Everything has to be right for the timing

So the new plug was in, and sure, she was trying to fire but she just wouldn't run.
I gingerly (i didnt want to strip any threads again) tightened things down in the attempt to ensure that there was no air leakage in or out of the barrel (weak fuel mix / low compression) but to no avail.
I checked the contact breaker points gap, and investigated the advance/retard timing.  A fellow Manurhin owner and regular rider (so therefore knows what he is talking about) had told me that the easiest thing to do was to rotate the stator plate hard to the left (anti-clockwise) - no timing adjustment required "it works for all versions" - but it wasnt working for me - so I spent a long time finely adjusting the timing - bearing in mind that each adjustment required the starter mechanism to be removed and refitted - it was all very boring - and nothing was helping my engine to run correctly.

Eventually I reasoned that my condenser was knackered, and having the spare engine from the old black donor Manurhin, I looked into exchanging the condensers (and perhaps the stator and flywheel)
I should have guessed..... it was never going to be that easy!

My flywheel on left,   donor bike flywheel on right

It turns out that I have 2 manurhin engines of different designs.  Which, while didn't help me resolve my problem, was interesting to discover and learn about.  I don't know for sure yet, but I think I am looking at the difference between what the spares manuals call "Polygone coupling - cone 1.75" and Polygone coupling cone BNA 15%" This has always baffled me - The exploded parts diagram shows the crankshaft with 2 part numbers and these two descriptions.  I need to strip the latest engine to investigate further but for now the 2 first obvious differences are 1. my engine has a pin dowl to position the flywheel on the crankshaft while the other engine has a woodruff key, and 2.  My engine has a far smaller diameter crankshaft than the other - which means I couldn't swap the flywheels even if I wanted to without swapping the crankshafts too.  This investigation; to be perused one day when my scooter is on the road and my bench is clear.

More importantly though, as I removed my flywheel from the shaft I found, to my horror, that the pathetic alignment dowl (that i had had machined especially) had sheered!
When had it sheered?... and then I started to wonder...... if the flywheel was out of alignment due to a sheered pin then maybe this is why the engine wasn't running correctly?
I wondered how the pin could have sheered - granted it is a pathetically thin pin - 2mm dia - and I had only used silver-steel for the pin (preferring this to be damaged if anything was going to be damaged - So actually this was a perfectly designed fail!) - but I wondered if I had tightened the flywheel onto the tapered shaft enough? The trouble with 'experimental' rebuilds (as opposed to a known rebuild) is you are always fitting and removing so sometimes don't do a proper tighten-up of nuts...... had I let the flywheel run loose?
Whatever the reason for the fail, I was motivated again to see if this was the simple solution to my running problem.  A quick drill out of the sheered pin, another pin made up, some careful refitting and lots of tightening, and....... bugger me, she started and ran like a dream!
I've said it before, and I'll say it again...... I am a nobhead! ;-)

Kids, do as I say, not as I do

Been trying to get my engine running.  The bike is all set up on the bench with my new 'prototype' electrical loom in place.  I've replaced the head that I stripped (grrr :-( and I've lashed up a gravity fed fuel supply from an old baked-bean can - So why isn't she starting properly?

DKW workshop manual - note someones penciled reference

a little historical time line of all my sparkplugs

Well first up, Ive been a bit concerned about my spark plug after seeing that it doesn't seem to be long enough to reach well into the firing chamber (should it?)  I looked back at my emails to The Green Spark Plug Company who I first turned to for advice for a new sparkplug.  They were very helpful especially as they didn't know the bike and I had very limited information to offer them.  At the time (remember this was way before I had access to manuals, handbooks, and fellow Manurhin owners) the only thing I had to go on was the old spark plug in the engine.  I ASSUMED that this was an original specification [you wouldn't think that I made my living out of helping people to overcome their assumptions would you?].  Now with the benefit of workshop manuals, my assumption was in doubt

The DKW Hobby workshop manual (that I now have) suggests either BOSCH W225T1, or BERU 225/14u2 (and in the copy of the manual I have, someone has penciled CHAMPION L85 and BOSCH W5AC as well)  And just to make the whole picture even more mud-like, My scooter was fitted with an AC 44-5, and the old black manurhin that I acquired has an NGK B6HS

All this additional data is of course a good thing, but it did have me pulling my hair out for some time (interestingly, none of the owner handbooks give a sparkplug reference - though they do state an electrode gap)  Fortunately the Green Spark Plug Co have a very good comparison table on their website and so with a bit of detective work I got to a point where it dawned on me that I have been trying to run the scooter with the wrong spark plug type (it should be a 12.7mm reach and not a 9.5mm reach)  I had foolishly ASSUMED that the plug in the bike as I had bought it was of correct spec! Will I ever learn?

For sake of completion on this topic - I have now fitted an NGKB7H-S

Crisis of confidence

I've been having a crisis of confidence recently at work.  I am worried that I am losing my touch, and I am seeing people coming on line who are bigger, better and brighter than I am - I'm not so sure I can cut it for much longer.  This can make me feel a bit low sometimes, but I can usually brighten myself up with the comfort that actually I am quite good with a spanner.  Sometimes I can feel quite proud of the progress I make with projects in the garage.......  Well that was until today :-(

After spending a good hour yesterday trying to fit my new starter cable (£10 +£10 delivery from Greiner-Oldtimerteile :-(  and fettling a fastening device (that failed hopelessly) in the starter handle, I spent the rest of the day trying to start my engine.  She fires, but wont run.  Thats fine, its just a case of tuning everything to run in harmony.
I cant tell you how many times I had the carb and starter housing off.
The carb kept flooding.  I cleaned and cleaned the float valve (it always worked correctly on the bench!) until she seemed to hold the fuel in as designed.
And I kept checking and fine tuning the timing and points (which means taking the starter case off.... and putting it back on to start the thing to see if you've got it right) - its a slow old process.
She would fire ok (I had yards of spark) but I was getting some backfire now and then, and my plug was always soaking.  And after every firing (but not continuing to run) i felt like i was getting a smokey emission from places other than the end of the exhaust - was this simply oily surfaces burning off, or had I not tightened everything down enough?
I ended the day feeling a little disappointed at not having got her running, but hopeful for solving it tomorrow.
Tomorrow (thats today) came and sadly its been hopeless

I used to comfort myself that while I was feeling crap at my job, I was pretty good in the garage.  Today I realise I'm not good at that either :-(
I made a fatal error today.  A schoolboy error.  An error that I dont think I've ever made before.
So embarrassed am I with myself, I wondered wether to avoid reporting the story in this blog - I reasoned eventually that I am not trying to prove anything here so I have to add the 'moment' as part of the ongoing story (which is getting a bit boring now isnt it).

As I say, every now and then, when the engine fired I thought I saw a puff of exhaust smoke emerge from around the engine.  I tightened down the head nuts a little, and even put a little gun-gum around the exhaust pipe manifold.  I had had the spark plug in an out numerous times (to check the spark, clean the fuel sodden electrode and to air some of the wet out of the barrel) - and it was as I replaced the plug for the umpteenth time, that I felt that dreaded sensation of not-quite-tightening-down.  Bugger! (actually I think I said something far more appropriate for the moment) I had stripped the sodding head.
I have never stripped a cylinder head before, and I was well pissed off with myself that it should happen now.
On reflection, I have trying to work out why this happened.  I am sure I am not an absolute idiot, so why did this strip?  I never tighten a spark-plug harder than a 'nip', and this might well have been a reason for the exhaust leak that I was seeing (equally it might have contributed to poor compression and air-in leak), so I was certainly tightening the plug more than I had done previously - but even then it was only a 'hard-nip'.  The head was also pretty damaged in the first place - cooling fins smashed and pitted mating surfaces so it could be that the plug thread was not at its best anyway.  But the thing that really bothered me - and I hadn't noticed this before was that my spark-plug (which I believe is the correct spec, but I need to check now) only screwed in to about 66% of the head - ie the electrode was actually inside the threaded part of the head, and not the domed space, so there wasn't much thread to tighten up in the first place - is this how it was designed?  surely not.
Whatever the reason - it really got me down.
On the upside though, it would appear that I am having a crisis of confidence in EVERYTHING, and not just work! so maybe work isn't that bad after-all ;-)

I gave the day up as a 'rubbish day' - but not before I pulled out the engine that I have from that old black manurhin basket case that I and a friend bought for spares.  The head on that has been abused too, but at least it had a spark-plug thread - it might just get me out of trouble.
The picture here shows my original head with my new spark-plug along side the spare head with the spark-plug that was in it (I am not suggesting that this is the correct spec either). You can see my plug on the right does not come all the way into the head void as it does in the assembly on the left.

Time to go and investigate spark plugs (again) and see what is right.  However not before I go to a cocktail making class this evening - maybe this will be one thing in my day I can do well.  And if not...... I shall simply regain all confidence in myself by getting terribly drunk ;-)

Everything has stopped (well, it certainly cant start!)

Manurhin things seem to have slipped a little lately.  I've been away for work, I had a daughters 21st Birthday party to prepare for, and I went to a conference in Italy that ended with me on a 3 day drive back  over the Alps and through France in an old London taxi (but thats another story).
Actually, small things have been happening on my scooter whenever I can grab 10 minutes in the garage - but none of those things seem significant enough at the time to report on.

I am hoping to soon get back to the garage in earnest,  So heres a little summary of where I am at right now;

new cables

I reported a few blog posts ago that my brake and speedo cables were both too short.  Well, I decided in the end to just get new ones made.  Fortunately, I found the perfect cable company only an hours drive from me in the heart of Warwickshire farming country.  JJ Cables don't have a website (no, really, they dont!) so you have to do it the old fashioned way and phone them (01926 651470)..... but its worth the effort, they have a fantastic cable capability and make any cable to any spec - by comparison to most of the stuff they do, my cables were childs play.
Within the week - 4 cables (throttle, speedo, front & rear brake) - £40.  OK, so they might not be original stock, but they are all brand new, modern materials and made to fit my scooter :-)

I have also been working on the scooter electrical circuits.  This is taking far longer than I had imagined it would - I am a bit frustrated that I dont have the correct handle bar switches, but I can live with that.  I will report on the electrics when I have something more to say than 'why have i made this so much more complicated than it looks in the circuit diagrammes??'

I did manage to get to a position a couple of weeks ago where I had rigged up all the electrics and was in a position to test them - which meant starting the engine.  Because the scooter is on a bench in my garage, I decided that in order to prevent me dying of carbon-monoxide poisoning, I would rig up an extraction system that would pull exhaust fumes directly out from the exhaust pipe.  With the aid of several lengths of flexi ducting and bits of drainpipe, I created quite an impressive adaptation of an old shower extractor fan.  The engine seemed reluctant to fire up - and every time i did get a hope of a start, I found that the engine seemed to smoke profusely - i was a bit anxious (I certainly didnt want an engine fire in my garage).  It took me about an hour of nervous engine adjustments before I realised that I had installed my extractor fan in back to front!   Doh! so instead of sucking the exhaust fumes out of the engine - I was blowing them back in!  what an idiot.

So with the fan turned round I enthusiastically attempted to start the engine again....... and promptly pulled the starter cable right out of the starter mechanism (exactly as I had done when I first started the engine several months ago) - clearly, I am unable to fit a tight enough nipple to the end of the cable.  So I gave up for the day....... and this is how the bike has remained for the past 3 weeks - though I have ordered a properly nippled starter cable, and I do have plans to get back to the garage this weekend - so hopefully a little more progress to report in the forthcoming weeks

Lets do electrics.... maybe

I had planned to "Do the electrics" this weekend just gone.  How naive can a man be?
You don't just 'DO the electrics'.  You have to DO (at the same time) the switch brackets, the grommet selection, the engine fitting, the cable routing etc etc etc.   Its all a bit 'the-knee-bone-is-connected-to-the-thigh-bone-the-thigh-bone-is-connected-to-the...etc etc"

To make things even more difficult for myself;   1) I don't have an original loom to work from, 2) I don't have original handle bar switches, 3) I want to fit indicator lights.  And so I am inventing my own wiring diagram and loom

Within an hour of springing out of bed and boldly declaring that I was "going to DO the electrics today",  I was back at the vice making brackets to hold the rubber strips in place,  so I could fit the leg-shield,  so I could calculate the cable runs......

Sorting out the electrics is going to be a longer job than I'd anticipated!

The rubber side strips that get sandwiched between the leg-shield and the chassis are held in place with 6 metal clips.  Mine original ones were rusted beyond re-use, and so I made some new ones out of mild steel sheet.  Ideally I should have had them zinc-plated, but I can tell you now - even with the best will in the world, I suspect my metal brackets wont rust away in the time I get to ride this bike! (and besides Waxoyl is the wonder rust-preventer).

And then there was the bracket for the after-market footbrake switch that needed to be made and fitted.

The more astute Manurhin geek might notice my foolish mistake in this picture (I hope there is only one!)  When making up my new rubber mounting strips, I had assumed (I should never assume) that there was 2 transverse rubber strips.  One at the front, and one at the rear.  The fact that there wasn't a rear one on the bike when I stripped it didn't seem to register with me, and it wasn't until I was trying (and failing) to bolt the body-cowl hinge-plate down that I realised that there isn't supposed to be a rear rubber strip! Doh!

Sometimes only a large hammer can solve a problem

I've started to assemble body parts to the chassis.  Its all rather exciting..... and at the same time, terribly disappointing and frustrating.  Nothing seems to fit as I imagine it should!
I've never seen, let alone worked on, another Manurhin so I have no idea as to how well this bike was put together in the first place.  And on top of that I've had to source parts from various far-flung places that may or may not have been designed to fit together anyway.  And so there is a fair amount of 'fitting and fettling' that needs to be done in the assembly process.  Despite everything being powder-coated... (yes yes, I can hear the 'proper' engineers among us muttering that I should have done a 'body-in-white' assembly before powder-coating - lets not go over that again) ....it's amazing how much flex there is in the coating while gently persuading a panel to ease its shape over your knee.

However there comes a time when you realise that no matter how hard you try (or how hard your knee is) there is no way you are going to humanly reshape some bits.  My steering bump-stop being a case in point.

It wasn't until I had assembled the front forks onto the frame with the forks cowling that I realised that there was more turn to the right than there was to the left.  I measured it several times and started to wonder if there might have been some old and peculiar French motoring law designed to encourage motorcyclists to turn right more sharply (perhaps to get them off the main road quicker?)  But on closer inspection I discovered (and I really should have seen this before) that the flange bracing the frame and headstock - which also acts as the stamping for the frame number AND the steering bump-stop, was bent out of line!

How on earth could this have happened?  That is quite a hefty bit of metal to be bent so.  Surely if this had occurred as a result of an accident or some rough misuse, then wouldn't the forks / handlebars / wheel / frame also show signs of stress? I cant see any!

I had acknowledged the fact that a risk of painting too early might be having to damage paint later during fitting - now was the time to take a deep breath and accept it.  With the forks removed, armed with a 4lb club hammer and a hefty dolly, I whacked seven-bells out the flange and encouraged it back into a central position.  Paint damage was minimal, the turn equalised and I went to bed that night wishing once again that my bike could talk and tell me its story

rubber bits

There are a number of rubber bits on this bike; predominantly chassis, body, seat mountings (and an internal mud-flap) - and mine are all a bit tatty, so I decided to replace them with new.

As seems to be normal around here lately, the industrial rubber suppliers I used to know of (15 years ago) are either no longer in existence or gone all too-big-for-a-trade-counter.  But it wasn't long before Google linked me through to Central Rubber & Gaskets Ltd.  John at central rubber was great.  He had exactly what I needed and he cut it to size too (And he can diecut gaskets to order too.... which could be very useful to know about in future)

And while we are on the subject of Rubber, we have an interesting conversation going on at the moment on the Manurhin Scooter Interest Group member site.  The rear suspension on the Manurhin and DKW Hobby is nothing more than compression of a couple of 65mm diameter rubber blocks.  Mine appear to be in good condition..... but how would I know if they were as good as they were on the day they they were made?  How would anyone know if they had the same cushioning properties today as they had when they were designed?  Does rubber age-harden?
I'm looking forward to taking my scooter for a ride to see just how these rubber perform.  But if I don't like the ride quality..... What can I do about it?

Getting there!

All coming together.... almost

Its time to start assembling things.  All the parts are painted after-all so presumably its now just a case of bolting it all together right?  Well, almost.
Over the past few months I've been scouring the web for all the bits that were missing from my bike, and  I've been excited (and lucky?) to discover them from all sorts of places and sellers.  I have quite a large box now of 'parts'.  It all feels a bit Johnny Cash


However, now as I start to put bits together, Im discovering that things are not all as simple as I had hoped.  For instance;

From 4 different sources;

• one wheel,
• one set of forks,
• one speedo cable,
• one speedo drive

...... and guess what?  It doesn't all quite fit!

I'm not sure if its the speedo cable that is too short or if I've got the wrong style of speedo drive?





And then at the other end;




I've had not one, but two good-as-new spare rear brake cables in my parts box for months now, and a replacement rear wheel ready to go, but its only been this weekend when I've tried to marry them together..... and guess what?  it doesn't quite fit!

I have the old cable from my bike as a pattern so I can confirm that the lengths of my new cables are correct, and so are the ends, and I even thought the adjuster end was the same until, i went to screw it into the brake back plate.  It would appear that the thread on my new adjusters are finer than the thread on my original adjuster and the back plate - unfortunately the cables have soldered/crimped ends so I cant simply disassemble and swap the adjusters





So what have I learnt?  well, nothing really.  I've known for ages now that DKW and Manurhin clearly didn't have a master collaboration plan!  They were either extremely relaxed in their standards offices, or fabulously creative on the shop floor.  Either way, we can never assume that any part is compatible with another.

Body Paint

I like to live dangerously.  Some people might say I was a fool to get all my body bits painted before making a dry-fit assembly first.  But I am;

• Impatient
• Apt to lose motivation in a project if its not showing signs of progress
• Concerned that summer is on its way and I don't want to miss riding my Manurhin in the sunshine
• A true believer in "Done is better than perfect" - Scott Allen
• A true believer in "Relax, everything will work out OK"

And so a few weeks ago I focused my garage time on panel bashing, welding and grinding to get the body work good enough for powder-coating.  I make no apology for "Good Enough" being good enough for me.  That done, I sent all my body parts (sounds a bit Frankensteinish) to Redditch Shot Blasting - Not even knowing if it would all fit back together again once I'd spent lots of money on paint :-/

That was 4 weeks ago.  Today Dave the powder-coater phoned me to say the job would be complete this evening but he wanted to check with me about the quality of the finished job;

"Do you know that the surface of the parts you bought in is a bit wrinkly and pitted?  We can build up the powder in some areas to cover some marks, but some of the marks aren't going to be disguised by powder coating alone"  he said.

"Thats OK" I said, "I know its a bit tatty, but I don't want to spend time or money on making it perfect.  It's what you might call a 'three-foot bike' -  It'll look great from 3 feet away"

There was a pause at the other end of the phone "Well...... maybe a 10-foot bike" said Dave dryly

And so it was a little intrepidation that I drove over to collect my parts tonight.
I shouldn't have worried.  It all looked fabulous :-)  Yes there are wrinkles and dents (actually, far more than I thought there would be - there is nothing like a shiny surface for showing off what you couldn't feel with your hands...... maybe I should have taken my welding gloves off first ;-)

 So for £240 (plus that damn VAT) I now have all my bodywork ready to go.  In theory I could have this looking like a scooter relatively quickly - whether she runs like a scooter should is another question.

In the traditional way of all my projects, I proudly displayed the painted body parts around the house for my wife to admire.  She wasn't impressed.  Maybe its not her colour?

I'm trying to convince her that a Manurhin body cowl with a glass top would make a lovely coffee table...... she hasn't said 'No' :-)

Engine air-duct

A very obvious missing part from my engine is the air ducting that fits over the cylinder head and directs the cooling air flow blown by the magneto/flywheel.  Obvious as it is, not having it doesn't actually stop you from running the engine and so when I was working to get the engine started, I didn't really worry about it - and as I say, it didn't stop me from getting the engine fired up.

However, having seen the video of me running the engine, a fellow Manurhin owner, Francois, in France warned me that because of the poor cooling design of the engine, you should always run the engine with the "complete air-intake and starter casing", or else the engine can over heat and seize.

Since then, Ive been playing with the idea of either sourcing an original one or fabricating my own.  I've seen them come up now and again on eBay and Leboncoin.fr, but with an eye on my budget I decided that I'd make one to see me right until I was rich enough to buy an original one one-day.

So armed with 3 photos of an original duct, some cardboard, and a roll of masking tape I went about mocking up a pattern.  Generally speaking, its a pretty simple cone that bolts to the starter case;  pretty simple that is until you get to the shaping required to avoid fouling the carburetor.  It wasn't long before I was getting a bit frustrated with tight internal bends and I wondered if it might actually be a better idea to bite the bullet, spend some cash and buy the real thing.  So there and then, in the garage, I got onto eBay (what? you don't have wifi in your garage??) and found the chap selling a duct in Germany.  His was a little beaten up but at £20, not a bad price I thought.  I was just about to click to buy when I saw the message "Item does not ship to GB"!  What?  What's GB done to deserve this mean snub?

Well that was it - The challenge was on.  I would have a duct in spite of someone refusing to sell me one.

 A few hours later, I was the proud (?) owner of a good-enough air duct.  It should certainly see me good to start with, and with a quick powder-coat, shouldn't look too silly either

Oh Bugger - again

I am always on the lookout for Manurhin parts (there are a lot of missing parts that still need sourcing for my bike), and one way of doing this is by setting a global 'saved search' on eBay for 'Manurhin'.  Once I've filtered out all the hits for revolvers, CNC machines and meat processing machines, I sometimes get lucky and find an item or two of interest.
Sometimes I even see a complete Scooter come up for sale too.  And now and then they are actually in the UK!  But rarely (if ever) do you see a Manurhin Scooter come up for sale in the UK at a bargain price - So I was rather excited to see one come up at a starting price of £100.

The chance of such a bargain seemed to cloud my better judgement.  I didn't seem to pay much attention to the sellers clear description "Manurhin hobby scooter believed to be 1960 some parts missing engine runs fine body in fair condition no v5 requires some tlc" and nor did I look too closely at his 3 blurry photographs.  I was simply motivated by a bargain price [On reflection, I have realised that I can no longer moan at my wife for her ridiculous behaviour of buying shoes she doesn't need simply because they were 'such a good price']

To cut a long story short.  Bidding began on this Manurhin and a fellow Manurhin-renovating friend of mine suggested that we bid for it together as there might be bits we could both salvage off it.  Brilliant.  I started to bid with a vengeance. And we 'won'.  We were now the proud owners of "some parts missing... body in fair, condition no v5, requires some tlc" for the bargain price of £120.21
I was very excited (and I still hadn't looked at those blurry photos properly)

I took a van down to collect the Scooter.  I arrived in the dark.  The seller was a nice chap; Into scooters, and had come across this one as part of a trade-in (he had no history of this bike and was selling it now because he "wasn't into large scooter wheels" - in his mind scooters should all have Vespa like 10 inchers).  He was into stock-car racing and so had originally fancied it as a matt black slick thing - I wasn't concerned about the colour, but the external petrol tank modification seemed a bit odd.  As we loaded it into the back of the van, and I noticed that the wheels and handlebars weren't original, my heart began to sink.

Despite there being no starter mechanism, the seller claimed that he last started it with the aid of an electric power drill, and went on to inform me that if i ran with if fast enough I could bump start it! hmm!
There were still a couple of parts on this basket-case that I and my friend could still make use of, so I handed over the cash, and as the cheery seller waved me goodbye he (genuinely I think) claimed "You've got a lot for your money there mate!"  hmm!

So when I got home I parked the new addition to my garage up in the corner and tried to forget about it.  Mainly to forget my embarrassment for being so foolish in not either walking away from it, or negotiating a price more reflective of its worth.

A few weeks have passed now, and I don't feel so bad about myself and so I went and did a 'stock-take' of useful / valuable parts.  After my friend and I have taken the bits we both want, I think we are left with a little collection of eBayable bits that might just about claw back our 'investment';

• Aluminum footrests
• Leg-shield "Hobby" badge
• Huret speedo
• Frame and rear suspension
• Some body panels
• Floor rubbers
• A bunch of ancillaries (that sometimes come up individually on eBay at quite high prices)

So Ive learnt some interesting lessons out of this experience;

1. Irrational spending isn't just a 'shoe' thing
2. There is no such thing as a 'bargain'
3. One mans "Requires some TLC" is another mans "Sleepless nights"
4. People don't take blurry photos for no reason

But that all said;   It might have been a heap of crap, but I still felt amazingly excited to have another motorbike in the back of my van :-)

How to register an old scooter

My bike was found in a barn stripped of all its registration identification - a suspected victim of number-plate trading.  I should be thankful I suppose that the frame number and engine number still existed - I've heard of people grinding those off as well.
So how do I go about getting it verified as an original motorcycle and applicable for an age-related number-plate?

Old Bike Mart ("The autojumble in your armchair") has a fascinating column called "Unearthed" in which motor historian Mike Worthington-Williams helps readers research the origin of their strange and unusual rusty old motorbikes.  I emailed Mike a while back and asked if he might be able to help with the authentication of my scooter.  It took me a little while to get round to it, but in the end I collated 16 pages of 'evidence' that I could send to Mike that might help him verify that my scooter is indeed original and give it an official age.

Mike is the Chairman Emeritus of the Society of Automotive Historians in Britain (UK Chapter),  so I guess if anyone knows, Mike knows.  His service costs a very reasonable £30, and he can turn a response round in 24 hours!
And so last week I received from Mike an official (recognised by the DVLA) dating certificate for my Manurhin scooter.  I was rather pleased.  My scooter is now officially recognised as a 1958 model.

But now what?  How do I apply for a registration number?  Well Mikes service also includes a step by step guide to the application process.  In essence;
1.  Sign a V55/5 (Mike had filled this all in for me)
2.  Get the bike MOT'd and insured. [and this is the bit that surprised me - I can get the scooter MOT'd and insured by using the frame number as the VIN number]
3.  Fix an appointment with your local Vehicle Registration Office.  Take along all your documents, including the dating certificate, and they will issue an age-related registration number (for a fee of £55)

Sweet.  As simple as that.  So all ive got to to do is get the bike on the road and to an MOT center....... hmm not quite so simple.

Handlebars and chroming

It comes to something when your mind starts wander to the blingy bits.  Who would have thought 8 months ago when I took on this basket-case that I'd ever get round to thinking about chrome!

My handlebars are pretty tatty.  The chrome is long gone and at some time they've been painted with silver paint.  And now the rust is coming through.  Of all the bits on this bike, the handlebars probably need the least functional rework.  I could put them straight back on the bike as they are and they would work perfectly well as they were designed...... but something in me makes me think they need to look good too.
And so I went in search of a polisher and chromer.

20 years ago, I worked in a business that used a lot of polishers and chromers. There were at least 3 companies I used to work with that were within 5 miles of my house.  I set off to say hello to them again.  But I should have guessed; a lot of change has happened in Birmingham in the last 20 years, and the companies I used to know are no longer there.... not even the buildings!  In their place now are shops, apartments, and building developments for "the creative industry".  The face of Birmingham is changing rapidly.  Gone is the heavy industrial heritage, welcome the clean & tidy "creative industry"

And so I opened my search out a little wider and thankfully Dudley and the black-country are still hanging in there with their traditional industrial skills.
I phoned a couple of platers and without even seeing my handlebars they reckoned about 60 quid!  But someone suggested I go and see Castle Chromers (right close to the castle in Dudley).  From what I saw of their unit, they certainly looked like they knew what they were doing (lots of classic car parts around the place)
I showed them my handlebars (and I also had my headlamp bezel with me too).  Without hesitation, the response was £60.  I tried to bargain with them but no joy.  On reflection I suppose its about a right sort of price by the time you've paid a man for a couple of hours work - but sadly its well out of my budget - especially on a non essential job.  But before I left the fella at Castle Chrome said "why not just buy a new handlebar?"

"Ridiculous" I mumbled as I drove away.  "This handlebar is 60 years old.  You cant buy a new one".  As I drove home I happened to drive past Streetbike (not best know for its vintage parts).  I'm not sure why I stopped, but I did.  I felt a bit foolish walking in past all the superbikes and monster machines with my rusty 7/8" scooter handlebar.  I dropped it on their spare parts counter and they pointed me to a rack of anodized coloured bars - not really what I was looking for.  But then from behind the counter, one of the chaps bought out a chromed handle bar that looked remarkably like mine.  Pretty much the same angles and rise - just a couple of inches wider (which I rather like)...... and they were £25.  It was a no-brainer really.  I could keep my original bars for when I was rich enough to get them renovated, but in the meantime I could have some shiny bars for 25 quid.  As for the headlamp bezel, I can think on that for a while

building up the chassis

This weekend has been ear-marked in my diary for many weeks. Two days to myself with no interruptions (other than the occasional running of family here and there).  A good lump of time therefore to make significant progress.

This was the first time that I've had chance to look properly at the parts that I had powder-coated before Christmas - Unwrapping a newly powder-coated machine part is not a dissimilar experience to unpacking your new iPhone - it is a moment of excitement and wonder.  I unwrapped 3 parts; the main frame, the rear swinging arm and the front forks - and decided that I should put them all together.

Rebuilding the front forks is quite fiddly - theres a lot of springs going on in there and I had to resort to a sash cramp to hold things in place while I screwed the end-stops into the fork tubes.
Fitting the rear swing arm and rubber suspension bumpers to the frame was pretty simple and non-eventful.
Fitting the front forks to the frame however was more hassle than I expected.  First of all, the manual refers to all sorts of "compensation washers" in the assembly that I simply didnt have in the original parts that I had.  Was this because they were never fitted in the first place or because someone had incorrectly serviced the bike in the past?  I could only reassemble with the bits I had to hand but I tried to understand the logic of the assembly and be content with the way I was putting it all back together.
Holding loose ball-bearings together while assembling forks is always tricky but packing them into a good bed of grease helps - I also used a bungey-cord to hold the fork assembly in place while I fitted the top bearing nut.  And talking of that top nut - why was it SO tight to screw down?  I had it on and off many times to investigate why it felt so tight - it wasn't cross-threaded, and there was no thread damage or contamination - it was just bloody tight!


All in all a satisfying weekend with a real sense of progress

Servicing the Wheels

I had thought initially that my new wheels were is such great condition (well they are by comparison to the wheels that came with my bike) that I would simply put them on the scooter as-is in order to get the machine up and running (and then overhaul them at a later date).  However on closer inspection a couple of bearings were shot and so i decided to replace them all.  All 5 bearings! 2 on the front wheel and 3 on the back (despite the fact that the spares manual only actually identifies 2 of them - it does illustrate 3)

As an aside here I was surprised / appalled to see that someone somewhere sometime had had need to whack (a lot) the rear wheel hub with a hammer.  I wonder why?    This meant that the lip of the bearing housing was damaged and I had to file and linish the lip out in order to create a clear exit for the bearing.

As always, removing the bearings wasn't as easy as I'd hoped.  I had no cross-section drawing of the wheel hubs, so I wasn't quite sure what it was that held them in the right location other than a number of "interior" and "exterior" "stays" (overly complicated machined spacer tubes).  It turns out that each bearing is pressed home to a lip, so driving the bearing through to extract it is not an option.  I turned to google to ask "How to extract a bearing from a blind hole" and I wasn't keen on either of the three most common suggestions;
1.  Weld a bead to the race
2.  Force it out with hydraulic pressure of a grease gun
3.  Buy a blind hole bearing puller
So in the end I thought I'd see if I could pull them out with a Rawl-Bolt.  And with a little bit of heat here and there, I was delighted to find that the bearings came out without any fuss at all.

I bought new bearings for about £3 a piece.  I opted for shielded (zz) bearings as some of the extracted ones were shielded one-side and there are no grease points down there in that quite harsh environment of splashing puddles and road grit

And so on to fitting the new bearings.
I am a big fan of freezing bearings to contract them before fitting so an overnight stay next to the frozen peas and oven chips was in order.
A little propane gas on the hubs to give them a little expansion and the bearings just dropped home (encouraged with a hammer) - simple

I was a little worried still about the state of some of the spokes - some of them appeared very loose and had certainly suffered at the hand of whoever it was that had beaten the rear hub with a hammer.  It crossed my mind a number of times to maybe bite the bullet and get the wheels in for a professional overhaul, paint and re-spoke.  However, when I inspected the spokes a little closer, it appeared that they were serviceable and I could simply tighten the loose spokes - I even attempted to 'tune' them to the same tension - I'm not sure I've done a perfect job, but I think I've done a good enough job in order to get the bike rolling (and maybe even MOT'd)

Is this home?

I've been saving this little bit of the story for a while - just in case it came to a complete conclusion.  It hasn't yet, but it still might.  However, even without a full conclusion (yet) I think it is still a story worth telling.

I've always been a bit miffed that I have no historical documentation or information for my scooter, but on the other hand I have rather enjoyed the process of trying to uncover the facts about my bike.  Initially I thought I might find a good lead through the still existing Manurhin Manufacturing organisation in France, but they so far have refused to answer any email I send them (surely there must be someone there who remembers 'Le bon vieux temps')  And I thought I might have found a little enthusiasm from a company with a proud historical pedigree like FN Midhurst whose forefathers were once UK concessionaires for Manurhin Scooters, but alas once again, not even an acknowledgement from them.
And so I started to lose hope in finding people who might be interested in a little historical probing.  Until that is, I started to look at repairing my seat pans.

Right from the beginning I was keen to see if I could get the engine up and running, and while I was working on this I stored all the body bits out of the way at the back of my shed.  Once the engine was running I started to turn my attention to other bits (Im not sure why the seat pans were important at this stage), and it wasn't until I dragged the leg-shield out of the dark that I noticed a little decal on the inside that for some reason I hadn't consciously seen when I was taking the bike apart

This looked to me to be perhaps a sticker placed on the bike by either a service mechanic or even a dealer.  Its Scottish address seemed to concur with my understanding of where the barn was that the scooter was discovered in by the chap I bought it from.

I wondered if Google might turn up anything on Doug Murray - and blow me! it did! :-)
I sent a speculative email to Murrays Motorcycles and had an immediate reply from Mr Gordon Murray




".......You have got the correct family but one generation on.   My dad is Doug Murray but he closed his motorcycle business in 1967 and went into selling cars.  Going by the address he must have sold that [my scooter] new or nearly new as he moved out of Hawkhill in 1962.   He is 83 now........ "

Over the course of a few emails, Gordon went on to explain that he was still in touch with the shop forman and he thought that the old shop sales ledgers still existed somewhere.  I was very excited.  I wondered if chassis numbers might have been recorded, in which case I could trace my scooter.
Sadly Gordon hasn't been able to find these ledgers (yet) but he sounded very interested to help so I still keep my fingers crossed.
In the meantime, Gordon sent me a photo of his dads shop in its day, along with a little bit of historical context;

Note the Vespa and the Scootacar (which still exists in Dundee!)

"......There were 2 main motorcycle shops in Dundee in the 50's and 60's.  Doug Murrays was the 2nd largest.   George MacLeans was the biggest and sold Triumph,Norton,BSA etc etc.   My dads shop had the 1st Honda & Yamaha franchise in Scotland.   There were also a couple of smaller workshops.  He was also the 1st Toyota/Daihatsu/Skoda car dealership in Scotland.  People say he was ahead of his time as these were unheard of makes at that time.   I remember that the Toyotas and Daihatsus had radios as standard which was not the norm.   The picture of the shop was taken sometime between '56 and '62 but I am not sure exactly when.    My dad always was one for the 'unusual'...... "

"Unusual"?  This convinces me more than ever that this is where my Manurhin was originally sold..... Now if only I could reach out and find the young Scottish laddie who bought it!