Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

Hi all , it's been while . What have I been up too? Well caring for the wife . Which is a job in its slef, build a new workshop I'm the garden . while i was waiting for parts for the kh . I thought what to do nex? I always fancied a vch . Finding one is a real problem so I thought I would build my own . Unfortunately alot of the vch only parts are not available
No problem I just made them from scratch this is how far I have got .

That's a tasty looking machine already Lee! Very satisfying making bits yourself isn't it.

Thanks Simon , and yes it is indeed making your own parts .

Lee - welcome back - glad you're managing to find some time for bike-building!
(There's a small pile of VCH articles in the Knowledgebase, mainly put together by Ralf Arvidsson. Unfortunately we've lost one of his photos and I think some of the last ones have got mixed up - if I knew what they were supposed to be I'd try and sort them out....)

SG

Looks great Lee!

Thanks Simon, and Paul hope you both have been keeping well . Yes life has changed for me somewhat , but still trying to do some fun stuff .

Looks good Lee, nice shed to work in as well. My VCH was shipped to Australia with a rigid frame but for road racing someone switched to a 1951 VH plunger frame. Because mine had light alloy guards I had to get steel guards and fettle them to fit so I could fit rear taillight also had to make ears for front forks for a headlight. Things you have to do to get classic rego here, even needed a clutch cover and chain guard what next... yes a horn. Never had a problem with anyone hearing me at 8000 rpm and a tuned length megaphone,, the smell of Castrol R was also a giveaway the a motor cycle was coming up behind you!
I had my oil line coming out of the timing chest and running straight up to the rocker cover, I tried to make it look like other peoples by running top end oil flow from a "T" on the oil return to the tank (I note we have the same oil tank) but reverted to how it was originally. It appears in the period between 1951 and 1952 their were many iterations of the VCH some with single lobe cams some with double as an example.
So I would say many of the factory VCHs were made up from bits and bobs rather than a factory design blueprints. Mine was even fitted with early model polished steel crank wheels rather than the Red Hunter cast ones.

Lee
Yes looking very good. And it looks like you have got the front mudguard stays correct. Not many people would know about the extended front mudguard stay on the VCH. It was apparently meant as a handle to help drag the bike through difficult areas..
Brian.
In 1950 all Red Hunters had polished steel flywheels. Only the deluxe models used cast iron. A little bit more information on your bike might be nice, perhaps in another thread. In particular do you know who the dealer was who sold your bike originally. Was it Davies Brothers in Lakemba or was M J Shanks an owner at any stage.
David

Thank you brain and David,
I did a lot lot of reading on vch's , the earlier version 49 to 51 you could basically order it pretty much how you like. Some built with the vch short frame , road frames and even wng and plunger frames . Where the 52 to 53 version far less were built with different frames . As I had a ba box and c section alloy guards . And the 49/50 front forks , made sense to do an earlier version. The ribbed alloy guards of the 52 / 53 versions are not available anywhere anyway .

All the stays were made by myself and the seat . I brought the rubber cover but couldn't get a frame for the dunlop rubber cover . So just made one . The chain guard is also home made .

The engine is a 52 so no round barrel vch engine I'm afraid. The idea is to built it to look as near as possible to a real one. But obviously with a later engine .

I must admit it's been fun making the bits . And should be a fun bike to use when done .

Lee

Lee here is a shot of my 52 VCH TR117 don't treat it as correct for the year and model it needed to be cleaned up as I was just testing the 386 monobloc I fitted in place of the Amal TT10, there were only a few of these shipped to Australia so it has been very difficult to find parts or even samples to measure up so most parts I had to make up from photos (mine is the only one on the Australian Ariel Register of bikes). The bike was converted to a road racer before I got it back in the 70s and it had a Manx knock-off seat, rear-sets with gearchange and brake levers, no kickstarter or valve lifter. (bump start only for road racing the very high compression ratio would brake your leg) also only a tacho (luckily they also gave me the original timing cover.) The speedo is a newer Indian one with the correct thread for a standard Ariel speedo cable however because the cable is not offset from the centre like the Smiths original I had to 3D print a 3/4" bezel to allow the cable to clear the headlight shell. I also had to source a Ariel front wheel and lower fork legs as it had a larger later model BSA wheel brake drum. (I only found out when the axle I ordered from Drags was completely different. The bike was shipped with a short wheelbase OA frame and was converted to SA plunger for racing, so I could never get back to original anyway.