Wow, a pile of parts is turning into...

a motorcycle! A few missing bolts are being ordered - had them but lost them (never fails). I mounted the Boyer power box (which eliminates the zener diode, the condensers and rectifier) under the battery tray. This box eliminates the need for a battery all together, but the battery helps when starting the bike so I'm keeping it. Spring can't come soon enough!

Bonnie is coming together!

Got the rear wheel on, front forks rebuilt and on, headlight, clocks, chain etc... Next up, front wheel, wiring and carbs. plus a laundry list of little things that need to be buttoned up.

Timing gears lined up, oil lines hooked up. slight snag.

One step forward, two steps back. I hooked up the oil lines and with oil in the reservoir, I kicked it over hoping to see oil entering the rocker boxes. Nothing. I'm worried that because the guy who owned this bike prior to me, powder coated the oil feeds to the rocker boxes and they may not be lining up properly.

Snag number two: It appears that the Gear box cover is from an early 60's unit and has no oil plug. Where does the oil for the gears go? Plus the bottom gearbox cover screw wont go in. It's also missing the dowel that lines it up on the inside. that is probably the reason it won't go together. My dilemma  is since the covers were all chromed (poorly) do I buy a later gearbox cover and chrome it? At that point I'd probably want to re-chrome the  others since their already pealing. Remind me to never buy someones halfway finished projects ever again...

Trying to shoehorn the engine back in the Bonnie

I wrestled the motor into the frame while on it's side. I couldn't seem to get the front engine mounts to line up with the bolt hole in the engine, so I attached the back side brackets loosely and righted the bike. Still no luck. I got the engine tightened up hoping the back side brackets would line up the front but still no luck. I loosened all the mounting bolts to see if I could wiggle the engine into alignment and guess what... No dice. This is probably a two man job. After 2 hours of sweating and swearing, I called it a night. The motor looks nice back in the frame though!

TriBSA Update

I'm feeling a little in over my head with the tuning of this motor. I've decided to scale back a bit, start with a solid running, fine tuned, Pre unit engine and make it fit the frame. Tricking out the engine will come, possibly on the second 650 motor I have cases for. That way I can do the heavy mods and possibly do billet con rods new crank and do it right from the ground up. It's going to take a lot of time and money - both of which I don't have much to spare at this moment.

This morning I took my barrels over to a local machinist who specializes in performance engines. My neighbor Woody knows him from way back and is having him do the total engine rebuild on his A10. I am having the one hole in the engine case repaired (its right where the dynamo attaches. They are also boring the cylinder out to fit the .06 oversize pistons. Hopefully I'll have those back in the near future...

Push Rods are in, clearances are set

After wrestling with seating the push-rods into the tappets for another half hour, I finally got them in. I reset all the bolts to 10lbs of torque and set my valve clearances to .05mm inlet and .10mm exhaust. Gaskets are en-route, so once they arrive I can button the engine up, and reinstall it into the frame.

Dealing with the known problems

One of the issues I discovered back in the summer right before I parked this project, was the fork stanchions were mangled and stripped at the top, preventing the fork nuts from catching a thread. I ordered new stanchions but never installed them because right after that I found the sand in the oil reservoir. I laid everything out, pulled the guts out of the old stanchions, assembled the new set but decided new fork seals were in order. I ordered them as well as a handful of other bits I need to finish this bike up. The other issue was in the inlet rocker box. One of the push-rods was not seated on the tappet. I pulled the cover off and found the push rod wedged between the tappet and the base of the tube. There was also a nice gouge in the metal rocker cover which I ground down to avoid rubbing against the rocker arms. These things are a pain in the rear to get back together. The BSA A65 is so much easier to see what your doing. I successfully got the push rod into place but not before the other jumped out. I decided to call it a day since it was getting late and the dogs needed dinner.