Apologies
to anyone that has come to this page expecting to see exclusively
vintage AJS motorcycles .....scroll down the page a bit and you will
find plenty of them. However, I ran out of AJSs to restore and I'm now
working on early cammy Velocettes.
Earlier this year I started the restoration of 2 early Velocette KTTs plus another Mk 1 OHC cammy special - a few details about each of these bikes can be found here and here.
I
have spent the last few months sorting out the front and rear hubs to get the
wheelbuilding underway, making patterns for a variety of smaller components and working on the girder forks and recently many castings for smaller components came back from the foundry.
During the past month I have been assembling bits and pieces for sale. Apart from a lovely Velocette Thruxton there is a collection of parts that were intended for a Velocette race bike project. I started collecting bits for this project when I was in my late 50s but now, at the age of 72, by the time I would get around to even starting this bike - after I have finished the 3 early cammy Velos that I am currently working on plus 2 very early Model K Velocettes that I haven't yet started I would be around 80. I don't want to sound defeatist but what the hell does an 80 year-old do with a racing Velo capable of 125 mph down the Sulby straight?
Anyway, there is a complete race engine
a Velocette Thruxton
and many other parts. Full details HERE.
During the last couple of years I have posted quite a lot of information and to aid navigation the "Labels" section on the right side of this page lists the various projects.
The labels marked "INDEX" give a link to a page that provides a complete list and links to all of the separate sub-projects related to that main project.
Alternatively, scroll down this page and see what's here...
When I started this blog I
already owned (and still own) a 500cc AJS R10
that I've been riding for many years and wanted an early 350cc bike. I bought one at a Bonhams auction; this is what I brought home....
....a bit of work was needed to bring it to back to life
Full details of the restoration can be found here.
During the restoration of the K7 I figured that I could put an early overhead camshaft Velocette cylinder, cylinder head and cambox onto the crankcases of an AJS 350cc engine from 1931, convert it to chain-driven OHC and make an engine that looks like a K7 but has a Velocette top-end. I had a 1928 350cc AJS sidevalve that I had bought on eBay and used that to create the AJcette ....giving credit to both manufacturers.
It looks pretty similar to the K7 and to demonstrate that there really are 2 bikes, here they are both together.
Details of the AJcette project can be found here.
I have quite a lot of early Mk1 OHC Velocette parts and after completing the AJcette I decided to use some of these to make a replica of a one-off bike that AJS built in 1929/1930 for an attempt on the world speed record. The original is a huge V-Twin beast that started out with a naturally-aspirated engine but, having failed to gain the record, was supercharged ...and again failed. The bike ended up in Tasmania for many years and, after being repatriated to the UK and restored, it is now in the National Motorcycle Museum.
This is what the original looked like:
and this is my recreation.
Like the AJcette, the V-Twin uses Mk 1 OHC Velocette cylinder components. The full story of how this bike was built can be found in the links here.
There is also a 14 minute edited Youtube summary of how these bikes came about here and a longer unedited version here.
In January 2022 I started the restoration of a 1933 AJS Trophy Model
and I have just completed (March 2023) this bike:
The Index Page for this project can be found here.
I also reported on a couple of my other projects ....vintage OHV Nortons
and putting a Marshall supercharger onto my 1934 MG PA
I hope you find something of interest.
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