Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Bsa bulletin board '64 A65 separate tach&Speedo mounts

a friend gave me a copy of " BSA twins- A50&A65 Gold Portfolio" It is a collection of magazine road tests etc., starting with the first '62 unit bikes. Of course, the later articles get somewhat repeated, but the first years are interesting in that they explain changes from the A10, and even have responses from Bert Hopwood etc. For instance, the early clutch was a better design.
One thing I noticed, just as the bikes were losing the Nacelle, and going to separate headlight, the '64 Rocket and '64 Star are shown in photos with gages mounted separate. They are clearly mounted above each fork tube, not on the aluminum plate I most commonly see. This is something I have missed so far.
How were they mounted? How long did this design last? which years did this? Any close up photos out there?

Allan,
Do you have a pic of this, or a factory drawing?
Brett
P.S. I sort of get the idea about what you are talking about, from the pics in the Workshop manual I have. Some boiks have the handlebar before, and some after, the tentioning adjuster knob...
All I can see though, are side view shots, and there is no definition in those shots...

I'm sure others have had this experience, but it always amazes me when I find out something about an A50/65 that I hadn't seen before. I'd say I have seen a bizillion bikes, so I guess I just missed that feature.

KC

In the dual carb parts manual for 64/65, it shows 3 different mountings: the alloy plate we are used to, the seperate GS/A10 style mount for the T/R models (yes single carb but they are in the dual carb parts book), which was used to engine A65C367, and finally the flat plate with mounting for the chronometric style brackets on the A50C only.

64 was the changeover time for the chronometric to magnetic. I doubt many bikes were built with the seperate gauge mounting.

Curiously, the early release photos of the Lightning Clubman (8 October 1964) clearly show the seperate clock mountings. But I have seen very few photos of actual Lightning Clubman's with seperate clocks from the era. Other photos in the same magazine show the alloy mounting, including for the Cyclone....go figure

Been hunting for the early clocks and brackets myself.

Richard,
I have a grey faced chrono speedo, I think its supposed to go into the long head lamp shell, not the brackets, because of the flanged glass retaining ring.

I plan to use it in my '64 Star/Rocket/Tbolt Rocket project...
Brett

This is part of what make the hobby fun! Now I am on the hunt to find a bike to see myself. I do believe in the marketing photos not being accurate for restoring purposes, but it's still fun to look.

1964 650 Rocket:
Interesting gage mounts...............

You mean like this.


They don't really show much but you can get the general idea of how they looked.
I used to save all these sorts of photo's off ebay for future reference but now you can't save anything anymore.
I suppose they got too many cases of people ripping off others copyrighted material. It was a handy resource while it lasted.

Don't want to corrupt the thread, But....... the reason they stopped allowing you to download the eBay photos was because scammers were doing it, and using the photos in fake ads. The world is changing...........
Even though you can't see the mounting hardware, the photos do prove that they do exist beyound a marketing picture. Thanks!

You can rip any photo displayed on your screen. Hit "PrtScn" and the paste into any image editing app for cropping/sizing.

Well you learn something new every day don't you! Especially me when it comes to computers. Thanks Alex. Very interesting.

Thanks Mark,
That's just about the exact color of blue I'd liked to've had my project painted... All the parts are painted a factory red, including the shock covers...

Too bad you couldn't have posted a pic of the no support loop rear fender for Bonzo to see...

If what I'm also seeing is correct for a Rocket, the rear fender is a 'sport' model, not valenced?
Another reason to subtract the "Rocket" from my "Star/Rocket/Tbolt Rocket" description... I'm using valenced front and back.
Brett