When a 2 hour job becomes a 10 hour job

[Rannsachair]

Hacker and hamrax were good for triumph, Russell's was more bsa's wasn't it ? Molnar for stainless bits, until i had a barney with his rude missus. Central wheel for errr...... wheel stuff.

Russell's were AMC and Norton spares and Hamrax were Triumph and AMC, I bought stainless bits from Andy Molnar too.

 

[zeppelin builder]

I used to use TMS too or Wullie Pitblado's in Dunfermline (some great pics on: https://get.google.com/albumarchive.../AF1QipNXOdvKNfl2Y4n-K2VgOMLFo3ovbHYGpSf9BNd_ )
and West Pier Motorcycles in Edinburgh, for mail order: Richard Hacker, Britbits, Happy Hamrax, Russel Motors etc. When I was a kid going out shopping for old bike parts was like a birthday

wullie pitblado was ok once he got to know
you he certainly did not suffer fools gladly
NEXTwas his usual rebuff
Ross motors in glasgow
Andy cochrane in kirriemuir
Shaws in Perth
Calderwoods in perth auto sparks
thats where my enfield lay under the stairs for years i bought the magnetiser at the closing down roup

 

[Rannsachair]

wullie pitblado was ok once he got to know
you he certainly did not suffer fools gladly
NEXTwas his usual rebuff
Ross motors in glasgow
Andy cochrane in kirriemuir
Shaws in Perth
Calderwoods in perth auto sparks
thats where my enfield lay under the stairs for years i bought the magnetiser at the closing down roup

Aye, Wullie was a character, I once rode down from Perth to buy some Tiger Cub gears and he had a sign up, back in 5 minutes, I hung about over half an hour for him to appear and made the mistake of passing comment, I almost never got served.....

Calderwoods closing was sad, a lot of good parts just went in the skip at the end.

 

[zeppelin builder]

Aye, Wullie was a character, I once rode down from Perth to buy some Tiger Cub gears and he had a sign up, back in 5 minutes, I hung about over half an hour for him to appear and made the mistake of passing comment, I almost never got served.....

Calderwoods closing was sad, a lot of good parts just went in the skip at the end.

i got the magnetiser for £3" probably the only proper large type in central scotland

 

[zx9]

Can't be that long ago can it ? I used to buy loads off them.

I think so, they used to sponsor prizes for the local MAG group rallies and treasure hunts. The only times I visited the shop was to collect said donations, not a lot there for a Kawasaki nut like me but even I could appreciate what a gold mine it was.

 

[graffian]

The Richard Hacker shop was within walking distance of our house in Penge South London, I think it closed down about ten years ago.

I lived in a squat in Jasmine grove in 1975. Hacker's was within walking distance if you were a pavement commando;-)

I sort of worked in Hamrax for a while, I lived near and had no money they paid me in beer and parts. I also sold parts
for food, drugs or more beer.

A mate of mine lived in Ilford, I had never been to any of the shops around there till I went up to his house to put a sidecar chassis
on his chop. We went to try and get a front sidecar fitting for a Trumpet frame. He directed me to to Leytonestone high road
and and was probably five or six British bike shops in the one road! We ended up at a shop in Woodford or Walthamstow, it looked
like the shop had been knocked through so it was one big room and when he broke bikes he just piled the bit's up on the floor. Gray
asked for sidecar fittings and the bloke pointed to a mound of sidecar fittings outside;-)

 

[zx9]

I lived in a squat in Jasmine grove in 1975

I came to SE London in the early 90's at which time there were industrial units near Jasmine Grove amongst the back street garages there was a bike breaker and a used machine tool place. Now all gone

 

[slim_boy_fat]

wullie pitblado was ok once he got to know
you he certainly did not suffer fools gladly

I'm sure I met him when helping as a marshal [observer] at the White Heather Trial(s) back in the '60s
https://trialsguru.wordpress.com/tag/willie-pitblado/

 

[Seadog]

A mate of mine lived in Ilford, I had never been to any of the shops around there till I went up to his house to put a sidecar chassis
on his chop. We went to try and get a front sidecar fitting for a Trumpet frame. He directed me to to Leytonestone high road
and and was probably five or six British bike shops in the one road!

Then we may have met in a previous life @graffian .

I used to work in one of those, The Motorcycle Shop (MCS), owned by Ted Bloomfield. In fact there were only two British bike shops as far as I can recall. Draganfly Motors was near the top end and specialized in Ariel, I believe Roger is still going strong in Bungay, Suffolk.

There was Rivett's, nearby to us, who sold motorcycle clothing. Well, mostly they did when Sid, the manager, wasn't nicking it. He eventually spent a period at 'Her Majesty's Pleasure'

There was a large Japanese shop just across the road that used to be a branch of Read Brothers, but was subsequently run as a second-hand Jap spares shop, run by Nick (?), who used to have a business nearby with Ted's brother, Ron. I bought my Progress bench drill from Nick in 1982.

MCS comprised 5 shops. Three just along from Rivett's, one opposite that was called British Metal, and was the workshop and 'salesroom' which Dave the Hat inhabited (also an ex-Read's shop), and the original just around the back in Langthorne Road.

I originally had a weekend job in the late 1960s running into the early 1970s while I was at school/college at Langthorne Road. Paid by spares for my AJS 18s. Plus any other bits that took my fancy, and there were lots that did. I got a virtually complete, new G80CS engine in spares which I never got around to building, much to my dismay.

I then spent 8 years at Leytonstone in the new main shop, from 1977 until 1983 and was responsible for the complete re-organisation of the spares i.e. buying drawers and shelves and sorting and numbering everything, rather than going to the third cardboard box near the door on the second floor of 218. You get the picture?

 

[Rannsachair]

Just got a parcel from Armours today - for my Matchless 350 to 500 conversion

Its like xmas....

 

[ronan]

Just got a parcel from Armours today - for my Matchless 350 to 500 conversion

Its like xmas....

It won't fit and it will be your fault !

 

[Rannsachair]

It won't fit and it will be your fault !

I have bought exhausts from them for years, not had an issue......or have they changed?

 

[ronan]

I have bought exhausts from them for years, not had an issue......or have they changed?

I was only leg pulling. But that said, i bought a set of stainless pipes for the 500, and they didn't fit. When i rang them it was all my fault !
My engine mounts were wrong or my cylinder head stubs were too long. The truth was they didn't allow for the fact the material was stainless when they bent them.

 

[Seadog]

Armour's never had a good reputation for fit 30+ years ago when I was in the trade. It seems that nothing has changed.

 

[Rannsachair]

Armour's never had a good reputation for fit 30+ years ago when I was in the trade. It seems that nothing has changed.

I may have been lucky http://www.sumpmagazine.com/bsamotorcycles/armour-motor-products.htmbut I have bought a few sets over the years for mainly AJS/Matchless singles, Ariel red hunter and a few 50's Triumph's and not had a problem, I found them good quality chrome too. No doubt these will be my famous last words when I try to fit the new one after googling their quality

 

[ronan]

The bottom portion on my pipes, instead of running parallel to the frame, stuck out by about 5 degrees, which meant the silencers had to sit out further. A real dogs dinner.

A pity because the workmanship and materials are good, if they put a bit more effort in, they would be truly excellent.

 

[Farside]

I used to use TMS too or Wullie Pitblado's in Dunfermline (some great pics on: https://get.google.com/albumarchive.../AF1QipNXOdvKNfl2Y4n-K2VgOMLFo3ovbHYGpSf9BNd_ )

There used to be half a dozen old Brit bike shops in the Bridgeton area of Glasgow, all like that. Swept away in the tide of redeveloping the district. Some of the custom / chop shops were interesting, if only to look in horror at the distinctly dodgy engineering of the customers' bikes parked outside.

 

[graffian]

Then we may have met in a previous life @graffian .
I used to work in one of those, The Motorcycle Shop (MCS), owned by Ted Bloomfield. In fact there were only two British bike shops as far as I can recall. Draganfly Motors was near the top end and specialized in Ariel, I believe Roger is still going strong in Bungay, Suffolk.
MCS comprised 5 shops. Three just along from Rivett's, one opposite that was called British Metal, and was the workshop and 'salesroom' which Dave the Hat inhabited

I remember MCS from buying parts there and my shovelhead came from MCS. You might have seen Dave with the chrome A10 chop selling his wares around there, the
road rocket head on the A10 had stubs welded on it and it had a pair of Bing carbs.

I was always amazed at a mates organisation, bikes were broken and put in bread crates, which stacked on shelves, it was a good system and he was able to lay his hands on the parts in seconds.

While they were just old motorbikes to us, Dutch Kieran who owned Merton Motors [Merton Hall Road] clearly had more of an idea what he was doing. He bought and broke bikes in the week and at weekends he headed off to Dutch and German autojumbles, flogging our precious heritage to foreigners;-)
I don't know if Panther pushroods were highly sort after on the european autojumble circuit; My brother bought a complete M120 from Kieran for £80, He rode it
around Raynes park and was happy with it, stumped up the dosh but the bloke wasn't happy with him riding it away "but it's not MOTed blah blah". He delivered it, and
****** off pretty sharpish, the git had nicked the pushrods out of it;-) You couldn't trust him at all.

 

[Seadog]

I can't say the Dave rings a bell. A shovelhead you say? Was it a chop by any chance?
We used to have a regular Dutch buyer, Bas van Asten, some chaps from Belgium and plenty of regular French buyers and a German whose father was in the Waffen SS, a fact he was really proud of. Norton spares were the flavour of the day.

 

[graffian]

I can't say the Dave rings a bell. A shovelhead you say? Was it a chop by any chance?
We used to have a regular Dutch buyer, Bas van Asten, some chaps from Belgium and plenty of regular French buyers and a German whose father was in the Waffen SS, a fact he was really proud of. Norton spares were the flavour of the day.

No the shovel was a new bike stock bike, it was sold to Tank[HA]. It had a red candy frame, I kept getting asked about the red frame, it wasn't a stock option I was told.
I was talking to a mate of Tank's one day and he told me Tank went in and paid for the bike at midday, then went back about 5 to collect it. Someone had damaged or
dropped it! He got a handful of his wedge back for his trouble and they had it repainted.