Thank you Michael. Watching you is like sitting in the garage with my dad fixing cars and bikes before he passed away. Thank you for the brilliant videos and beautiful memories. Martin
Hello Michael. Following this with considerable nostalgia as once upon a time 55 years ago when a teenager I owned an example of this very model of C 15. I retain a fondness for the BSA/Triumph unit singles, having also once had a Triumph T 20 S. A book I would recommend to anyone with an interest in them is 'The Rupert Ratio Unit Single Engine Manual', ISBN 0 9535098-1-8 on my copy. It covers the entire range of BSA unit singles from the C 15 to the B 50 and is full of useful help and information. Should have watched to the end before commenting LOL :))
Yeah, me too. I pressed apart a good number of Japanese two stroke cranks and had a similar set up. The springiness in the blocking and in the press fittings always add up to it letting go all at once. I was using a jack with 12 ton capacity and the press looked very similar to Michael's - hardest crank I serviced to press apart was a large bore Maico mx bike, it was scary with all that pressure.
The worst one I have done was a Matchless 500, that was one hell of a bang. Then a chap who raced the 500s in the sixties said to set the crank up as normal, put a suitable piece of round bar on the crankpin and give it one hell of a belt with a big hammer. He said the jolt knocks them out a lot easier than the steady pressure of a press.
Mike, there I was sitting overlooking a well known stretch of water, glass of the foaming Brown in one hand and a Savaloy Dip with extra Pease Pudding in the other when it came to me in a flash “image”. You have tried the foaming Brown, the clean shaven and bearded looks, the cap, the coat and the dog. What you need is a small tattoo on the web of your left hand. How about? A small primate, standing on a raised platform. Whilst wearing a Tricorn hat, red trousers a blue coat and a strategically placed piece of sisal. Just a thought keep up the good work. Andy & Flo
I remember seeing Allen Millyard in one of his "how it's made" videos put a crank in the barbeque before pressing out the pins. Thanks Michael for your great videos. I really look forward to them. Cheers.
I am not sure about hww effective that would be as the steel of the flywheels and the crankpin would have very similar coefficients of expansion. Heating is normally only of use with dissimilar metals. Having said that as everything else that Allen Millyard does is brilliant it is worth thinking about.
Great video Mike... but wonder if you could have mentioned or briefly stated the size of socket / spanner size each time so we know which tool to pick up rather than trying for size every time, Thank you ;-) Love how you compare also to the later C15F and G and B25 engines, great that you giving us your knowledge. Cheers
Fantastic information from yourself and the crowd. I have a B25 with a C15 engine that is my project for next year. Going to do something similar. I will be coming back to this series many times I can see.
Michael, I went for a bit of a walk this afternoon and as I passed the local petrol station the only vehicles on the forecourt were two 250cc old BSA singles, one of them even had the German Hand-Grenade style distributor, both of them ridden by older gentlemen. Reminded me it was Sunday and your video would be here by tea time 👍
Old Mechanics trick from an old Mechanic - Ball a bit of rag up under the Intake or Exhaust valve, put a socket ( I use a spark Plug socket with a magnet in the end) on the Valve Cap and give it a tap with the hammer - instantly disassembles the valve and the collets are caught by the magnet - cannot put it back together this way unfortunately ! Much quicker and easier than the Compressor and causes no damage. Paul.J.
Hi, Michael, your comment do they have to make these things to be an exact bloody fit, you will find the guy who designed it will never have to either install or remove one, If you had filmed it you would have been able to watch it and return it the same way. Ah well, I have no doubt it will go back. Great video, as usual, don't know how your subs haven't doubled as I regularly recommend people who want to learn to this channel on how to do engine work they think is a dark art or build a bike in general and it is if they don't know what they doing, the problems and pitfalls, the trick is to learn. I need to say the pullers you made and level of finish is second to none.
Thank you. With modern cars and bikes I know that they are designed to be easy to manufacture so complete lumps just get dropped into engine bays etc,, but you would have thought that in the 50s someone would have thought an extra 1/8" here and there would be a good idea.
Excellent video as always Michael. It would be good if you could take footage at your friends shop showing the crank being split and then the fix and pressing together and alighment 😁
Hi Michael - really enjoying this project as well as the channel as a whole. I built up a C15T myself in the dim and distant past so brings back a lot of memories. Good to see/hear mention of good references too such as Triumph in America by David Gaylin and also I think the book with the photos that you refer to is Don Morley's? I'm still a BSA nut but all mine are the '71 grey framers although I don't have a single (yet). Stay safe yourself and best wishes from Blighty.
The previous owner of my C15 who did a "complete engine rebuild" left a lot to be desired, finding the oil pump wouldn't go back in, he sawed a half inch off the pick up pipe, he used half a tube of orange silicone goo to bodge a piece of plastic tubing in too. I did ask him if he'd cleaned out the sludge trap in the crank and he nodded in agreement, but upon stripping it right out for TIG welding to outer case, I found the said trap was solid with black carbon, it took a four inch wood screw to get it started coming out, the very worst mess I've ever seen on any engine, the rear mounting lug was a mass of puffy white aluminium oxide, no metal there at all. You live and learn.
You are right to be cautious when the press break thru the stiction of the bearing and crank. It will scare the &^$#^& out of you and then your set up hits the floor when all that energy is released
Hi Michael, Great video and those pulled would be really useful Any chance of showing us all how the oil gets from the pump into the crank shaft and big end etc I believe there's a one way valve inside the right hand crank case that needs checking as well as the pump etc. Cheers really enjoy Sunday evening now. Regards Martin Walker.
Perhaps you heard us groaning and shouting at you to remove those two top crank-case nuts. I thought you were going to try splitting the cases with them in situ! Again, all very familiar from 50 years ago.. Thanks for sharing your workshop. Les in UK
Hi Michael, Alpha are still in business. Chris Williams of Autocycle Engineering took on the business and are refurbishing cranks to the usual standard.
Hi Michael, Another great video, They used to say "Where there's a Will there's a way" Well Will has been sacked it is now Where there's a Michael there's a way! after making that one off puller! great stuff. One question, would it be a good idea to mark the flywheels before parting them for balance when they go back together or is it not necessary? Also is that a sludge trap bolt in the edge of the flywheel. Cannot wait till next week, Take care Bud, Cheers Dave UK.
Michael, I couldn't help but get the impression that the drive for the oil pump is likely serviced out the bottom of the sump rather than be pushed out the top or is it the bushing that determines which way it will go? Just an observation. Looked like the cases had probably never been split before - nice work on the case puller, all Japanese machines I used to work on had similar factory supplied pullers, some even reverse puller devices for drawing them back together.
I was thinking of making the crankcase puller in two pieces. One to pull them apart, and another end that uses the crank nut to pull them together. I still might. The hole is sized for the tang on the bottom of the distributor worm drive to stick through to the pump. The drive has to come out of the top.
@@BritanniaMotorcycles Thanks. The reverse puller I used had a ball bearing in the load bearing connection to allow the threading to pull but not try twisting the stationary part on the crankshaft, if that makes sense.
Michael, do you think the clutch nut is the correct internal diameter and the correct threads per inch but the wrong thread profile, angle of the sides of the thread and shape of the corners?
@@BritanniaMotorcycles thought so, thank you. I passed my test on a C15 Sportsman in 1970, I got a C15 Star on eBay which I sold at a profit, now I own a Starfire which is my baby, an ongoing project. Take care friend.
Given free choice, would use a TR25 engine in the C15, or do you prefer the BSA unit ? Asking as many years ago a C15 was my first road legal bike, and it had the Triumph engine fitted prior to me buying it, for a whole £50 MOT and road tax included. Needless to say it wasn't very reliable, valve guide kept dropping out. Lol (nothing to do with me revving the nuts off it while trying to keep up modern (back then) 250's
Hah, good read. There's a video on YT of a test ride of a 1970 or so BSA 250 and the owner of it spoke of it having 25 horsepower. I had to think on that a bit - as a mechanic in a BSA/Suzuki/Kawasaki shop and a considerable back history with older 250s like Ducatis and Parillas, the latter claimed to be 26 h.p. and could do 100 mph, I winced a bit that the Beezer actually had the claimed 25 ponies. My experience wouldn't support that claim though I saw the BSA factory MX team racing their 250s at a race at Unadilla, N.Y. and they were certainly getting serious grunt out of those motors.