worst thing thats happened to you bsa

[rocket man]

mine was when i took it for mot the tester dropped it
i was lucky he didn't do much damage to my girl
just a smashed mirror and a scuffed badge

[Brian]

You must be a very tolerant man, I might not have got my bike through the MOT but the tester wouldnt have been doing any more inspections either !

[beezalex]

Hmmm, that would be when I slipped on someone's oil in a turn, recovered the lowside only to have the front fold in on me producing a "cartwheel" highside pitching me forward and having the bike come down on top of me.  Fortunately, it was on the track, so I was wearing the right gear...still hurt, though...

To top it all of, it meant that I lost to a TRIUMPH

[Rocket Racer]

Excluding being knocked off my bikes three times by cars over the last 30 years of riding but surviving (so not that bad really), I'd have to say throwing a rod on a ZB goldie I owned while in the fast lane of the motorway, pulling off was bad enough in heavy traffic then seeing a hole I could put my fist through in the front of the barrel really spoiled my day. A good alloy welder managed to save the barrel, a lovely bit of welding, looked like new, cost a bit though.

[tombeau]

I think that I'm probably the worst thing that's happened to my BSA.
Cheers,
Iain

[BSA500]

Riding the A7 after finishing a complete bottom end rebuild after the timing slipped boiled the oil and cracked the crank(that was bad enough).Got 20 yards down t'road and the oil pump siezed could have cried.I left it a week before I could summon up the energy to start again.Odd problem this morning as well battery was flat I mean really flat,no reading whats so ever on the meter,nothing,zero,zlich how is that even possible??????.Damage after the oil pump went south some timing bush damage and a fubarred pump.
Andy

[nigeldtr]

Well in my late teens, a long time ago, I rebuilt a few bikes and spent a lot of time fixing and rebuilding the engine on a B40. Started fine drove lovely then seemed to loose power - so what did I do? - opened the throttle of course and sure, enough completely wrecked the "new" engine. The problem was a bit of mud in the oil pipe which must have got in when I sprayed the oil tank in the garden!! I never fully recovered form the disaster and sold the bike in bits. This is also the reason for me leaving my A10 and M21 with wet sumps - never want to experience the totally unnecessary damage again, the thought of valves in oil lines is mud to me 

Nigel

[rocket man]

well said nigel i dont trust them either

[shabashow]

My little end disintegrating after a complete rebuild, requireing a second rebuild with less than 500 miles under my belt. That'll stop me thinking 'that'll do' when I should have thought 'I'll need a new...'
John

[BSA_54A10]

On the A 10 ( previously mentioned in the speed post) the left rod siezed solid onto the crank 250 miles from home.
Not realizing the extent of the problem I removed the left plug and both tappet adjusters to "feather" the left pot and started back home.
Two miles from home the bike started to shake violently from side to side and there was a loud banging from the back.
This was the left exhaust, slamming into the swing arm.
Further investigation noted that this was due to the left side of the block moving up & down.
I called it a day then and pushed it the rest of the way ( just about all up hill ).
Strip down revealed that the left rod had smashed all of the spiggot from the bottom of the barrel and had then been pounding the inside of the flange which had eventually split all the way around except for a 3" "hinge" on the far right side and with each revolution of the crank the by now very bannana shaped rod was lifting the barrels a good 1& 1/2" on the left side, yet the bike was still running strong enough to pull itself and my fat bum up a long slow slope.
This sold me on BSA's forever, really folks, they are a lot stronger than you lot give them credit for.

And if you are still reading this, no I never finished repairing it. The consequences of the previously mentioned speed lust came home to roost and I had a long time walking to ponder weather it was all worth it and by this time the "lust" hormones were stiring and there were more pressing desires to be fulfilled.

[Beezageezauk]

Ooohh Trevor, I'm cringing at the thought of how your engine was working.

My worst experience happened in 1991 after I changed the M21 engine in the outfit to a B33 motor.

The sidevalver was very slow for long distance hauls so I bought a second hand B33 engine and decided to replace every moving part before introducing it to the sidecar.

Well, the first long run was to the Dutch BSA International Rally and as I was working in London at the time, the initial running in period was an extremely long two day journey from my home in NE England down to the smoke.  After a week at work, my wife joined me and we set off for Sheerness and the ferry to Vlissingen, loaded to the the brim for a two week camping holiday.

As we came off the ferry the following morning there was a peculiar noise coming from the engine and after running some checks I found that this noise disappeared when I retarded the engine slightly.  Off we go for the remaining 125 mile trip and after a while the noise was getting appreciably worse.  Even on full retard it was still there.  Enough's enough and we called it a day and arranged to get hauled to the rally by trailer for the final 25 miles.  Yeah, it was final. The brand new big end bearing had failed miserably and it was the days before breakdown cover was popular.

Well, a complete stripdown showed that the centre pin on the bigend had never been hardened and this was the cause of the problem.  So I called home and arranged to have the original bigend bearing shipped over to the rally site at Nijmegen and the engine was completely rebuilt over the following five days.  The hardest part was finding a workshop with the facilities to enable me to split the flywheels and then line them up again after the replacement item was fitted.  Everything else was done in (or just outside) the tent.

That was a challenge and even though I've experienced some problems during my biking career I reckon that that was the worst thing that happened to me on a BSA.

Oh!! The joys of motoring eh!!

Beezageezauk.

[muskrat]

G'day all,
            my '51 A7 nipped up once after 2 hours of 70 mph and after a cool down got me the last 100 miles home at 60. In over 25 years I have had it on the road that is the only time it has stopped. The '57 A7SS racer on the other hand has lifted 3 sets of barrels off the cases. After fixing that problem by through bolting the barrels and using a 1/2" steel plate as a head steady, it snapped 2 cranks (small journal). 8000rpm + 14:1 comp on methanol = bang.
Cheers