Introduction.

[bigjohn]

Hi all - Muscrat asked me to introduce myself as I am new to the Forum. I live in England, I am 62 and been retired for 4 years. I am 6ft 4ins tall and 16.5 stone hence BigJohn. My hobby is restoring old bikes, my current one being a 55 A10 Plunger. I have previously restored 3 A65'S one of which had an article written about it in Jan 2013 edition of Classic Bike Guide. I have restored loads of other bikes including a Commando, Meteor, Constellation, Crusader, Bonneville and other Triumphs. My 2 permanent bikes are a 1995 Triumph Thunderbird 900 triple and a 1964 Matchless 650 G12 CSR fitted with a Race Kit (twin carbs, h/c pistons, cams, rev counter etc).

[Greybeard]

...my current one being a 55 A10 Plunger...

Snap! 

[RichardL]

John,

Thanks for that intro, and a very big welcome. That's a great history of building and I'm a bit envious of variety and skills. I'm wondering if I saw your A65 in CBG.

 If you have the time, some pictures of the current plunger project and some of your past projects would be great to see. (Members' non-7/10s are part of the 7/10 story.) If you've been watching the forum for a while, you know we love to see pictures of all states of completion, from crates of rusty parts to shiny beauties. Photos have a 640 kB size restriction. Easiest way to meet this is to set your camera to its lowest photo resolution, otherwise, you would need to use an editor for resizing. There are instructions for that elsewhere in the forum, but I can't point to it right now.

Finally, sorry, but my spare set of legs don't fit the need.

Richard L.

[a10 gf]

Hello & welcome, thanks for the intro, hoping the forum will be helpful.

[kiwipom]

hi guys/ John an impressive restro list you have there, well done and welcome. I have a couple of sets of sliders not sure that they are exactly what you need but could check, only problem would be postage from NZ however an option if nothing else turns up. `Big John 'reminded me of the song :-  BIG BAD JOHN ~ Jimmy Dean 1961, probably others will know it too, cheers

[orabanda]

Hi BigJohn,
Welcome to the forum.
I enjoyed the article on your A65; you did great work.


Richard

[morris]

Hello and welcome BigJohn
Remember the article about the A65. Good work! I often find reading that kind of articles keeps me going when things don't go as planned on my own bike restorations...
I'm currently also rebuilding my '52 plunger from which there soon will be an update on these pages.

[bigjohn]

Hi all - thank you for your kind words. All the pictures of my restorations have been moved to a separate disc for each bike so that I could give a copy to the new owners. I have since had a new PC so I will have to download before and after pics back onto my PC before I can then post them. In the meantime please find attached (I hope!) pics of my Matchless G12CSR and Triumph 900 triple Thunderbird. The pictures I have of my A10 appear too big to send so I will sort that out.

Regards

John.

[bsa-bill]

nice bikes John, prefer the CSR of the two

[RichardL]

Oh, man. Both are super sharp. Have to admit I got a bit of a giggle from the micro-windshield on the Matchless.

Richard L.

[bigjohn]

Hi all - glad you like the bikes. To Richard L - Hi Richard, the bike was fitted with a Race Kit at the factory which comprised of twin carbs, high compression pistons, high lift cams, rev counter PLUS a small flyscreen. Having searched everywhere for one like the original (seen in a picture of a similar bike in a magazine) this was the nearest to it that I could buy today. I am only the third owner and having spoke to both previous owners (original owner now in his nineties!) the mileage of just 28,000 is confirmed. Both bikes have won over 30 winners/runners up at Shows between them. The Triumph is my everyday bike and I think I will be buried with it! It's tremendous!
As I said, when I transfer some of my restoration bikes to my PC and reduce the size of the before pictures of my A10 (taken by the previous owner) I will post them.

Regards

John.

[bigjohn]

Hi all again - sorted my pics from discs but some of the files are too big to send ie Royal Enfield Meteor and Constellation and the A10, so I will have to sort them out. All that I am posting at the moment are restored from Basket Cases so no "before" pics, except for the blue A65 which was featured in Classic Bike Guide, which has an "as found" pic. The cd for the Bonneville seems to be missing which is a shame as the guy who bought it off me supplies and maintains all the vehicles for HEARTBEAT. His house and garages are amazing.
So the pics are - 1972 Commando, 1962 A65, T100P (ex police), 1961 Crusader Sport, 1964 A65. Next post will be T100SS and the blue 1970 A65 Thunderbolt, before and after.

Regards

John.

[bigjohn]

Here are the T100 SS and the 1970 BSA Thunderbolt.

[a10 gf]

^^^ This is excellent, congrats.

[RichardL]

Not meaning to embarass John, but he has joined the ranks of members I think of as being in the "Inspirational" group.

Fantastic stuff, John. The first two pictures you posted were a givaway to what you are about.

Looking forward to pictures of your A10.

Richard L.