1942 BSA- A little off topic

Happy D-Day all!! Always wanted one of these and was able to drag this one home on Wednesday night. It's a 1942 with an earlier motor and a mix of parts form it's service years. I am finding out that these bikes were worked on with the same approach as the rifles were. The mechanic working on the bike and replacing parts wasn't concerned if they grabbed a period correct part for the bike they were working on, they just grabbed a serviceable one and fixed the bike.

This bike went through rebuild in a base workshop in Germany in 1953. I love the way it looks. I pulled that wrong shovel off and put on the pannier frames that I received with the bike.

I know this is off topic, but I thought you all might enjoy seeing a 72 year old warhorse on this very special day.

Brian B

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Nice bike! Here's my brother and his 1942 BSA M-20.Attachment 53538

Thanks for sharing. I love the Sterling propped up against his bike!!

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Originally Posted by Brian B

Thanks for sharing. I love the Sterling propped up against his bike!!

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Its a sten gun....

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Originally Posted by waco16

Its a sten gun....

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My bad. It looked too long for a Sten in the picture!!

It's a Lines Brothers Mk3 Sten.

That's a great bike to save Brian. Here's a bit of info for you. On the oil tank you'll see the letters OMD-330?. That indicates OIL, Mineral, Detergent and the viscosity rating. Can you tell me the markings on the workshop repair standard plate and I might be able to give you more info as it is all in a sort of simple code. In the few years before '52 the War Department as it was then were changing all of the old census numbere (like the C-52121 on Gary's picture) and replacing them with WD registration numbers such as 13YA28 (allocated from a central point at Ruislip in Middlesex incidentally) and the workshop repair plate might have this number stamped on it above or below the old original census number. My brothers old Bedford had L-xxxxx and that was changed to 77YC16 in 1952 at Bovingdon Base Workshop. The letters YH were used on the old Jeeps and YP on DUKW's and so on.

The union jack flag on the tank is/was a requirement of the fledgling W-German authorities (although they really didn't have toooo much authority.......) in 1956 for NATO vehicles to show the nationality of the vehicles so you know that it was still in service after 1956

There another few bits of useless Enfield info. Not strictly Enfield info of course - but sort of........, with the BSA connection!

Peter,

Thanks for the excellent information. Here is a shot of the fender tag along with a shot of the rebuild tag on the engine.

Also, here is a link to all the pictures I have on photo bucket.

1942 BSA M20 Photos by BBrown3407 | Photobucket

Thanks for the help,

Brian

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Yep, that's the WD registration number 07YE19. 4 Base Workshop was at Bad Oeynhausen in the BRitish sector of Germany and was in an old German heavy plant and machinery factory.

There, that's a bit of your bike history.

Peter,

Thanks again for the excellent information. I am excited that the bike may be mostly original as it left military service. I image the black paint on the primary case and toolbox might have been a post war addition.

Thanks,

Brian

Hey, Brian. Keep us all up to date with restoration progress on your little BSA. The real mystery is just HOW it came to be in the USA! Obviously sold in the late 50's/early 60's at the huge vehicle disposals site at Hamm in W-Germany, probably by a dealer and sold on to a US serviceman.

When I first knew my wife, her dad had an old ex US lend lease British Army INDIAN motorcycle in his garden shed. It was hand painted blue but under the blue paint you could clearly see the old WD census C- number and the trace of old 'tac' signs. That was obviously an old lend-lease bike too but generally speaking, disposal of lend lease stuff was tightly controlled, even well up to the 70's when we were still disposing of plant and machinery. CAT dozers (were they D8's as I recall from the big Engineers depot at Ripon?) were one of the last things to go. They all had post war SY and SZ numbers. There was an article in the Royal Engineers Corps Journal about the last of the old wartime kit being disposed of.

I used to have a 1940 WM20 but sold it as finding all the special 1940 parts was very expensive and with already owning 12 WD Royal Enfields it wasn't really in keeping with the collection.

Your bike has been modified for the Volkes air filter system which mounted on top of the tank, hence why one side at the rear has been removed. Are you aware of Henk Joores website and forum? There are people on there who have quite a few of the original Key cards and maybe able to give you some history of your bike. I think you can also ask the MOD for it's record too but more than likely it would just be the basic details of contract details and disposal date.

Do lots of research before you buy any spares as the post war M20 was a little different, anything with a YM or ZM20 prefix is post war.

A quick update. I worked on the bike all day on Saturday draining and replacing the fluids. I pulled the sump filter and removed a lot of gunk out of it. It was leaking badly and I cut out some new gaskets out of a sheet of cork I picked up at the auto store. The oil tank was really bad and it took a while to get it clean. I also cleaned out the fuel tank. It is solid, but I need to replace the seals in the shut off valves. I tried to get the bike running on Saturday night, but no luck.

Had a few minutes tonight after a full family day and was able to finally get her to fire up. I had spark but replaced the spark plug with a new one. I played with the timing advance based on advice I received from the M20 forum. Once I got enough fuel to it, it fired up. It didn't run well, but it ran!! Will work on it more this week to get it running more smoothly so I can take it for a test spin. Here is a quick video



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Did you/can you ever find out how it came to be in the US Brian?

While I was in Singapore, the transport workshop from 25 Company RCT next to us at Alexandra had a load of ex-'census' vehicles such as Bedford OY's and QL's and Austin K5 3 tonners and K4 ambulances. They also still had some old 'census' motorcycles that retained their old C- xxxxx census numbers that were never reallocated post war numbers. This was because, so said, they had been left behind/captured by the Japanese in 1942 and picked up again when we came back in '45. The VRB's (the Vehicle Record Books) had all been lost so they couldn't be allocated new numbers such as your xxYExx type. I expect that these were just sold off cheap along with everything else when we left. Mind you, not as cheap as when we left them in '42!

I expect that if you are careful lifting the paint on the tank you'll find traces of its past. Anyone tell Brian what he can use to lift one layer of paint at a time?

Peter,

Not sure how it arrived in the US. The previous owner purchased it from a gentleman who had it for 20 plus years. I am going to try to track him down to see if I can get some more history on the bike.

I am tempted to leave the bike in as is condition and ride it. Undecided on how to proceed, so I think I will wait and think about whether to leave as is or restore.

Thanks for all the help,

Brian

I've said many times that my brother has an old Bedford but that is restored to c1950's BAOR spec in gloss deep bronze green paint of the era. Very nice too but it ain't 'genuine' because it started its life as an RAF issue Bedford! I'm sure that if you do decide to restore it, you could safely take it to exactly what it was simply because it's there before your very eyes and dead right too! If you took it back to its wartime guise then you'd really be guessing what census number it had.

The really good bit about post war is that you could match the divisional tactical signs (known as the tac signs) with any unit of your choosing that were in Germany of the era! Great project

If you still have the old suppressor fitted in the ignition lead then take it out as it isn't need in this day and age and it just messes up the ignition anyway.

If you haven't split the crank case to clean it and it was pretty gunky, I'd be tempted to run it with some cheap oil and do regular changes until most of the movable crap is out. I split one of my cases down that looked to be pretty clean and found the sludge traps were well and truly full. It's said that modern oils with detergents can wreck an older engine by pushing the gunk through the big end if it's not been stripped and cleaned but it's not totally true, the cleaning agents carry the carbon deposits away but don't tend to remove the gunk that's built up in the traps.

As for not running well, sounds pretty normal to me, well at least that's how mine run.

Army issued oils had a detergent included, hence the D in the OMD spec. It was said that this didn't do civillian car engines any good. Whether this was just to stop you using the same 'free' oil in your car or bike is another matter

It's the forty odd years since they were released from the Army that causes the build up. As far as I know it's true about the OMD not being much good for your own engine unless you know it to be clean. From what I understand, civilian oils were often based on vegetable fats which broke down and built up in the sludge trap, if you then put OMD in the engine it could move the sludge and block the oil galleries and the quill to the big end with dire results. Like you say, how much of this is a scare tactic to prevent people from pilfering military engine oil I don't know. I've always stripped my crank cases down, I find it therapeutic to strip a dirty engine down, clean it, replace parts as required and rebuild it and then wonder where the extra nuts should go. Thank god for digital cameras, they got me out of a few rebuild messes!

Nice bike Brian and I'm like you, I like the way it looks as it sits.

BTW, not off topic at all. :super: