My Velocette LE Story

 

An LE Story.

 

This article is in respose to a request for more information on the LE after I posted a short on Facebook. This was first posted in the LE magazine in 2006 and with a little editing for today.

 I thought I would dig out the “old project” that was conceived when I was at school and has undergone development ever since. The more or less completed project appeared at the Kempton Park Southern Classic bike show in 1994 and has been exhibited at the show most years since.

I think around 1968 or 69 that I did this drawing, thinking I may be able to get some extra ground clearance by having dry sump lubrication. The idea was to chain drive to an external dual pump from the very front of the crankshaft and an oil tank from a BSA C15 to hold it all. In the end I settled for a much easier option, but that is much later on in the story. I spent hours dreaming and designing and not really getting anywhere.  I had no money only grand designs. I finished school and went to work, earning some money, but having to work for exams there was still no time to build. Marriage and home meant changing priorities and not until around 1978 did I get started on the project. I did take a few photographs at the time and if you care to back to  an OTL’s (LE Club magazine) in 1979 you will find my story of a rebuild of 1954 MK 2  PHT 271, very smart in black livery. What has happened to the years? I am now writing something in 2006! I leave you to work out how long that is and believe it or not, Colin; our editor has been doing that job for just as long! I first met Colin on the Severnsider’s club runs in 1968.

 

In 1980 I moved jobs and relocated to Colchester. The late Jeff Tooze found me, as I had left him with an engine to work on. It did not take long to get the engine sorted but the modifications I wanted done to various bits to get the additional ground clearance required someone who had the expertise and the equipment to do it. I had a choice, either to be very radical and build all specialist parts or, use as many original parts as possible and modify accordingly. I decided in the end to use the basic LE parts and modify so that anyone who wanted to undertake a similar project could do most of it in their own garage with limited use of costly experts.  I went to night school and learned to weld and did an enormous amount myself over the next few years, until the lack of support for the metalwork course halted my progress. I made the lower frame cradle from a broken school chair and a couple of feet of conduit. It fitted together very well but did have its draw backs. The oil pipe from the pressure release valve casting was too close to the frame and I had to modify the piping and use a banjo instead! The thread is tapered and needed to be tightened with care. It had not taken long to sort out the rear suspension or modify the body and get it welded up. But the front forks kept me puzzling and it was not until I ran across someone from Cambridge University through the Harley club that the front fork issues was sorted.  By 1985 the body and every thing else needed to be painted so I did more night school in auto repair and very importantly had access to professional spray painting equipment including a hot air chamber. I had a compressor and a very old Bliss spray gun ( before it became Deville-Bliss) I could get paint and thinners from Brown Brothers and set about creating my own colours with, I suppose what might now be called a pearl finish. I used sliver as a base coat and then over coated with different blues for each finish. The blue was diluted out with clear lacquer so the gloss silver shone through. You could get a similar finish using metallic paint but it does not look quite the same. The blues I used were BMC Rivera Blue and Renault Navy ( all old stuff from my Dad to start with! )  Once everything was painted assembly was quite quick ( in comparison ) and  by 1988 the bike was running but not ready for the road. I had  lights, indicators, lots of little bits and charging to sort out 6 volts or 12. No contest!

More delays as I moved house and job in 1992 and not until 1994 did the bike get MOT’d , the morning before it was due at the Kempton Park bike show! It has been on the road ever since.

 

Let’s finish off the body work. The rear mudguard had 2 inches taken off the top to level it out and the fluted end removed. The front and rear mudguards are finished off with stainless steel bands.  The seat is a home made job and probably looks like it but parts like that were quite expensive in the late 80’s about £50 which is about what they cost now! The rear light housing I manufactured from stainless steel as is all the trim. The headlamp is Bates with a sealed beam unit ( the advantages of going 12 volt)  and the brackets were off the shelf, as are the mirrors and levers (M&P I think). Indicators off a Suzuki. The handlebar brackets were from a Yamaha (with home made spacers) as is the twist grip, ignition switch and switch gear. The gauges are TIM with binnacle. These are the bits you can see. In the tool box is a cigarette lighter, fuse box and solid state indicator relay. The horn sits in the middle of the radiator. A Citroen  2CV HT coil is under the tool box. Full wave rectification  is supplied by one from a Yamaha 250 with no voltage regulator to protect the battery. It’s hidden away near the battery.  Run with a 60watt headlamp from an 80 watt generator and why then do you need to drain any power away from the battery? Its only 5 amp hour!  The bike was completely rewired with extra earths. It needed them, there was so much paint on the body work no current was going to go through that. The horn is fitted in the space between the radiator cooling sections and I recently fitted a couple of computer fans to help keep the temperature down. They do stop over heating when ticking over in traffic for long periods. This was done by just threading through the fins of the radiator with some 3mm studding and just to make sure when you tighten the nuts it does not pull through some little square of aluminium as washers.

There are more bits you can’t see, like the lightened flywheel, which is about  a pound lighter, the camshaft is advanced  one tooth and the ports have been enlarged and polished also the valve guides have been shortened to give an open a port as possible. The heads have been polished, but if you took them off you would never know and just a tip to help seal the head gasket the stud holes have been drilled out to 7mm. This means the heads will not corrode on the studs and will remain easily removable but also if you happen to over tighten the head nuts and pull the metal of the barrel up in the area of the stud, the metal has somewhere to go and a good seal on the head remains. A Del’Orto carburettor had been fitted in the last few years and has made a big difference to the performance.  I have fitted 2CV points and a cheapo condenser. The charging circuit has been modified so that each charging coil has an individual feed to the rectifier to squeeze as much power out as possible. There is a wiring diagram about somewhere for those who want to give it a go.

A few more interesting bits like the heal and toe gear change that had to be fitted inwards instead of outwards because of my positioning of the engine cradle and consequently the exhaust box had a big chunk carved out of it. You make one change and that sets a whole load of thought processes going to get around the problem created by an idea! The heal and toe gear change started as original and I added a suitable toe pad  to a 10mm bar, that was the easy part, making up the loop that went under the frame cradle required a bit of trial and error before getting it right. On the exhaust side I added in a big tail pipe to have a distinctive exhaust note. The rear brake pedal is original LE but modified quite a lot to get in the right position. In the end I decided not to have a centre stand and elected for a side stand only. This curly-wurley thing was all I could get at the time off the shelf. Choosing a side stand only does have its draw backs and I think I should have stuck with a centre stand. Wait for the next special for that one! A folding kick start started life as a standard one and a folding pedal part was welded on.

Back to the fork legs, as I think most people know, much is soldered on the LE and the fork lugs are no exception. Adding 2 inches more length by just moving all the lugs down as far as possible needs a little extra support. The diagram gives the basic idea. I have tried this 2 ways, the first time by welding it all together and doesn’t leave a smooth surface and the second time ( current project ) using silver solder that will have run into all the gaps. It is not difficult to reposition the brake back plate lug and to be similarly silver soldered. The rear suspension is extended by using simple spacers. The handling is as you would expect from an LE, rock stable and very manoeuvrable. In the standard format it is very easy to ground the foot boards. The increased ground clearance and high position foot pegs mean you can really test the cornering ability. I have not found the limit yet!

I have tried a number of things on this special some have worked really well, others are passable, but overall the package does work and has provided me with an interesting motorcycle that always is a talking point.