Copyright (c) 2008 GoodMotorcycles.com
My son and I dug the bike out of the back of the garage. The old girl had told us it was a big BSA that we could have for nothing if we cleared out the rest of the accumulated junk in her garage. The BSA was right at the back, so it was not until we had loaded all the other stuff that we were able to see what we had just spent the morning working for.
It was the first time in my life that I had seen a BSA Beagle. It looked quite like those old Honda C100s (which were tarted up as the SS50 moped in the mid seventies). There was a lot of surface rust and an old logbook in a plastic wallet sellotaped on to the seat. One owner, first registered in 1965 and 75cc of four stroke single power.
The old dear reckoned the bike hadn't been run since her husband died, which was ten, or perhaps fifteen, years ago. I had been hoping for a Gold Star, or at least a WD40, instead of some horrible imitation of a Japanese commuter. My son wanted nothing to do with it, so it was slung in a corner of my garage until the winter, when I might have the time and energy to do some work on it.
When I eventually got around to the machine, I was amazed to find that the previous owner had filled the engine up with oil. I drained it off, put in some fresh stuff and fiddled around with the magneto points ignition. A new spark plug revealed that the ignition was working and a bit of petrol in the tank revealed that the tap washers had perished. A bit of drilling and Araldite fitted a decent Japanese tap to the tank. The carb had just a bit of mesh screen rather than a proper filter and no choke, it needed to be flooded with petrol as do most old British bikes.
The tiny engine had quite a lot of compression. Having grown used to the civilisation of the electric button, after ten kicks I was well knackered. My son turned up and he too was half dead after another twenty. The engine had started to make encouraging noises so I tried again. On the third kick the engine came to life with a terrifying roar. Next door's dogs started barking like the Baskerville Hounds.
I quickly turned the engine off. What sounded like a death rattle came from the top end of the motor and we were both choking on the oil fumes being burnt off by the engine. A look up the silencer revealed that it too had been filled with oil. I pushed the machine outside and tried again. First kick got her running and the smoke eventually burnt off. I got the usual screaming act from the wife who went hysterical when she found the sheets she had out drying had turned grey and the neighbour threatened to let his dogs loose if I didn't turn the damn thing off as the engine was interfering with his TV reception.
I set the valves - I had no idea what the real setting was but they seemed so loose that it would do no harm to close them up. That quietened the rattles a little but it was still a noisy bugger. I couldn't try it out as the tyres were perished but I was able to check that the gearbox still worked - the bike leapt forward a yard as the clutch plates had gummed up.
After buying some new tyres - really ancient things, 19 inch in diameter and almost as thin as those fitted to a heavyweight bicycle - I made up some cables, cleaned up the brakes and took off most of the surface rust. I wanted to check that it ran okay before pointing my electric spray gun in its direction.
The first ride was a bit frightening. The chassis shook from the vibes and wallowed from the vile suspension. The leading link front forks were so loose that putting on the front brake resulted in a series of wild lurches. The bike felt like it was running on a narrow strip of tread and about to fall over at any moment. After a quick run up to 45mph, I returned to the garage for further thought.
The coldest winter in memory saved the bike from being sold. It was impossible to ride any of my other machines, so I decided to work on the Beagle. I made up phosphor bronze bearings for the swinging arm and forks, took the cycle parts down to bare metal and sprayed them. The chrome on the bars and wheels had long since disappeared so they ended up gloss black. The pressed steel, spine type frame was full of rust on the inside, so it was hung up and poured full of rust killer before being sprayed.
This took about two months of not particularly hard work. I left the engine alone, I knew from past experience that once you started taking a British engine apart, you'd never get it back together again unless you replaced all the bearings and half the components. British engines manage to run with a large amount of wear as long as you leave them to their own devices. This is, perhaps, just as well as British engines wear rapidly.
Even if I say so myself, the reassembled machine looked pretty good in its light and dark blue livery. It needed twelve kicks to bring to life this time. I had reset the ignition timing but was not impressed with the flimsy nature of the magneto and points. Handling was markedly improved with the new bearings, but the machine was very light - around 150lbs in my estimation, making it very twitchy. It was rather like riding an old rigid framed machine.
If this directness of ride was disconcerting at first, I soon realised that the bike was not very happy going above 40mph, although on one or two occasions I gritted my teeth and got the speedo twitching around the 55mph mark. The small drum brakes were adequate for moped speeds but a 40mph crash stop to avoid a suicidal pedestrian revealed massive fade. It may just have been than they should have been relined and reshoed but past experience with British brakes suggested otherwise.
The machine was limited in speed because of the outpouring of vibration. The engine was especially vibratory when buzzed in third, changing up to fourth as soon as possible was a good idea. This enforced restrained riding showed up the Beagle as remarkable in one aspect - it was an incredibly frugal machine, doing anything between 150 and 170mpg. Why should such an ancient, worn out engine be so very good in economy - even a brand new C50 ridden at similar speeds won't do no more than 125mpg!
Not that the Beagle could be considered as a practical means of transport. The lights made it unsafe to ride at night. There was no battery, the lights were powered directly by the magneto. Below 20mph they were a faint glimmer, above 40mph the bulbs blew and in between you'd be better off using a bicycle lamp. The engine also had a habit of stalling at junctions just as the lights changed to green. I was often left leaping up and down on the kickstart whilst car drivers screamed abuse at me for holding up their progress.
The magneto and carb conspired to make the machine totally unreliable. The latter would occasionally fall off, more often it shed jets and mesh filter, whilst the former was pure junk. The timing seemed to change over the course of a journey. Set perfectly at the beginning, after 25 miles the engine would barely run, misfiring like half the spark plug was about to fall out. Still, I soon became a dab hand at a quick timing change.
Despite the new bearings, the bike didn't like to go around corners fast (as in 40mph). There was a disconcerting tendency to run wide and head into the bumper of oncoming cars. Anyone who has ridden an NSU Quickly will understand what I mean. Backing off the throttle caused the back tyre to leap around like a H1 in heat. I have never ridden a bike so frightening at such low speeds, but then it may just have been down to the worn out suspension. It looked so skimpy that time could do nothing but wear it out rapidly!
The bike could be hear coming from miles away. Doubtless whole areas of suburbia cursed it when their TV reception went awry. It rattled, roared and rang through the town, a huge rucksack full of tools strapped to the pillion perch. It was certainly a talking point. Every time it broke down some old duffer came out of the wood offering useless suggestions as to how to fix it and telling me they don't make them like that, these days. I always replied that, these days. you can buy brand new Triumphs and Nortons, which stuns those out of the game for a long time into silence. On paper the Beagle was probably a neat design, cheap enough to produce to fend off the Japanese commuter hordes. On the road it's a terrible heap, a quaint bit of British engineering malpractice. However, I've grown to like its idiosyncrasies and will keep doing a couple of thousand miles a year on it.
William Farnham
After reading the article on the Beaver in a previous UMG, my appetite was severely wetted. The tidy little machine was just the thing to satisfy my upwardly mobile life style at the age of 16. I immediately began my quest to smoke out and trap a Beaver of my very own. My search was long and hard for the illusive creature but I finally tracked one down through an advert in the UMG.
On first sight the bike looked like a complete whale ejaculation, the frame was badly corroded (not unusual for British bikes in my experience) but had only clocked 6000 miles. The front forks were too short and had obviously been transplanted from a C50 and bodged on to the BSA. The owner explained that the original forks were violently distorted after a sudden seizure of the front drum brake resulting in a head on collision with a stationary Wanklux (Toyota Highlux). After some heated haggling we agreed on forty quid, which some would say was a lot to pay for a pile of cat chod but I was determined to claim my prize.
Once the Beaver was safely caged in my bike shed I began a thorough inspection. I had bought the bike as a non runner and therefore expected to encounter mechanical failure. Surprisingly, after just resetting the points to the specified gap and rerouting the tangled web of electrics, the bike gave birth to a large cloud of blue smoke and chortled into life.
My attention was then focused on finding some replacement forks. Originals are hard to come by since few bikes were made, therefore alternatives had to be found. These came in the form of TY50 forks and yokes from a previous motorcycle. Unfortunately, the TY's steering column was an inch too long so a spacer was cunningly fashioned from a piece of brass boiler tube. Now that the new front end was attached the bike sat parallel to the ground.
The bike ran but I was sure that in its present condition it was too tatty to pass an MOT, so I decided on a complete strip down. The little beast was of simple construction, consisting of a loop frame and mono-shock suspension, so with only minimal help from a reluctant brother, few hours were needed to dismantle the bike. Surprisingly, the engine was in remarkably good condition with hardly any bore wear; obviously, the bike had never been seriously thrashed. I decided to leave the bottom end alone as the four speed gearbox had seemed fine when I rode the bike around before.
The frame needed rubbing down, followed by a coat of Rusty and then Smoothrite. The bike was then reassembled with TY50 handlebars and front wheel. The tank and seat were left alone as they were in reasonable condition.
Another interesting point about the BSA was that it used a rear stop light for the main beam and dip - obviously an Italian job!
The bike passed the MOT second time around after a loose swinging arm failed it the first. Screwing its arse off in top gave an indicated speed of 30mph but in actual fact I was clocked by a fellow biker doing at least forty. This aroused my earlier suspicions that the replacement Kawasaki clock did not have the same gear ratio as the original.
The Wop two stroke single cylinder motor felt fairly crude but produced enough in the way of power to compensate for the large gap between the untra low first gear and the more reasonable choice of second gear ratios. First was apparently chosen to let the bike climb up the side of a house.
The bike handled well around corners but was a bit light under hand, especially when using the rear brake. The bike was also a touch on the small side for me, as I was 6'3" and 12 stone, heavier than the bike itself. Equipped with a larger engine sprocket, the top end was increased by a further 5mph. This gave a more even spread of grunt along the flat, preventing arse rattling engine revs in top gear. One annoying factor is that at high revs the petrol tank resonates violently, which over long periods gave rise to a bad case of diesel willy.
150 miles to Hull would be a real test for the little Beaver, not only to find out if the engine would stand the pace but if the bike was comfortable enough for me to stay seated for nearly six gruelling hours. I set off early one summer morning from Windermere and everything ran well for two hours until half a mile outside of Long Preston the little bugger began to misfire and lose power.
I pulled over to inspect the damage. The down pipe was smoking copiously. I removed the spark plug to find that the electrodes had fused together. I had forgotten to bring a spare but had a Swiss army knife with which I was able to separate the electrodes. As a precautionary measure I retightened the cylinder head bolts. I then mounted the bike once again and proceeded to have an uneventful 90 mile ride into Hull. Tightening down the head bolts must have cured the problem because the engine has no cylinder head gasket and I suspect it was allowing extra air to rush in, thus weakening the mixture. It was lucky that the spark plug went instead of the piston!
The seating position was quite adequate, even for me, although extra seat padding would have given a softer ride to my buttocks. My stay in Hull was pleasant, only marred when a jealous friend saw my tidy motor and decided to blemish the tank by painting KNOBCHEESE across it...
So, as an overall summary, I would say that the Beaver has good fuel economy (100mpg), and a top speed of 45mph, although the bike is small it will cope with anyone from a 5 stone weakling to a 12 stone gorilla.
Adam Rawcliffe
I'd progressed from a Bantam to British twins. Like all young bikers I had absolutely no respect for these huge vibrating monsters, and happily spent many weekends and evenings bolting them back together. Still, a complete running bike was around £250 then, and as I worked in those days, it didn't seem to matter. Like many of my brothers I ended up unemployed, broke with a clapped out British twin, I swapped it for a Jag which I sold for £100 but, oh boy, I missed my bike. A friend of mine, had a friend who had a friend who had a BSA M20 500 single for sale quite cheaply.
I'd never heard of an M20 and was informed that it was an old sidevalve plodder - I dared not ask what a sidevalve was. The guy who owned it acquired a Harley and wanted £175 for it. He threw off the canvas cover and I was in love. I had to have it, even if it was 30 years old and clapped out. The big cylinder of that long stroke engine, and the basic brutality of the machine's appearance appealed. I didn't have the money right then, but a week later I had secured the funds.
It ran but not for long. It was taken apart, painted black and customised. Upon completion, it wouldn't start. I had to wait until Monday morning to buy the right jet for the carb, having bunged on an Amal 928 Concentric. This done, it started first kick and the carb really made a difference on its first run down to the South Coast. It was only supposed to do about 60mph but according to a friend on another bike and the wind in my face, it was doing about 75mph. I still don't quite know why.
My friend was nearly killed on that run; had he had the same lack of acceleration as I had on the M20 he would have been. I soon learned to adjust to this by planning ahead about five cars. I still do. A bad crash, the following year, 1983, totally wrecked my poor M20 (and me). Somehow I had to put it back together. With my body in plaster, finding the cash to do this was a nightmare but somehow I did it. £100 was the rebuild cost, including a new front end, carb, oil tank, seat and guards.
It's only now, seven years later, having had to buy virtually no replacement parts except points, exhaust valve and head gasket, that I'm doing a total rebuild. Have parts' prices gone up or what? £15 for an engine sprocket, I ask you? Still, that's the price of all this classic nonsense. On the good side, at least there's no shortage of parts if you can afford them. There are so many new parts still available, I can't ever see a shortage. For the desperate, there's an endless supply of used parts available at reasonable prices, although rigid frames are getting rare and tend to cost up to £75 wlb.
Luckily, I've got spare barrels, so I'll never need to bother with a rebore - just as well in North Scotland, the nearest rebore centre is 50 miles away. That kind of mileage, in this cold, god forsaken land, is a morning's journey on an M20. Oil consumption is fairly heavy so there's never any need for an oil change - I just keep putting more of the nasty, cheap stuff in. The M20 seems to love it. In emergencies, when the money supply is desperate, it often has to be used oil from the neighbour's tractor, but it doesn't seem to mind.
Fuel consumption isn't that special at 60mpg, but it's sufficient. A tankful seems to last the week. The new type of ozone friendly fuel doesn't seem to affect the beast, however, recently it has been pinking. I've put this down to the timing, opening the advance/retard lever to fully advanced seems to help slightly.
The clutch is a single spring type that is best left alone as it's a bastard to compress the spring. It's not really necessary to check the clutch, though I did, it really is indestructible and mine has never worn. I suppose it's to do with not needing to use the clutch as the bike pulls well in 4th at any speed from 15mph plus. I only use the clutch when starting off or for changing down through the box.
Changing down a couple of gears is almost as effective as the minimal drum brakes at slowing down the beast, but they don't have to be that hot as it's not a very fast machine. The gearbox is excellent. very simple, very efficient and very, very tough. Like the engine you can't abuse it enough. In fact, the only reason I changed the mainshaft was because I got a brand new one cheap and I felt I ought to buy the old girl something brand, spanking new.
Now we come to the first real fault - the gearbox oil seal. Absolute crap. I cured the massive leak with lots of red Hermatite and very thick tractor gearbox oil. Now it only leaks as bad as a seventies Bonnie. It's a pity I can't use Cornflake packets as an oil seal, although I did use lino as a sump plate gasket.
Need I tell you that the electrics are dismal. Not the magneto, that's never let me down, but the dynamo and regulator are something else. Not to mention 6V bulbs that blow - at midnight. We all know that all petrol stations don't stock 6V bulbs (actually, one near Exeter did) so spares in the tool roll are essential.
They're often broken too, due to the excessive M20's primary vibes, combined with the rigid frame's failure to soak up the bumps in our rotted road system. It would be nice to have some rear suspension, but it's something I've learnt to live without.
A 12V bulb in the rear often seems to save the 6V front, even if the lights aren't so bright. The rear actually becomes hardly visible so I rely on the offensive Maltese Cross lens for being seen. I will eventually blow £38 on a 12V conversion, as there is a lack of street lighting up in the wilds around here.
It's really the only bit of modernisation the bike needs, although it does seem outdated on the M25 when I'm down that way. I try to avoid motorways usually, so you can imagine how proud I was when I managed to get into the second lane on the M25 and overtook a Luton van. It's on bikes like mine that you appreciate agricultural machines on the road - it means you get to overtake something, if you can get past.
Unlike twins, I do find it strange that nuts and bolts stay done up, especially with the vibes I've already mentioned. One gets used to it and like a good woman, you really know you've ridden something. I can thoroughly recommend the BSA M20/21 to anyone who really likes unhurried touring. It's reliable to unknown extremes, cheap to run and needs virtually no maintenance. It has taken me all over Britain for next to nothing - to this day, my toolkit consists of two spanners (one adjustable), an exhaust valve, red Hermatite and odd bits of wire to repair my own wiring en route.
However, these machines are old as I've just realised. I'm 27 years old now and married, with that marriage came a great beast of a dog. So what? Well, I decided to fit a sidecar and the frame could take no more - it snapped right before my very eyes. It took some days to finally admit the 40 year old, accident bashed and battered frame might be better off without the extra strain, so it's now rewelded and solo again. Dog, wife? I've bought the German war counterpart, a Cossack 650 combo. A good alternative.