These were the first 3 that i could find -it turns out i bought the bike on 3/3/1982, slapped some Craven panniers and top box on it, and used it for touring round England for a few years (as well as my sole transport in London, which was.......interesting)
My move to Scotland saw it adopt another couple of guises, but by 2004 it was needing some serious attention, so the full
SRM upgrade was carried out, 750cc conversion, engine overhaul etc etc. Various life events meant nothing much happened for a few years, and then from about 2008 I had a whole series of operations on my knee, culminating in a full knee replacement, which didn't really work. I was left with a knee i couldn't bend much more than 80 degrees and the likelihood of being able to kick over a virtually newly constructed engine was pretty much zero.
Ive been mates with Fraser nearly as long as I've lived up here, and he has helped me countless times adapting bikes etc - for example, due to his effort,s my Yamaha TDM was fitted with a handlebar operated gear-change and handlebar levers for both brakes to allow me to use it again.
What has all this to do with this thread? - Well, last year Fraser asked me if i wanted to meet a certain gentleman from Forfar, the legendary A65 whisperer, Mr John Hill. He was taking one of his engines up there for John to do some work on, so I decided to tag along.
As soon as you walked into Johns workshop, you knew you were somewhere a bit special - A65 engines sat on pristine benches in various stages of assembly, and in the corner was Johns 840cc A65 with a perfectly grafted set of modern folks allowing him the luxury of twin discs up front.
John and Fraser talk in a technical language way beyond my basic understanding, so I just subtly had a nosy around his workshop.
"Er, what this, Please John", I asked pointing to an engine on the bench with a curious attachment under the carb area.
"Oh that's just something Ive been working on, its an electric start for an A65 engine"
Well, it wasn't quite the celestial choir and clouds parting moment for me, but pretty damn close.
"Er.....would you be thinking of making any more of them"? i asked. But due to all the welding and one off nature of the project, he didn't think so .
Oh well.....
However, a few weeks later, Fraser said him and John had been chatting, and he was looking for someone to do a long term test on his design and was I interested?
Out came the
SRM engine and my rolling chassis was delivered to John .
And so we've come to the present day.
I'm keeping a log of any observations regarding its operation, and start it up daily to test it as much as i can .
Oh, and John ended up selling me the engine, partly i think because he saw how much it meant to me to be able to ride my BSA again.
![[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]](https://i.postimg.cc/jq47MSCz/BSA-A65-with-electric-starter.jpg)
