Sports twin exhaust

[modelman]

Looking at your pics, the assembly is identical to mine, I already have the pipes from Armours, that's how I know they don't fit!
Adrian is in the process of fabricating the modified setup for me.

[PeterSears]

I think I had the same pair of pipes and gave them back !!

[modelman]

Why did you send them back? Its the stand & footrest bracket that needs changing. The pipes are fine, ( they actually state for Villiers twin & NOT greeves twin. )

[modelman]

This was it when I bought it last year, supposedly restored, but the rust-pits had been over-painted leaving a 'dimpled' surface in places, the wiring was a mis-mash of old & new for electronic ignition resulting in loads of unused surplus wires, completely stripped, all smoothed off, re-painted in garden, I also made a new replacement footrest/centre stand assy fabricated to allow for higher-up twin exhaust fitting, & I also made a complete new wiring harness for electronic ign only,

[modelman]

This is as of this morning, both wheels stripped & hubs refurbished, all new S/S spokes, new alloy front rim to match existing rear, new front fender, I have yet to paint contrasting light-blue on tank, loads of new S/S fasteners.
Started stripping the engine, had to fabricate a lock-plate to strip the clutch basket, gearbox off, about to pull the crank anytime soon,

[John Wakefield]

Looks like a cracking restoration. Just one point (not nit picking) the engine plates should be silver, originally they would have be galvanised finish.

[modelman]

Yeh, I totally agree, but unfortunately, they were already painted, when I stripped them, they were badly metal-scored all over, cant imagine how or why, & would look bad if left unpainted, so I filled & painted them, maybe I could paint them silver!! Its not too late!!

[John Wakefield]

Or you could make some new ones out of stainless steel

[modelman]

Or you could make some new ones out of stainless steel

I COULD, but I wont!!

[modelman]

Well boys & girls, a few months have gone by during which I & my lovely wife caught covid, I was particularly bad with covid pneumonia & spent a couple of weeks in intensive care, somehow survived ( the only one on the ward to do so, then a couple of months with 'long covid' very unpleasant I can tell you. Once out, my wife was diagnosed with a level 4 brain tumor & within 6 weeks, it took her. Absolutely horrible, but there are hundreds of thousands of similar stories right now, so what to do?
Somehow managed to occupy my loneliness' & loss by losing myself in the workshop, & here is the bike now almost finished, just got to mask off the tank & spray the light blue top panel & gold stripe. my home-made footrest/frame assy fitted just fine, & I was a little concerned if it would work, but it was fine when the twin Armours pipes & silencers were fitted, pipes have a more curved sweep than the Greeves originals, but I like it.
Fitted the Villiers-Services electronic ign, but didn't like the idea of the kill switch supplied, 1 kick & its off & running, so I wired the kill through the original engine ign switch.
I like this bike a lot, thanks for the help.

[John Wakefield]

Sorry to hear about you and your wife's' health problems, have certainly been grim times. The bike looks a cracker, just one thing (and it may be the camera angle) the rear brake pedal looks a bit low, the exhaust pipes look a bit lower than the original set up and look to be restricting the height of the pedal

[whitehillbillies]

Looks amazing.
Great work.

whitehillbilly

[modelman]

John, the pipes ARE lower, that's the reason I had to fabricate the revised (higher) footrest frame, BUT, as you know, the brake pedal assy is mounted to the frame & is fitted during the frame rebuild & as such, not altered in any way, when the pipes were installed, they missed the pedal completely. The pedal is on its stop & still has a couple of mm gap between it & the pipe, the pedal is of course lower to the footrest as its now higher up, so its basically pedal the same, footrest higher if you get my drift.

One question, is there a knack or special order of refitting the engine?? Although I obviously removed it, simply by taking it apart bit by bit, I refitted it into the already built up & completed frame, but I did struggle a fair bit & ended up removing the barrels to give headroom, & chain case to get it over the sideplates, or did I get it wrong??
Thanks for comments.

[John Wakefield]

John, the pipes ARE lower, that's the reason I had to fabricate the revised (higher) footrest frame, BUT, as you know, the brake pedal assy is mounted to the frame & is fitted during the frame rebuild & as such, not altered in any way, when the pipes were installed, they missed the pedal completely. The pedal is on its stop & still has a couple of mm gap between it & the pipe, the pedal is of course lower to the footrest as its now higher up, so its basically pedal the same, footrest higher if you get my drift.

One question, is there a knack or special order of refitting the engine?? Although I obviously removed it, simply by taking it apart bit by bit, I refitted it into the already built up & completed frame, but I did struggle a fair bit & ended up removing the barrels to give headroom, & chain case to get it over the sideplates, or did I get it wrong??
Thanks for comments.

Cant answer the engine question as I have never removed / refitted a complete engine, but I would think it should go in OK in on piece, Greeves would not have dismantled engines to fit them. Did you fit the coils first, as they would reduce headroom?

[modelman]

Yeah, coils assy & tank removed, tilted back, heads fouled top tube before front lugs entered, tilted back, similar, but as you said, it MUST be easier than the way I did it.
I did wonder if the top tube/front beam & complete front end were off, then maybe the complete engine could be offered in from the front, but only during manufacture of course.
Id love to know how it should be done.