SIC ITVR AD ASTRA

Perhaps because they had caught on to the notion that life here began out there, BSA had a lot to do with stars.

Here are some of theirs that come to mind, in no particular order:

Gold Star
Fleetstar
Starfire
Silver Star
Empire Star
Star
Royal Star
Blue Star
Shooting Star

It seems odd to me that they would leave out such an obvious choice as "Rising Star", so when my chopper was built many years ago, I went for that name instead.

The Rising Star is named after the TSS (trans-stellar service) ship that reached Earth over 150,000 years ago.

I've had to wait too long and it's high time this bike came back out into the open; it has laid dormant with a broken oil tank mount since late August in 2017 (after putting it in storage, I had actually seriously pursued the idea of selling it, perhaps because I felt it was just not enjoyable), and it's time to take care of a few things that aren't quite right.

I should point out that some of the things I'm tackling now were already apparent in the very early days of the Rising Star, as I had mentioned here.

This is very similar to what happened with my Fastback, which went through a few iterations - all of them seemingly working and fairly final - before I was able to pinpoint those things that still needed a good bit of fettling to get right. The mistake there was thinking that just because it worked, that meant it was done, when in actual fact the difference became undeniable once I completed the Isolatic overhaul as well as the many other things I've done to it (the clutch, the top end, the tires, the handlebar...) but riding and becoming more and more in tune with the machine is so important, and one must always intervene to fix and improve, whenever the machine "asks" you to. Truly, this is important, with any machine that you feel is really worth something to you.

It would be silly to think that this is an easy bike to live with, it's not. This is a hard, tough and uncomfortable bike... and yet the handling quality as well as the fact that it is a one-of-a-kind custom bike mean that I keep coming back to it, wanting to ride it.

As you'll see in the coming months (hopefully in time for spring next year), this upgrade will consist in effecting some repairs (and improvements to avoid a repeat of the same problem) and addressing some "must fix" issues that I believe are the cause of this being not totally enjoyable.

I checked the tires first and foremost and was pleased to find them in excellent condition: there aren't any concerning signs of wear, distortion or deterioration (yes, you can see some surface cracks if you look closely, but bear in mind the image below is very zoomed in). These Japanese-made Dunlop are really good quality items:

Understandably, the battery was shot after having sit all this time (since 2018). I hooked it up to the Ctek charger and left it to do its work over a couple of weeks, the outcome was a clean bill of health so it can go back on the bike, at least for now.

And now we come to what may seem like an insignificant little detail, although of course you know by now that there is no such thing when it comes to these motorcycles. I had to remove and properly refit the kickstarter cotter pin. Oh that most loathsome, accursed, and confounded cotter pin.

Since the kickstarter will have to come off to get re-plated, this was the right time to fix the cotter pin that holds it in place. For such a small thing, this can be such a tedious thing to deal with.

There is no reason to use a cotter pin in general other than to make things "on the cheap". It would have been far better to opt for a beefy spline and a proper pinch-bolt (or even a Woodruff key and a locknut!) rather than a cotter pin, but this is what we have to deal with. When I look at BSA's unit construction motor, I can't help but consider this a rather utilitarian powerplant, built to a tight budget albeit with promising engineering choices. It performs really well and is generally trouble-free so, given a different path in history, this could have evolved into something very reliable, well built and very useable that could have easily lasted into the 80s and early 90s. You can actually see what one of these engines can truly be if you look at what SRM do to them, bringing them to a very high standard of reliability, functionality and performance.

Unfortunately, when I look at this goddamn cotter pin I can't help but think this is a quality flaw, one that could have been avoided. 

Once, many years ago,  I ended up mangling the cotter pin as I tried to get the engine to fire up (the bike had been left standing for too long, that time as well). I had to pound it out with a 5kg mallet and eventually, once I got it out, I held the chewed-up cotter pin in my hand, looked at it closely for a while and shook my head. "what a piece of crap" I thought. I replaced it with a new one that took a long time to arrive and that was supposedly made for the A50/A65 motor (it is admittedly beefy), but immediately noticed it didn't fit. I did end up using it for a short while, but knew I would have had to either find yet another one, or try to get this one to fit.

Removing the cotter pin this time was relatively quick and easy; we use the excellent ZEP 45 penetrating fluid here at the Monolith and it works wonders for this type of thing. Heat from the Stanley FatMax gun is also essential to avoid damage and get the job done quickly.

An inordinate amount of time was then spent filing away at the flat, refitting, checking, and repeating the process, and the result is finally a perfect fit (third photo down):

One way to do this is to line up the flat with the top of the vice using a magnet:

As an alternative, you can fix a file to your workbench and grind the cotter pin onto it. Whichever way you do it, it is imperative you control each motion, in a single direction, and that you do not "lift off" at any point, or you'll end up with an uneven, rounded-off mess.

Sadly, with the notable exception of Andover Norton, this is a very common occurrence when it comes to spare parts for classic British bikes: things are cheaply made out of crap materials with crap machinery and with not the slightest indication that whatever drunken idiot made it had any idea about proper fit and actual size. Nothing fits together, nothing lines up, there is no precision, no quality control whatsoever; every casting is porous, imperfect and full of burrs. There is no consistency among spare parts manufacturers (meaning the same part number can result in vastly differing items), nothing ever fits out of the box and that is unacceptable. I could understand this from a soviet or Chinese bike (and still not excuse it), but the "mystique" of the brand and a Union Jack sticker are just no longer enough to hide that these are almost just as bad.

There is no excuse for parts that don't fit together. It cannot be acceptable to say "it is commonly necessary to" file, grind, shape, forge, the part to fit. No more of this nonsense.

While the rational brain argued all this, the emotional side was happy to just look at the bike and revel in how cool it is:

Now, I realize I've just ranted on about how badly these motorcycles are made, but... here's something else that's undeniable: switching from the Sportster's high precision parts, castings and all the many sturdy details that bike has, to the BSA (it would have been the same on the Commando), I do appreciate a simpler technology that doesn't require much in the way of special tools, just a lot of patience and dedication. Simpler parts that are the bare minimum to get the job done (think of the control levers) and are nice and light, yes, there is value in that.

Before I even attempted to start the bike this time, I took off the float bowl and removed the jets assembly: predictably, everything was gunked up with old fuel, probably the blasted ethanol and whatever other crap they put in fuel these days. I was really surprised by the state of the main and needle jets in particular: these were fitted as brand new parts yet look trashed now. After all, this carburetter was rebuilt ten years ago but spent half of that time rotting away at the back of the shed. It follows that the result is five years of wear and another five of decay, meaning it's time to refurbish this once again. I have to admit it took a couple of rounds of cleaning (including an ultrasonic bath) before the engine would start: the culprit was a blocked pilot jet circuit - this is a very common occurrence with bikes that have been left standing for too long. There are many technical articles online that all brag and show off a wealth of knowledge and understanding of fluid dynamics, as well as blatantly plagiarize from one another, so I won't add to that, but the crucial thing to understand is how the pilot circuit works and why it is there to begin with. It's there to provide air/fuel mixture at closed throttle, all the way to about an eighth open, so it is essential for starting and initial pulling away. If the pilot jet or any part of the idle circuit, including the mixing chamber and the transfer ports above it, is blocked, the bike WILL NOT START. The mixing chamber is akin to one of those royal burial chambers in the Egyptian pyramids, you know the ones they find through some tiny tunnel that's a mile long... well, it's the same here, the chamber and its transfer ports are machined during the production stage and then sealed for all millennia with a welch plug, never to be seen again. You can surely appreciate how difficult those areas are to clean, especially because of how delicate and precisely calibrated they are: if you try to poke at them with wire, even really small gauge, you will likely ream ports and jets out of size, rendering the whole carburetter essentially useless. And if the inside of the mixing chamber is corroded, which you won't be able to see, in all likelihood the carburetter will never quite work properly. You need to get at the two tiny transfer ports before and after the slide to make sure they're free: that's where fuel for starting comes from, not from the jets.

The green arrow in the photo above is pointing to the pilot circuit air intake. The one on the right is shut with a welch plug after machining an identical tunnel, which is used to supply fuel to the pilot circuit.

If we flip the carburetter upside down we can follow the air flow (green) until it meets the fuel (in red, coming from the float bowl). Note location of the pilot jet, shown by the yellow rectangle. Air and fuel combine in the mixing chamber below that round welch plug, and feed the engine intake through two tiny transfer ports.

Above, you may or may not be able to see the pilot jet, this is with the air mixture screw removed and the only way to reach it (without drilling through from the other side, which I would not recommend).

I replaced the mounting flange O-ring as the one it had had clearly stretched out of shape. After that, I fitted a new float bowl gasket and got the bike to start, though it is running very rich, which probably means I buggered the pilot jet as I attempted to unblock it. I'll try to see if I can tune it, otherwise it may be time to replace this Amal. We shall see.

All of this nonsense was just to get the bike started, imagine the scope of what's coming!

TO THE STARS!

TO VICTORY!!