We have here an interesting bike. 16H Norton, 1929, 500 side valve. Side valve, very basic. Valve just goes
up and down, flat head. Three speed gearbox, Sturmey-Archer. We have hand gear change. So yeah, for people
that have never experienced that, that's quite different. Oil system, we have an oil tank,
and we have one pipe only. So we have literally a constant loss oil system. The oil will feed into
the pump, lubricate the engine, be burnt off. Some will go out the breather, but it doesn't
re-circle back to the tank. It does constant loss. And you regulate the oil flow through,
there's a sight glass here, and you'll see the drips of oil going through the sight glass.
And at the bottom here we have a little lever, and we can add or decrease the amount of oil.
That oils the engine itself. When it oils too much you'll know because it'll get
a bit bogged down and blue smoke coming out. Not enough oil, you'll feel a nip up. She'll go tight.
So the guys that ride these know what I mean. You have to know where you are with the oil.
It has got a tap here. It shouldn't have been there really, but because obviously the pump's a bit worn,
if you didn't have that the oil would discharge through the pump onto the floor over a few weeks.
So you have to make sure that tap's on. Now the guy that's got this bike, he's had it 10 years,
and he has struggled with it in starting it. I think it's an issue really with technique,
and I think I can help him get over that. Procedure for starting,
we'll turn on the fuel. We've got fuel in the tank. So round this side we'll put the tap on.
And it has a tickler, but we're not going to over tickle it because there is a tendency
you can flood these things and they won't go. So we depress the tickler a few times.
She's in neutral. Levers up here. This top lever, that's your advance and retard. That's fully retarded forward.
Well bring it back a little bit like we do with the Goldie. This is a choke,
we won't need that. We have a decompress and the clutch on this side.
So what we're going to do first of all, we're going to pull the clutch in.
Right, now I pulled the clutch in it stopped that dragging to start with. That's freed
it off. This lever below here where my hand is, is the decompressor. So I find compression. It's
on compression now. Pull the lever in, ease it over the top slightly, now a few revs on, a good kick.
We'll do that again.
Now we can see the oil coming through into the sight glass.
If you ride it hard you need a bit more oil. If you're riding it fairly soft,
not quite so much. You can see the exposed valve here working.
And that's it. It has an issue, it won't tick over, I've got to sort that out. But
it's not too bad. But that's it basically. I didn't start it with the oil on because it
already had quite a lot in the sight glass, and I wanted to get it going before we
turned on the oil supply. But you have to remember, because it has this tap, to turn
it on obviously before you ride off. And when you've finished riding the bike, turn it back off.
You have it on when you're riding obviously. Yeah, what can I say? It just has a magneto
and girder forks, which give a nice ride actually. Anyone that's ridden anything with girder forks, you
get a really nice ride. The frame will actually go up and down. With telescopic forks they dive.
This will hit the bumps and you'll ride, it rides really well. It's such a smooth bike
because it's light. There's no rigid frame, there's no rear suspension. All you have is saddle springs.
And you sit quite low in the bike, and it's a saddle, so it's quite comfortable.
Yeah, everything's done slowly. Hand gear change, like I say, you have your hand on
the clutch, pull the clutch in, select the gear. Nothing's done fast on these.
And you chuck the revs back a little bit. The revs will stay where you leave them. The
twist grip is sort of like it won't return, so you keep a few revs there because your hand's going to
come off and go to your gear lever and change. But yeah, she's good, that's good. It just needs,
I think the guy just needs a little bit more help with his technique in starting it, and it'll be
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