what smiths equipment do i need?

[bl**dydrivers]

hi everybody

im new to this forum, in fact any forum and found it during a bsa a10 parts hunt online.

im hoping to get a bsa 1962 super rocket back on the road, but its all in parts and needs allot of parts (which thank god ive found a few) people told me to avoid basket cases and wish i had listened  but im way head deep into it and been getting parts since lastyear, after a few years of collecting information.
currently im looking for a smiths speedo and a lucas ampmeter, but dont know of the type i need and where i can get them from.
recently i got a smiths motorcycle equipment brochure ranging from 1962-1972 (somehow the 1958-1962 isnt available) according to this i need the sc5301/22, but keep coming across the sc3305/04.

the bike i believe was fitted with nacelle (the previous owner made it into a cafe racer with twin clocks, only had a tacho fitted, not one for the a10 and have no idea what bike it came off (attached a pic of it) the speedo sadly missing and wondering what speedo i need and where i could get one from.
went to the national motorcycle museum, but that super rocket is fitted with twin clocks and the speedo was sc3305/11 with 1440 underneath.

also looking for an original lucas ampmeter, again having the same problem with that, what was in the big box of parts was a 30amp one again not having aclue where this one was fitted. (attached pic) again at the national bike museum the ampmeter didnt have any numbers and dont know if its the type fitted to the nacelle.

thank you so much for having the time to read this and helping out.


im in florida and the bike is currently at an address in london and dont mind if i need to get them from either uk or usa, as i keep hopping over the lake.

[huddie]

Hi, I needed a Lucas amp meter for my 1957 BSA Golden Flash. I got mine from Kidderminster motorcycles. Just tell them what bike and they should be able to help. I am having similar speedo probs. myself. Not sure that mine is the right one or which one I should have. Let me know if you make progress on this one.

No web link but a good source for parts.
60/63 Blackwell Street, Kidderminster, DY10 2EE. United Kingdom.
Tel: +44 (0)1562 66679
Tel: +44 (0)1562 82526

Regards Huddie

[beezalex]

The pictured instruments appear to be from a car...they look like MG gauges to me.

A 62 Super Rocket would have been fitted with twin clocks, though I think the cowl remained an option.

According to the parts manual, Speedo: S546/3/L Tach:RC1303/03.
A Gagg and sons specialize in Smiths instrument service and sales and will be able to get you  what you want, though it won't be cheap.

[cal223]

I was just looking on this site this morning at gauge numbers....
www.geocities.com/motorcity/downs/9472/
I hope that link works, I can't access it from my work computer.  If it doesn't just google "BSA Super Rocket" and this one is near the top.
Do you have pictures of the whole bike?
It seems like the gauges for our bikes are the hardest to find (of course).  I've seen reproduction ones but always for later A65's or Triumphs.

[Duncan R]

Hi There,

On Ebay Uk there are some replica chronometric speedos from India (120 MPH ) if you put "BSA" in the search box you will find them. They seem a good price but I cannot vouch for the quality (Ok if you are not going for 100% originality) As mentioned above ammeters are widley available and cheap. At the moment there is a chrono revcounter on Ebay but its running at £155 - I think these are harder to track down than the speedos. As beezalex states the clocks in the photos  are for sure  from a car. Hope this helps

[bsa-bill]

just a quick question re amp meters,  despite being an electrical apprentice for a whole year (1959) and working with things electric on many different vehicles I don't know if amp meters are voltage sensitive for 6 or 12 volts, can I use the existing amp meter on my project, originally 6 volt when I change it to 12 volt.

All the best - Bill

[groily]

Yes, Bill, you can. Amps is amps. But you might have to swap the terminals round depending on whether you've kept the same earth . . . is all. No problem at all. Promise. Just needs to show negative when there's a drain, and the reverse.
The car one in this thread is a typical '60s item. Some went to 30 each way, others to 40, and I even have one which goes -60  0 60. MG, Triumph, Jaguar, you name it.
Very tough things ammeters - even if the charge/discharge goes beyond the scale shown, they normally take it. Not that any bike of our sort is going to chuck out 30 or more amps - well, maybe for a millisecond! And while we're on, imho it's the only truly useful instrument there is on a bike. You know when you've revved the b**** off it, you know whether you're going fast or slow, but you don't know whether there's any juice in the battery, and for those who insist on life without magnetos (when there's a choice), it matters.
Car ammeters died out soon after alternators became universal, although it is rubbish - if you hear anyone say it - that ammeters and alternators don't or can't go together. Have put them into several vehicles (from 30s to 80s) to replace or supplement useless Battery State Indicators (voltmeters) which tell you you're screwed when it's too late to do anything about it. Reckon they were only put in place to satisfy the primal macho-urge to have lots of dials.

[RichardL]

 The attached photo is useful because it confirms that the Super Rockets had 140 MPH speedometers of the type with the maximum reading at around the 11 o'clock position on the dial. I suppose, if you want to be wholly original, you would go with the 140 MPH version with a true chronometric clockworks. However, I can't see anyone really wanting to go that fast, so, I would think, a 120 MPH version would suit fine. If you're bent for originality, a magnetic version at any top speed would have to be rejected.
 
I can't say for sure what the differences are for each of the Smiths "sc" numbers, but I can tell you that mine is an sc3305/04 with a top end at 120 MPH. By my magical powers of deduction (which stand every possibility of being wrong), I would say that the sc5301/22 may well be the 140 MPH version. You did not mention what the top end was on the bike in the museum. If 140 MPH, then, maybe one was for nacelle and one for gauges in the open. OK, enough for speculation, on to something I am more confident with.
 
The "1440" has two meanings, one for the odometer and one for the speedometer. For the odometer, it's the required number of turns at the speedometer input to make the odometer increment one mile.  For the speedometer, it's the required number of turns per minute required at the speedometer input to register 60 MPH (a mile a minute). I had heard that the speedometer output at the gearbox was "around" 2:1 (turns of the sppedometer cable to turns of the rear wheel). I decided to check this and found that the speedometer cable turns 11 times to 6 turns of the rear wheel, or 1.83:1. I have attached the arithmetic as an image. It is put in terms of determining the required wheel radius (the distance from the rear axle to the ground when you are sitting on the bike), if a "1440" speedometer is to be accurate. I don't know if this same information is elsewhere on the web or, even, this forum, but I enjoyed the exercise. Mostly, I enjoyed discovering that I accidentally bought the perfect speedo for my bike.

Richard L.

[RichardL]

Bl**dydrivers and all,

I completed my post on this topic, FYI.

[trevinoz]

Richard L, I think the 140 MPH speedo was only used on the American "Big Valve" Super Rockets.
To determine the ratio for a particular bike, you calculate using the rear sprocket / gearbox ratio, sleeve gear / layshaft ratio and layshaft / speedo drive ratio. This figure is multiplied by 800, which is the nominal revs per mile for 3.50/19 and 4.00/18 tyres.
Confused?
Trev.

[bl**dydrivers]

Hello people

Thank you for replying back to me

manosound, the super rocket in the museum had a Speedo with 120mph, sorry didn?t mention that as I thought they came with 120mph, I didn?t have a clue the super rocket was suppose to have the 140mph and I kind of thought that speed for those days was impossible for the production machine. (What am I to know when im not from the era) I was born in the early 80s

I really am in favour of the originality (except things like the mudguards/fenders, nuts and bolts), which mudguards im sure are very rare and very expensive, im sure with levers I can get away with new repro products, but the equipment side such as the Speedo and ammeter I would like them to be original.

I went onto a gagg & sons website, sadly doesn?t have prices, sent an email enquiring about the Speedo and they haven?t got back to me yet.

Kidderminster motorcycles, looks to me they only deal with modern motorcycles except royal Enfield, but that could be the new ones. Sent them an email and they say the same thing Kidderminster motorcycles deals with the classics ???? but they don?t have a website or if they do cant find it online.

Does anyone know how I can get a machine dating certificate?
Or a document with the dealer the bike went to from the factory, with colour, what optional parts was fitted etc

I would like to become a member of the bsaoc uk again for this reason and to maybe get more parts from, but there?s no way of paying for it online, im currently in Florida and its the time it?ll take for sending cheques/checks to uk and the problem if they don?t except foreign cheques and the time it?ll take to get the star mag every month and parts etc but anyway

For some of you who maybe thinking how the bike is looking, I've attached a few pics for you.
Its not much too look at, but I see the finished product and sure some of you have seen worst.

my father got it back in the mid or early 70s as a none running cafe racer, got it running and eventually something happened, my father thinks a bush in the gearbox seized, but the gearbox internals all appear to be fine.  The bike was dismantled because my father wanted to do what i'am doing now to restore and build it to how it was originally. My parents moved house and lost or miss placed parts.  Since I was a child I kept looking at the frame with forks attached rotting away on the ground, it was outside in the back garden and always wondered how it looked when new.  In 2002, I went through the whole house looking for parts and found a few, my father said it was a super road rocket, looked it up online and found it was a super rocket and saw pictures of other a10s and fell in love with it.  Got the parts list, ticked the parts off that I had, started putting the bike together and due to certain circumstances had to stop, and then last year started getting parts ticking them off the list one by one.

Now I got:
Front wheel spindle caps (the original were to rotten)
Lower fork legs (the original were rotten)
Fork stanchions
Front brake plate
Nacelle (yet its missing the top piece and the tubes are in more bad shape than I thought they were with the bottom being rotten and split)
Oil tank (original was chromed and had a big dent in the front)
Toolbox
4 gallon petrol tank (original bsa) (the previous was a fibreglass)
Alloy cylinder head
Amal 389/47 carb (american spec instead of 389/46)
Exhaust finned collars
Rear shock absorbers
Push rods
Oil pump worn pinion
Gearbox cover plate (ski slope)
Centre stand (the original had the peg piece cut off)
Final drive sprocket nuts (nos)
Inner primary chaincase spacer

Now im feeling great about the project and getting bits and pieces when I come across them.
Even if it will take another ten years, its all worth it, will take it round to my fathers, let him ride it, bring it over to the US (in uk trim) and ride round the country with the wife on the back.

[bl**dydrivers]

unfortunatly the oil tank as you can see in this pic has had one of the oil pipe attachments shortened (why do people do this? because i came across so many tanks like this, but at least this tank i got is the best i came across)

[RichardL]

Trev,

Thanks for reminding me what a wordy novice I can be some time. ("Novice" meaning, in the 35 years I've owned my one and only motorcycle, I only worked on it for about six of those years.) Obviously I failed to mention that the wheel-revs-to-cable-revs ratio I noted was for my specific bike. Even if I did all of the tooth counting you mention, I'm not sure I would know how to get the lay-shaft-to-speedo-shaft ratio (if it is not one-to-one). My method was to mark the rear tire and the ground with chalk, then, put a driver for square-head screws in the speedo output and marked that driver as well. I turned the rear wheel, counting the turns while observing the number of turns that the speedo shaft had to turn before they were both in sync with their respective reference marks. I would say this is more brute force than your method, but seems to have worked fine.

Anyway Trev, thanks for letting me know about my mistake. I assume others will now not blindly use my "1.83" ratio when theirs might be different.


As for the 140 MPH speedo on the Super Rocket, I was just going by the brochure.

Richard L.

[trevinoz]

Bl**dydrivers, are you sure that one of the oil tank nipples has been shortened? Up until about 1960, both nipples were the same length. Later tanks have a long nipple on the return.
As a matter of interest, what type of gearbox do you have? American types that have ended up in Australia seem to have been fitted with an STD2 or STB2 box [same thing] whereas every other market seems to have the STD box.
You say the bike is in England so I guess it is a Home market model and having a nacelle would confirm that.
Trev.

[LJ.]

Mr Drivers... (Got a better name than that? John, Paul or even Fred maybe?)

bring it over to the US (in uk trim) and ride round the country with the wife on the back.

You old romantic! I wish you all the best in your restoration, stick at it as it will be well worth it and your Dad will be real proud of you.

Thanks for the pics and write up we look forward to hearing of your progress, you can rely on much info from the forum. Your oil tank by the way looks perfectly okay to me, cant see where the 'oil pipe attachments shortened' if you mean the part in the photo by your finger, then that is the oil breather, and a rubber pipe attaches to that spur and fed down to the lower part of the frame, but from what I can see of your oil tank, it is exactly the same as mine.

Cheers!
LJ.