Dear Forum,
OK here goes with my next after my first intro post. Guess I'd better show some pictures of my 1956 A10 Plunger. If I get away with this one I'll try asking some burning questions.
First a short intro about me. I'm based in Lincoln UK and am proud to be able to say I was apprenticed at the Ruston factory where I think I probably received a far better engineering education than I ever appreciated at time. Not just the exposure to all basic metal mangling processes right through casting, forging, heat treatment through to precision machining but more importantly that sidewise look at life that only sour faced foreman of yesterday could impart. Gems such as:
1. Don't sit on that cold molding box too long lad, your get piles.
2. Never hit a steel faced hammer on the anvil. WHY ? Ow......
3. Don't wrap emery cloth around a bar turning in a lathe to polish it, put it around the back of a flat file. Otherwise it will grab and take your fingernail off. "Daftmate" report to the matron in the ambulance room. They always waited for young'uns to mess up THEN tell you how to do it properly. You don't make this specific mistake twice, yep that'll be me then.
Finally after 5 years I finished training and started on the test pits on night shift. After a two years of that I finally got to my end goal of being a site commissioning engineer.
Will stop the life story there as the tales of 'daring do' on too many oil and gas sites around the world sorting gas turbines
are tedious (ask my wife). Have put picture of our company car at the end of the post (have a look you'll understand why).
So to bikes, they have been a constant obsession since I was a sprog (Lincoln word ?). I've tried to ride MX bikes all my life, I'm crap at it but love trying. My mates all bought Fizzies at 16, I spent my hard earned pennies (OK my Dad's) on a BSA Metisse 441. Loved that bike, still do....
So finally, the marvellous A10 plunger Beezer. I don' really do road bikes, I fall off too much on the dirt, so tarmac looks like sandpaper to me. But after the last broken bone sketch my mate said try a classic brit bike . So he lent me an A7 plunger, I was a happy bunny, so the search began. Another close friend had just finished restoring an A10 plunger, it got to the final of the Classic Bike of the Year comp. See before/after pictures hopefully attached. He gets bored once resto projects are finished so was going to stick it on fleabay. "please don't do that, I'll have it" said I. We agreed a mutually agreeable price over a beer together with payment terms as I was skint. Only problem was I hadn't exactly got clearance from SWMBO, I already had four bikes in bits. Had to hide the Beezer for six months before I finally plucked up the courage. Didn't hurt too much once the swelling went down.
Have done about 1500 miles now, and it's been great fun bedding it all in and getting it to run real nice (some days !). So without further ado here she is :
