Positive or negative earth

[Worty]

His name was also John (Atkinson or Dickinson), and lives not far from you in Elland.

[Triton Thrasher]

The column change was a design blind alley.  Even in perfect condition they were a slow way to change gear.

[jhg1958]

Worthluck

Remarkably similar but not the same bike. I managed to contact the PO who bought the bike as a project in the north East.

The picture looks a fine example of a running A10. Mine has not even had its first service and I have had to put it in storage as I am moving home.

The reg is 332 KPT. I have attempted to trace further back but no success. Any suggestions on how to do more digging would be welcome. I think the bike was dismantled and reassembled for sale. Some parts simply do not match eg gearbox.
John

[Worty]

It was a bit of detective work for me mate.  I managed to trace phone numbers for POs from the log books, and where I couldn't,  I wrote to them instead.  The log books I have showed names and addresses of POs, but I think they can be obtained from DVLA as well.  Mine was registered in Middlesex originally, then spent the rest of its life around this part of Yorkshire (Elland, Barnsley, Wakefield, etc).  Apparently, it was a donor bike in the 80s, but has only had one change of engine back in the mid-1960s or so.  It's had quite a history, as Bergs found out when he rebuilt it.

[limeyrob]

Wire it neg earth.  Pos earth is how it was made but the industry swapped because you get more corrosion on the earths with pos earth.  I also drive a 1970 Land Rover, these were pos earth and we have all swapped to neg earth.  The other benefit is all LED lights and any other gizmo (alarm, clock) are neg earth, a lot of us with old cars have gone over to LEDs to ease the load on the dynamo.

[Slymo]

I always liked column change but I've never seen or driven one where the gear lever isn't operated by the driver's left hand.
The worst must be those awful Citroens and Renaults where the gear lever is a ball ended thing sticking out of the dash board.

Nothing awful about them. Incredibly simple system that worked beautifully. much less prone to wear and misalignment than standard column change mechanisms. I loved the three speed Renault 4 one I had where I could change every cog without letting go of the steering wheel.