Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Bsa bulletin board BSA A65 Connecting Rod Bushings

I am in process of rebuilding a 72 BSA A65 Thunderbolt.
The Bushings i received for the small end of the connecting rods are 0.0145" larger than the connecting rod bore. That's a lot of interference!

I'm assuming that is not going to work.

Am i missing something?

you assume right.......... 14 thou is way to much "crush"

unless of course they are spilt bushes and you are measuring them as they sit ?

Nope solid! Well that sucks

I'd suggest buy a set of rods from MAP.

You are 0.145" too large on the diameter, a 45 thou or 1.1mm cut will get you a split bush close to what you need. A bodge but on a small end the pin only rocks in the bush.

67-0298? Presumably the supplier messed up. Up them on an expanding mandrel an reduce them to 0.0005" over the rod hole. What about the inside diameter? I would expect they will need to be honed to size.

you missed a zero .. hes 14 thou oversize not 45thou

"The Bushings i received for the small end of the connecting rods are 0.0145" larger than the connecting rod bore. That's a lot of interference!"

so splitting what he has is not a go

returning them is what to do and go from there

diameter to circumference !!!!

I thought the late A65 models did not use small end bushings?

AIUI the steel end cap rods didn’t... but bsa used what they had available so the few still did. The 70 on heavy duty ones did but these still had alloy caps.

Thanks for clearing that up!

My CE A65 had small end bushings, alloy end caps, and a crap metal oil pump. All those things which were supposed to be changed by '71. But nobody seems to know exactly when.

It changed when the parts bin was empty. Unlike the jap bikes, they didn’t seem to note serial numbers against parts changes.

It looks like they are the over sized bearings for bored out rods . Wrong parts in the wrong bin..
Thanks for the feedback. Either it looks like I will need to get them reamed to size.

i sure wouldnt go resizing rods to suit the wrong bushes if that is what you meant .........best option send them back and get the right ones ..or if you feel inclined machine down the OD od the bushes