Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

The forks with the alloy top yoke with the speedo. Does have spacers, seven inch headlights were fitted with theses. And a different lever is fitted to the switch that makes it easier to turn the lights on with that top yoke. As you can see from the photo.

I think it's the same lever, just reversed. Definitely harder to reach. Nev

Thanks, that makes it clear I will see if I can exchange the 61/2 for a 7" looks like the spacers are about 3/4" wide, I think there is room to reverse the switch.

Just the lever. The switch can be left as it is ( not even removed). The spacers at the side depend on the top fork fitting. I swapped mine and needed no spacers with the 50 model headlight ( No parking light. beneath) Trials bikes tend to run small headlights and look the better for it (in my opinion). Nev

The information I have says a longer lever was fitted with the speedo mount yoke. Yes put in on backwards, of course you can fit a smaller headlight if you want but the spacers will have to be made to suit your needs.

Some time has passed and after 43 years I took the VCH (on club plates) for its first run. Just around the block, quite a few small things to fix.. Full throttle it goes real well 386 1 5/32' with 380 main, 3.5 cutaway, 30 pilot, 3rd notch on needle and 106 needle jet, it flutters quit a bit till it gets towards full throttle then it grabs the bit. When starting more than the smallest bit of throttle and it spits at you. Have changed to a 25 pilot, 3 cutaway and will lift the needle hope this improves, the plug colour looks ok.

Interesting note, I recently saw a comment on a 1951 VCH for sale but the MOT showed VH500, when I tried to register mine they said there was no choice for VCH and it would have to go to head office for consideration so I convinced them it was a subset of the VH so it will appear on future records a VH500. I imagine that with only a small number of VCH's imported to Australia not enough for them to add the classification when records became digital, also not sure if mine was ever registered as was mainly trials and short circut. When I brought it from a speedway guy in the early 70's he said he had it as a project.

Lights were an option, but rare. I converted mine to fully register it in the early 70's. When I purchased mine no one knew what it was. The engine had core shift evident in the head casting and I thought it looked home made or a prototype. Luckily I decided (against advice) to put it back from what I had and luckily an "original (but then poor condition) bike was saved. The head cylinder and cases are "Electron" ( Magnesium alloy) and can corrode a lot if not protected. This applies only to the earlier "Roundbase' cases not the later models that are the same as the alloy VH/ VHA . Nev

Brian
I am not surprised that NSW RMS does not recognise a VCH. There are numerous glitches in our RMS registration data for older vehicles. When I went to register my 1956 4G mk2 square four the paperwork came up as ‘year 1956’ and ‘model 1956’. When I advised the customer service officer that was wrong, she advised that was all that the system had for a 1956 1000cc Ariel, and she turned the computer screen to show me. So I just accepted it and walked out. However I subsequently found that for 1957 the model 4G mk2 is recognised by the system. So it appears that someone enters something wrong, or fails to enter a model and then the system cannot be changed. But that was not the only error. On my initial historic vehicle registration, I was given a green lettered tractor/implement plate. I did not know any better, put it on the bike and about 2 weeks later went for my first club run. Numerous people there asked why I had the wrong number plates. Everyone else had purple lettered plates. One person advised I had tractor plates. So a couple of days later I went back to our RMS office with the plate and advised what I had just been told. The lady advised just as well that I brought it back promptly. She said that paperwork in that office was kept for 6 weeks in case there was a mistake. If the paperwork had been forwarded to head office and finalised in the system, then it would have been almost impossible to rectify the problem. I think she was thankful it could be corrected in house.
David