The KHA restoration starts (slowly)

[paul.jameson]

Having gathered most of the bits for the bike, I am tentatively beginning to restore my KHA. Doing a very rough dummy assembly today, I found one big error in the parts, as should be visible in the photos. In the top two photos you might be able to make out the special main plunger spindles for the oil damped frame. Naturally, they need mending with new ones!

[SimonFletcher]

Looking forward to following this. I'm assuming the master plan is to build up a collection of blue Ariels?

[Roger Gwynn]

Rear mudguard, I claim my £10

[dave.owen]

Paul, have you another girder fork project in the background behind the sq4


Dave

[Vincent.vanGinneke]

lower yoke from early postwar ?

[paul.jameson]

Vincent is correct - I had put in place (fitted is too strong a word for a couple of cable ties) the wrong lower fork yoke. I do have a correct one so the 46-48 yoke is available should anyone need one.
Roger - the mudguard is probably correct for the year, but so distorted and out of shape due to botched repairs there is no way it can be used again.
Dave - Yes, its my 1935 built, 1936 model year LG 250 which the previous owner had as a project from 1977 until his death about 18 months ago. It came with a good stock of spares including 6 pistons plus the original one and the one in the spare engine, not to mention another spare cylinder and two NOS cylinder liners!

[Vincent.vanGinneke]

Hurray! Roger is going to buy me 10 GBP worth of beer, ehhhhh was that the deal ??

[Roger Gwynn]

I thought I noticed the saddle bridge going under the mudgaurd in one of your photos, making it a rigid one. I thought that the forks just showed sloppy assembly, I should have known better from that stable. Vincent, don't I already owe a beer or was it the other way round?

[Vincent.vanGinneke]

It possibly ends up with us both buying our own beer....
ehhhhhh whats that called.....Ah! a Dutch treat !

(sorry for messing about in this thread).

[paul.jameson]

A previous owner had removed the front tank mounting, maybe to fit an HT tank, given the bike's trials history? I have cleaned up the messy remains with angle grinder and files.

Then it was time to remove a replacement bracket from the the tube it used to be fitted on to. Fortunately, there was enough tube left to turn it in the lathe to remove the old tube.

A bit of careful work with hacksaw and file later and I have a replacement bracket almost ready to fit. I will cut the loops on the lower part and bend them out of the way to pass over the frame tube, then bend them back. With the upper part pinned in place and the lower part bolted to it in the correct position, brazing it on should be fairly easy - I hope!