( sidecar etc), the oil tank moved back a la VMT and I'll let the photographs tell the story......
Left click on the images to enlarge.....
I can see by the date on the registration label these photographs were taken in 1968.
The engine as mentioned was modeled on the 250 RE...carb. spacer, GP Amal carbs were "a bit thin on the ground" in Australia around then, especially smaller bore ones and I'm unsure why we didn't use an Amal TT carb, so Jim settled on a 1 and 1/16" Amal 376 monobloc . Cams were of the M17/8 Venom timings, which later proved to be unsatisfactory as the bike sure revved but "wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding", well it was back to the M17/7 MSS style.
A piston was made by local Veloman and piston maker for most of the Australian racing fraternity, Sid Willis.
At the time it was of course in Y-alloy and as such you need fairly wide piston clearances to avoid seizures.
The cylinder head was from an alloy MAC Velo in an effort to get some oil tightness.
Alloy pushrod tunnel, the 12- gearbox fitted, alloy wheel rims.
And in the end it went alright but the concensus was the frame setup was just too heavy for the 250....
I mentioned earlier the 8" BSA front brake, converted to 2LS operation which showed great potential on paper.
We suitably lightened it, but when used it was pretty hopeless as a "stopper".
We tried different linings, chamfers on the linings etc and in the end in desperation the actuating arm the cable pulled on was lengthened about and extra 1".
The brake then worked a treat....
The photo shows the brake prior to the lengthening of the brake arm....
Where is it now.....
Well a friend from NZ, Ernie Williams came over to ride in the historic race at the big Easter Motorcycle TT races at Bathurst around the early 1980's.
I removed the "un-necessaries" from the MOV and we had a racer for Ernie.....
Bad news was it dropped a valve with the ensuing damage to the piston and cylinder head combustion chamber surface.....
Off to Sid Willis for a piston and after waiting the requisite time...Sid was never rushed...probably 9 months....I returned to find Sid had repaired the combustion chamber and valve seats so the bike was ready to go back together.
The head and piston after I collected it....
Since I've set this post up I came across some more photos of the blown up head....
Come forward to earlier this year.....
Yes the MOV laid "waste", un-assembled all those years.....
Jim Day visited NZ in February and borrowed Ernie Williams 1956 MAC again to ride in a rally in the South Island of NZ....
You bet.... he dropped a valve in Ernie's engine...
JD is returning from NZ tonight after spending a week there repairing the engine and he took over the piston and cylinder head from the Thruxton MOV, so sadly I fear it will be no more.....
The frame setup wasn't completely "idle" all this time....we fitted a Mk.2 KSS engine in it for several years also a long time back, but no photographs appear to have survived, but as I write this, the setup now has a 500 Velo engine in it....
Jim calls it "his big MOV".....
