Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

This is the state the bike was in when I bought it, rusty as hell, covered in grease and oil, primary side missing, gearbox solid.

I had the day off today because we were having a new bed delivered this morning (why they will only deliver when you are trying to work to pay for said bed I don't know, but that's a different story!) so since I had it delivered and built by 11am, after walking this little devil I went down to Redditch Shotblasting via central wheel to collect some goodies

Redditch look to have done a fantastic job of powder coating most of the tinware on the bike, although with a consultation between myself, dad and Dave at Redditch, a few items have just had a Matt black coat of powder, because it is so badly pitted it will need filling and spraying, so I will wait until we have some better weather before I get on with that.

The Devon stainless rims look good, and it looks like the spokes are okay, but we will have to wait and see when I build the wheels, and I need to paint the centres first. Dawn has given me the green light to do the spraying for that in the greenhouse if we can get anywhere near warm and dry enough.

I remembered to make note of the offset and spoke patterns as well as taking a few photos to work from.

The frame looks great, here are some of the bits which need filling. This is not going to be as simple as I had hoped!

You did want a winter project, you've got one
Good luck with it, it will be a great bike, your dog made me laugh.
Steve

I have been masking up the wheel rims this evening, cut my hands to ribbons because central wheel have drilled the rims but haven't de-burred the holes, so I will have to spend some time doing that. Then I need to rub a good key in to the centres (might use the Dremel for that) a few coats of etch primer, damask red gold pinstripes and some clear lacquer.

Of course the masking would have been easier had a Labrador not chewed my fine lining tape, that did not make me laugh Steve!

I've been able to paint the rims, damask red rattle can available off the shelf in halfords, some etch primer on having roughed up with 400 grit first. I left all in the house where it is nice and warm, quickly sprayed outside and straight back in the house again. I'm quite happy with how it looks so far, need to do the gold lining and remove the remnants of the masking tape, which is way too tacky, I wouldn't recommend Harris masking tape!

I've also split the cases today and disassembled the cranks, looks like I'll need a regrind on the big ends. Main bearings look okay though.

See photos below, this is why you should always check and clean your sludge traps when you buy a bike, the sludge was pressed right up to the end of the cap on the crankshaft

I've painted the gold lines on the rims, fine lining tape and gold hammerite.

I can't decide whether I need to go over with clear lacquer or not, bearing in mind I will almost certainly chip some paint in building the wheels and need to touch up. Any thoughts?