Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

The original purpose of the "breather bracket" was to hold the spring clip which holds the right side front side stand mounted on the engine plates in place when not in use. As that stand is well nigh useless, a P clip for the exhaust or a bracket for the breather sounds a sensible idea.

I meant to include in my reply that the breather 'pipe bracket' is usually used to attache the 'P' clip to the frame.
The original legs were stamped from '40 ton steel'. No idea what the current spec is for that.

40 ton steel - like the sound of that!

It's not a breather bracket? Both my Ariels have high pipes so I don't know anything. What was used for the p-clamp on the other side when running twin low pipes?

Thank you for all the help and happy new year to all!

My 1946 Sq4 has the useless side stand fitted to the front engine plates and, as Paul mentioned, uses that bracket for the spring clip to retain the stand when not in use. A few inches ahead of that bracket is another different one which takes a square headed bolt to hold the P clip. On the left side of the bike is another of those square headed bolt brackets to hold the P clip for the other exhaust pipe. My 1950 NG has a marginally less useless side stand fitted under the clutch dome and Ariel dispensed with the square headed bolt bracket on the right of the bike and used the "breather bracket" to hold the P clip. Ariel still retained the square headed bolt bracket on the left of the bike to hold the other exhaust pipe (when I have a twin port head on the bike). I wonder if Ariel only fitted a left hand side bracket to those bikes with two exhaust pipes. I see that my 1951 VH, which I assume left the factory with a single exhaust port head, has no bracket on the left hand side.

In all, it's probably o.k. to state that Ariel was not at it's best when it came to sidestands:
The prewar one being on the wrong side.
The early fifties model you only had to look at to make it tip the bike. (always in the pub parking)
And the swingarmframe type could all to easely tear itself from the frametube.
Conclusion: The Iron Horse should be ridden, not parked.

They all had a left hand bracket for the 'P' clip, when they stopped making twin ports there were twins to make use of the bracket

40 ton steel - isn't that roughly equal to 620MPa (N/mm2). That should be appropriete for a side stand.
Vesa

My Nov 1936 built Square has the P clip bracket on each side but lacks the "breather pipe bracket" . As you see in the photo, this renders the flat spring for the side stand useless when fitted to the P clip bracket. But my bike left the factory with sidecar gearing so, when fitted with a sidecar would not have needed the side stand, spring or bracket for the spring. Did Ariel amend the bracket provision to suit the intended use of the bike? If they did, I assume it would only have been on the low production volume Squares.

Hi Paul, I wouldn't have thought so, not Ariel's style but one never knows.

Time for an update.

The forks had been twisted and bent in a crash. Bushing wear indicated the bike had been ridden quite a lot with the twisted forks - wow! New bushings opened to size with piloted reamer.
Surprisingly the pivot pins had only about 0.003" wear, except the top girder pivot. The check springs probably put extra load on it. Fortunately I had kept old pins from my other bikes and could turn one out of an worn lower pin. Cutting threads is a new skill for me. Middle is the new pin cut from an old pin like the bottom one. Squared up pins and side links: