Meet my Baby Meteor

Yes folks,  The meteorite has arrived.

After 9 months, 12 days, and a gruelling 35 hour labour, my wonderful wife, the heroic Mrs Meteor delivered the heir to this motorcycle and new addition to the Meteor Family -Lilly Belle Mary on the 12th Jan 2012.

She was a big momma,- 8lb 13.5oz and is absoultely beautiful. I was bursting with pride from the moment she came to meet us (even though she poohed on me straight away!) and haven`t come back down to earth since.

So i suppose i should take this moment to explain how i have neglected my meteor minor and have spent the last 40 days and 40 nights walking in a wilderness of sleepless nights and being elbow deep in dirty nappies.

But that wouldnt be strictly true. Sure, i have been known to change the odd soiled diper when nature calls for my little girl, and i`m now typing this blog with my left hand whilst i sling my little girl over my right shoulder,
But Mrs M`s wonderful boobs have been taking care of  Lilly`s midnight snacks, - which means during the night i am about as useful as a   one-legged man in an arse kicking contest and my reputation for being able to "sleep on a washing line" has remained in tact

Thankfully, my new role as chairman of the Llandow father/daughter cuddle-club has not been overly taxing on the energy levels. 


So rest assured fellow meteorites,  even as i boldly venture into the strange new world of fartherdom, a parrallel dimension exists just at the bottom of my garden. A sanctuary free from crying babies and stinking nappies. A place where men can be men and the motorcycle is god! The church of St Enfield`s doors are open and i`m about to start my sermon of the new year.......

Restoring a Royal Enfield Meteor Minor- The Legacy Update

Restoring a Royal Enfield Meteor Minor-
In my last posting i said i`d try to get another blog in before the arrival of both the new year and my new baby meteorite. New years eve is upon us and Mrs M is bursting at the seams her due date is today, and she says her belly feels really tight,- so i suppose i`d better get on with it.

Xmas in sunny south Wales went without a hitch. Not counting the fact that Jamie Oliver`s timings for cooking a turkey were spot on if you like your food with the same amount of moisture as Ghandis flip flops, And my darling wife having a bump in my car whilst out xmas shopping......

Mrs M: "i was sat in the car in the car park, i lokooked in my mirror, saw her reversing, and just watched her drive straight into me"
Me: "she couldn`t have been going very fast. did you beep the horn?"
Mrs M: "No, i just didnt think of it at the time"

women.

Anyways, on the upside,the wonderful  mrs M did give me a decent wedge of her hard earned cash to spend on the bike. Hitchcocks here i come. Fuel tank restoration part 2 will be posted sometime in January as long as i can steer clear of being knee deep in baby pooh for long enough to put pen to paper.

Legacy Update
Those of you whom have been following this blog from the start will remember that back in November i decided to join the Royal Enfield owners club. i aimed to enlist their help in researching the history of this motorcycle.
About a week went by before my welcome pack landed on the doorstep and i must say i was impressed, i received:-
a) 3 copies of the REOC bi monthly magazine called "the Gun" which contained news about club events, reviews of different rallies, readers problems and tips, and a for sale and wanted section.

b) My membership number card

c) Various branch details

d) List of approved Spares Suppliers

e) A Royal Enfield Owners Club car sticker

but most importantly,
f) The contact details of all the REOC management commitee

My first stop was to contact Jim Millar. He was the machine dating officer for the REOC and i thought  i would send over rubbings and pics of the frame and engine numbers to see if he could throw a bit of light on the legacy of the bike.
Otherwise, i would have to move to plan B, -drive to Llanfalteg and put thumb screws on the mysterious Mr Taylor until he told me what colour the tank and frame were.

Jim Miller
 In my minds eye i had visions of a man in a huge vault of old books blowing dust off a huge leather bound archive of old Redditch Royal Enfield manufacturing logs.

 He would carefully thumb through the pages which were yellowing with age until he found a match to my engine number -SMCA 7591.


As the custodian of this hallowed book, he would then have access to an unfathomable amount of information regarding my particular motorcycle,
-right down to what colour underwear the fitter was wearing on the day he proudly wheeled it off the production line. Mr Taylors thumbs would be able to keep twiddleing for now at least.

Hmmm, that wasn`t exactly how the story went. Jim Miller had just quit his post as machine dating officer.

Fortunately, Graham, the chairman and don of the REOC organization was on the blower to me the next day to pick up the gauntlet with support of new replacement dating officer Tom Bray.
It turns out that he did indeed have a record of all the Royal Enfield Engine serial numbers which were produced at the Redditch factory and he had found mine without a hitch.
The engine was as advertised, a 500cc Twin which did indeed belong to a 1959 Royal Enfield Meteor Minor. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that the integrity of my bike and this blog was intact and eased back in my chair to begin rattling off a list of questions regarding the motorcycles registration details, original spec and colour etc. That was when he dropped the bombshell.......

"i have been populating a spreadsheet with a list of engine serial numbers and matching them up with the frame numbers.....your frame has obviously been overstamped with a second set of numbers, but none of the combinations of these numbers are anything like the original serial number for this particular engine."

Shit.

He advised me that years ago when men were men and everybody maintained their own motorcycles, people would often go to scrap yards which were full of old bikes, and interchange any unserviceable items. The boys in work were right. Mrs M had bought me a "ringer"

Graham been looking at the pics i took of the bike and the photos of the dodgey serial numbers. The frame certainly looked the part but he advised me could possibly belong to a Royal Enfield Constallation (the frames are identical).

He would need to contact replacement dating officer Jim Millar, and together they would decide on what my actual frame number was, and whether i could be allocated a new number or the records could be updated.
Until then, the tap of information regarding the bike would have to be turned off.

Well folks that was the last i heard from the REOC and it appears my old Meteor is having an identity crisis. i emailed them last week so hopefully the new year will bring some more interesting news. Hey, i may have even got round to doing something on the bike

Happy New Year
Meteor Man

Royal enfield Meteor Minor Restoration - Fuel Tank Overhaul part 1

Blog 4 of 4 -to read earlier posts, click archive at top of page

Restoring a Royal Enfield Meteor Minor Fuel Tank Intro
For most of my life i had quite short hair. High and tight -marine corps style. I used to put gel through it and keep it trimmed regularly.
You see, a hair dresser friend of mine once told me that "peoples hair are their crowning glory" and that the way that you keep your hair says something about you on a first impression.

That, my friends, was before i met mrs Meteor. 10 years ago, she was a plucky young student full of querky ideals -or as me and my buddies thought, she was mad as a bucket of frogs.
On realising that my hair had a bit of a wave in it, she demanded that i grow it beyond its regulation 2 inches to see how it looked.

In an attempt to woo the young Miss M, and despite being called a "tatty bastard" from many of my pals at the air force base where i worked, i perservered and cultivated the curly indie rock god mop you see below. I now call it "biker chic"!

(above) Me trying to look cool  in a 1965 RAF Vickers VC10  engine intake (2004) -one of my few good hair days

From my earlier writings you will have probably guessed that mrs M rules the roost around my house. There are jelly fish with more of a backbone than me, and so the curly hair stayed. Afterall, she is always right. hmmmn.

However meteorites, i assure you that this fuel tank, the crowning glory of my Royal Enfield Meteor Minor, will not be under the influence of mrs M`s darth vader like rule.
As the most important visual feature of the bike, i intend to restore it to a state more polished than the pitch of a door to door encyclopedia salesman.
Read on......

Stripping the Paint

Apparently Diamonds are supposed to be the hardest thing known to man. I think Clint Eastwood`s "Gunney Highway" in "Heartbreak Ridge" comes a close second

("i eat razor wire and piss napalm, and i can put a round through a fleas ass from over a 1000 yards").

Whatever. Somewhere high up on the hardenist list is Aluminium Sulphate, and a buddy of mine has an aluminium sulphate bead blaster at his work.

I gave him my rusty old tank, and let him go to work on it. A day later he handed it back to me blasted and then soaked in a strong chemical agent. Apparently the inside was dirtier than a tramp`s armpit at a mud wrestling competition

I was absolutely thrilled with the result see below:-

left side "like a new pin"

Right side- hiding a bit of a filler under where the chrome panel sits. Dropped once upon a time?

Lining The Inside of the Tank

With the tank stripped back to bare metal and with no surface finish to protect the steel, i knew  that i would need to get something inside the tank real quick before a new layer of surface rust began to take hold.

I had the outside of the tank primed straight away, but didnt have the first clue in regards to how i was going to protect the inside surface of the tank. A few days had gone by since i had the paint removed, and i kept the tank next to the radiator in my spare room to keep it dry and free from moisture. The corrosion hadn`t started yet, but the letter was definately in the post that was for sure.

Knowing sweet F.A. about motorbikes, i enlisted the help of a seasoned biker i knew named Nige. He`d done up plenty of bikes in his time and even made his own trike. With his barbed wire wristband tattoo and shaved head, he was Biker-cool personified (apart from his secret penchant for tinkering with vintage lawnmowers). I knew he would have the answer.

 (above) me with stangely shiny and concerned face holding freshly primed fuel tank. bad hair day

Nige advised me that lots of people used a special resin called Petaseal which could be poured inside the tank, and would  set hard to form a seal against the elements.  Sounds like a plan i thought, so off i went to see the gurus at LLandow classics.

They did sell petaseal. However, after i talked to them about my plan, they told me that although i was on the right lines, petaseal had become a bit outdated. Apparently, fuel companies nowadays have introduced an ethanol mixture into their unleaded fuel, which breaks down the components of the fibreglass-like petaseal and allows bits to break off and enter the fuel system.

However, they did stock an a new alternative called TAPOX  which was german made and almost twice the price, -£37 bucks. Tapox claimed it would  stand up to this industrial alchohol and llandow classics had not sold any yet, so i was in uncharted territory, a pioneer in the new method of lining fuel tanks.

The xmas edition of the REOC`s gun magazine reinforced this theory regarding the ethanol in lined fuel tanks, so i took it as sound advice and dug deep in my pockets and shoe-horned out the near forty notes.

I rang up old man meteor and he came down to oversee the pouring of the two part mix. I sealed off the petrol tap hole with a plastic rubber blank so that the threads were protected, and used a sheet of plastic and some elastic bands to seal the fuel cap.

I mixed up the two components inside the tapox  box (hardener and resin) and funnelled it into my freshly primed tank.

I sloshed it about as per the instructions, to such an extent that the ever impatient old man meteor threatned to leave and go home if i shook the tank for another second. Afterall, he had waited at least two minutes and the impregnable 12 0/c lunch barrier was fast approaching.

The instructions inside the tapox said that you need to apply gentle air pressure after you have coated the tank. I assume this is to help it set. It warns you not to use electrical appliances such as hairdryers etc as the tappox mixture is highly flammable and it certainly smelt that way.
Chez meteor maybe a decent shed, but it doesn`t boast the facilities of an air compressor and  
I opted to ignore this step. Instead, I whipped off the plastic sheet covering the petrol cap and pointed it down wind atop my patio table for a short time.  This may become something i`ll regret.

I took a sneaky peak inside the tank an hour or two later, the tank was well covered but still wet with the red tapox mix. Mrs M was beckoning me back to my dad-to-be diy duties, so i put the tank back in the shed and awaited the mixture to cure overnight. This was the result the next day:-

(above) the worst of it

Although the Tapox had cured perfectly, it hadn`t seemed to key into the metal with the even coverage i had hoped for.
I was left with what i would describe as wrinkles of untreated areas which looked like a tigers scrotum!

I must admit i was a little disappointed. This was not the aircraft quality result that i expected and so I headed back down to Llandow classics to see what they thought.
To be fair, i was the first guy that they had sold this tapox stuff to, so they didn`t know what to expect either, however, the guy there said that  may be that the resin had dryed this way due to some residual contamination after the item had been soaked in a chemical cleaner. To be honest i think he`s probably right.
I`ve used enough dodgey chemicals in my time to know that some cleaning agents definately leave a film of chemical residue behind after cleaning. Hey, you live and learn.
Besides, the guy reckoned the tank was in pretty good nick anyway and the tapox had covered enough to do its job, particularly at the most vunerable rear end where they are prone to rust.

He advised me to maybe inhibit the tank by maybe pouring in a bit of diesel to keep it free from any moisture damage and i went on my way. reasonably satisfied.

(above) the primed tank. Filler definately requires some rework

Well meteorites, xmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and so is mrs m`s belly- only two weeks to go and  i absolutely can`t wait! 

i did broach the idea of Enfield as a middle name, but she told me that i needed to get a life.

If the meteorite hasn`t arrived by xmas, she has promised to helped me out with all the extra furnishings i need to finish the tank off as a xmas present such as the badges and petrol tap etc.

hopefully, i`ll get one more blog in by then, but part 2 of the fuel tank will be coming sometime in the new year. if not have fun over the xmas period.

Meteor Man

Royal Enfield Meteor Minor Restoration - Bulk Strip

BLOG 3 of 3. (blog 1 at bottom  of this page or click archive above - October)

 

An Acknowledgement

As the reader counter passes 800 spanning the globe, I`d just like to say how pleased I am that people are taking an interest in this blog, -I must be doing something right, I hope you all continue to enjoy it.

To give credit where credit is due much of this readership has been thanks to the fab review of this blog from Enfield royalty and blogging behemoth David Blasco of www.royalenfields.com. Definitely worth taking a look if you are interested in anything Royal Enfield, or would just like a lesson in how to look debonair on a classic motorcycle. (must see photo of David on his Enfield sporting cravat , Mrs M reckons he is the Hugh Hefner of the classic bike world!)

Story Since last Blog
I`d been gazing out at my garden shed from the confines of our new nursery for a couple of minutes of almost every night last week. On more than one freezing cold evening, I even connected up the extension lead to my outside power and reeled it out to "Chez Meteor" to spark the old lead lamp into life.
Not that I had any intentions of setting to work you must understand. I was merely there to stand and stare, wallowing in my own self pity. You see meteorites, I`d been doing some long days at the aircraft engine factory where I work, and my evenings had been filled with the stink of wet gloss paint in the new nursery and trudging around the sodden Welsh countryside in the dark with my trusty hounds Neville and Dolly.

Sensing my frustration with a fatherly intuition nothing short of a Jedi, it was up to Old Man Meteor (my dad) to take the bull by the horns, step in, and demand that mrs M give me a Saturday afternoon DIY ammnesty so that we could spend some quality father-son time working on the bike.
Not even the pregnant, nesting, mrs M could deny us of that, especially when he assured her :-
"these old bikes are so basic.......we can strip the whole bloody thing in about an hour using only two spanners. It`ll be a Piece of Piss!"

• famous last words I thought. But nevertheless, the missus rubber stamped the afternoon off, and I looked forward to finally getting something done on the Bike. Read on………….

I worked Saturday morning and arrived home just before noon. Old Man Meteor wasn`t even meant to be arriving till 1-ish, but when I arrived, he was already in the shed spraying every nut and bolt on the bike with wd40 to act as a releasing fluid.
I should probably mention that my dads work ethic is slightly akin to that of the Tazmanian Devil cartoon character. To be fair , he is an excellent engineer, but sometimes, when you are trying get him to teach you how to do a job, you firstly have to reign him in as he only seems to work at one speed -flat out. 
I gave him the usual talk of how we need to just take our time with this strip so that we wouldn`t do any damage by rushing. As usual with all DIY we do together, he would agree and then begin tearing into the bike like a tornado in a trailer park.
Knowing that i wouldn`t have time to stop and say "i`ll just take a photo for the blog..."  i just decided that it was best to just get stuck in with him. He probably hadn`t had his regimented 12 o clock lunch yet, and would be extra keen to get cracking so he could finish for a late lunch.  I kept my work overalls on and went straight out to the shed to begin.

Stripping A Royal Enfield Meteor Minor

Fuel Tank
In my  last blog i promised i would make some headway on the tank.  I took the tank off a few weeks ago, (only a couple of bolts)  and have made a start. However, because there is so much to do to it, which all requires a good wedge of cash, i am only about halfway through. Part 1 to be posted shortly.

Engine removal

Old man meteor had brought over his trolley jack and a couple of axle stands which we positioned under the engine. We took just enough weight to allow the mounting bolts to be removed so we could take it off the frame. This worked really well, and with aid of the formentioned wd40, each bolt that connected the engine to the frame came out without a hitch.

With the 500 twin wobbling on top of the jack, me and the old man gripped a side each and managed to somehow man handle the old lump into the corner of the shed. bloody hell it was heavy! i thought that id be spending the rest of the evening walking about like the hunchback of notre damn.

 Frame Disassembly

The frame was obviously much lighter now and was easier to move around in the space of my shed. I`m not going to tell you about every nut and bolt in the strip of the frame, as it was all pretty straight forward. You can see below the items which i pulled apart:

  

Wheel Strip 

Next up was to get the tyres off the wheels. The tyres will probably go straight in the bin as they appear to be brittle from standing in water for some length of time. Besides one of my neighbours who claims to know a bit about bikes reckons that they are so square that they may have fitted  a bike with a sidecar. I think he`s probably right as one of the readers of this blog also emailed me to say that i had side car forks fitted to my motorcycle.

There is definately an art to getting the tyres and inner tubes off the wheel rims and i am glad the old man was there to guide me through it.

1. Turn dust cap upside down and use it as tool to operate inner tube valve to deflate
2. Wedge large flat edge screwdriver between the rim and tyre and move around the rim levering the screwdriver downward to break the bead on the tyre. repeat at 3 inch intervals all around the rim.
3. When the bead is broken all around on both sides of the wheel, use some tyre levers, (or in my case the same big screwdriver as all my decent tools are in work) to lever one side of the tyre up over the rim. Begin just to the left of the valve
4. Again, repeat at 3 inch intervals all around the rim, using a second screwdriver to hold the previous section in position and stop it slipping back behind the rim of the wheel.  work the tyre off the rim all the way around untill you reach the valve.
5. Reach up inside and pull a section of the innertube out. again work around the rim in sections until you reach the valve and the whole thing can be removed from the tyre.
6. Once the inner tube is out, push your screwdriver under the tyre again from the same side, but this time reach across the rim and nudge the opposite tyre wall up over the other rim. this should be much easier than the first side now.
7. with your screwdriver pushed under both walls of the tyre. pull up with the handle and simultaneously use a plastic mallet to beat the remainder of the tyre from the wheel.  

TOP TIP: USE A BIT OF WASHING UP LIQUID WHEN CARRYING OUT STEPS 3 AND 4. IT MAKES THE TYRE SLIP OFF THE RIM MUCH MORE EASILY.

  

PROBLEM: The Forks

Everything was all coming apart a little to smoothly. That was until we got to the forks. The chromed tubes were heavily coroded and i was worried that they would be seized inside the fork / headlamp casing. I had a quick glance at the exploded diagram in the meteor minor parts book to have a look what i was dealing with.
I decided the best course of action would be to simply remove every bolt on the assembly and attempt to withdraw the tubes.

This was easier said than done as they were stuck fast inside the fork housing.
I used a piece of wood as a drift, and began beating downward on the crown of the steering stem in the hope that it would force the stem and tubes away from the headlamp casing in one foul swoop.

To some extent this crude method began to work. The two tubes and steering stem did begin to come away and we exposed the ball bearings which were bagged up and stored away for another day.

However, as the crown had to move downward over the heavily corroded tubes, it began to seize once more.  The repeated blows began to take there toll and the tin wear which you see below the tubes looked like it had just done 15 rounds with mike tyson. I began to panic, and decided the best course of action would be to call it a day on the strip. i doused them in wd40  and decided to spray them every night for the next 5 nights. You can`t win them all. Id have have another crack this coming weekend. .

Besides, If all else fails i will have to take emergency action and call in my buddy Nitro Neil from the engine shop where i work. He is Merthyr Tydfil`s finest super moto pit mechanic in his spare time, and master tactician when it comes to rectifying other peoples cock ups on aero engines in work.
It wouldn`t be the first time he has bailed me out!

Heavily corroded and now slightly battered tin ware

Whitworth and BSF tools donated by a guy who died in my friend Rossy Wossy`s street. Put to good use once again!

Chez Meteor full of stripped down meteor bits.

Other News - Exhaust Purchased


The other day, a good mate of mine rang me up and told me about an exhaust which he had seen on ebay.   The exhaust is in excellent condition and came from a meteor minor sport. But, I must say, that the silencer is  not the classic "cigar" shape which i have seen on many meteor minors, but had a slightly more flared shape.

For a split second i did think twice about buying it. I considered that maybe  such a visually important part of the motorcycle would  have to be the exact standard part and that there would be enfield purists scouring south wales looking to burn me and my bike at the stake. But then i remembered a conversation i had with the gents down at LLandow classics when they told me how many people give up on getting bikes on the road because they crack up when they cant get parts of the original spec.

They advised me that Meteor minors were thin on the ground in the 50s and 60s compared to the more prolific triumph bikes, and some meteor parts would be as scarce as rocking horse shit these days. Particularly stuff like mudguards and tool boxes.

I get myself on ebay and snap it up like a fat kid with some candy floss.

New exhaust for £30

I suppose thats about it for this time meteorites. As i stated earlier, The fuel tank is well underway and  the investigation into my dodgey frame number is also being carried out. So If your interested and want to keep up with any developments,  don`t forget to follow this blog (its easy and free) by clicking the link at the bottom of the page

Meteor Man

 

Royal Enfield Meteor Minor Restoration -Making Plans

Royal Enfield Meteor Minor Restoration

A pal of mine served 25 years with the Royal Engineers. He is an ex warrant officer, and still chooses to sport the regulation (yet ridiculous) "third stripe" army tash which he wears with immense pride despite the constant ridicule from myself and other peers. As with all ex servicemen, he is forever banging on about old army war stories and sayings.  One of the said adages was "the 7 P's".  Not Pea's of the frozen or garden variety but these P's:-

"PROPER, PRIOR, PREPARATION, PREVENTS, PISS POOR PERFORMANCE."

I suppose the word PISS can help you to remember it and it is obviously  something that has stayed with a grunt like myself. But when it comes to the overhaul of a motorcycle like a Royal Enfield Meteor Minor I intend to approach it with somewhat more panache:-
"I`m out there running the road, long before I dance under those lights." Muhammad Ali

Anyway fellow meteorites, I`m not the worlds greatest runner but every journey begins with a single step. So i begin formulating a plan as to how I`m going to tackle this bike. Read on…..

What Exactly Do I Have In my shed?

On the 20^th September 2011, myself and my dad in law bundled this old heap out of the back of his car,
re-affixed the rusty wheels and limped it into the lovely new shed courtesy of mrs Meteor.
Armed with her snazzy new camera, I set about taking snaps of every single component, nut and bolt that would combine to form the foundation of my glorious meteor-to-be. I found just taking the pics a good exercise in getting familiar with the bike (lets not forget, when it comes to bikes, my head is emptier than hermits address book).

It wasn`t long before I came across a small plate fitted to the frame of the bike which was covered in old paint, and it became apparent that this would be the bikes identification plate. After discovering the engine serial number etched into the engine case, it occurred to me that there was now a possibility of tracing back some part of this motorcycle`s legacy, and it would no longer just be a bike from the barn of the mysterious Mr Taylor.

I began to feel like Tony Robinson out of channel 4`s pretty boring Time Team ( afterall, it wouldn`t be the first time that somebody has referred to me as Baldrick out of Blackadder). I want to know things such as:
1) the bikes exact age
2) where was it made
3)colour of the frame and tank
4) is the engine original to the frame

That night i log on and bring up the website of The Royal Enfield owners club. http://www.royalenfield.org.uk/

The owners club offers a variety of useful services.  The blurb on the home page reads:-

"The REOC exists as a forum for the interchange of ideas and information on the maintenance, restoration and use of Royal Enfield motorcycles and machines."

Its a decent site but some parts are off limits to non-members. One of the downsides is that you can`t simply pay to sign up on line and access all the geeky stuff straight away. For example if you want to run a history check on your motorcycle you need to take photos of the bike on both sides as well as pictures and pencil rubbings of both the frame and engine numbers.

Problem: Although the engine number is obvious, The ident etched into the forward upright of the frame (rear of headlamp) is caked in paint and the etched numbers are illegible. I have a rummage through the various chemicals in my shed and find some old paint stripper i used for tarting up a staircase once upon a time. The "Nitromors" works like a charm although the etched numbers are difficult to decipher.  I struggled to decide whether the first character is just a weird looking 6, or a 67 very close to one another (when i show the pics to my mates in work, they assure me that mrs meteor has "bought you a nicked bike for your birthday"). Figuring that it will be up to the guy at REOC to decide, i set to work with a 2hb pencil and some paper.

The ident check will be free of charge to members, but first of all you need to join, afterwhich you send the required info and rubbings to their volunteer dating officer and he gives you all the good info. So i blow the dust off my almost virgin chequebook and head down the local spar for a stamp. It seems that the old meteor in the shed will have to stay annonymous for a few more days.

Meanwhile, with the history of the bike in hand,  i decide to look into getting some info on how this bike is screwed together. Being a novice motorcycle nerd, i struggle to think where to look first,- so as with everything else i ever search for these days, i start on ebay. Lady luck seems to be smiling on me and sure enough somebody has a single 1958-9 Meteor minor parts manual for sale and another is flogging a cd with a PDF copy of the workshop manual. i snap them up like a tramp with a bag of chips, and two days later they hit the doorstep of chez meteor.

The parts manual is pretty much what it says on the tin and is a 50 page booklet full of all the exploded drawings and original part numbers of each item. I scan them all into the hard drive of my PC so i can print off "dirty" copies for later.  Not that sort of dirty- me and my meteor are just getting to know each other.

The workshop manual however looks to be a pretty decent bit of kit and something that i`m sure that i will be referencing regularly during the make-over of the bike.  It is full of detailed write ups on everything from stripping the gearbox to grinding valve seats.

After thumbing through the books, i find myself  in a particularly geeky mood and purchase myself a Meteor metal sign, which i can mount on over the door of my shed. - looks ace.

About a week or so went by without a great deal of progress on project meteor.  A heavily pregnant Mrs M has decided to start “nesting” and is demanding that I get our house sorted ready for the arrival of our new meteorite.  She hands over her list of demands.  A list of chores longer than a 7yr olds xmas present list,  which will see me plastering, wallpapering, painting, landscape gardening, and kitchen fitting  until about xmas time.

Being the dutiful husband and father-to-be (and being too gutless to stand up to the missus), I begin to make a start on her ransom list and set to work, all the while mindful that winter is beginning to tighten its icy grip around me.  I want to begin stripping this bike while I can still feel my fingers.

On Wednesday, i got fed up of sugar soaping wallpaper paste from my nursery walls. I`d been pondering where to start on the bike, but am so inexperienced i just haven`t got a clue. Throwing down my bucket and sponge, I defiantly head down to my local classic bike shop for some much needed expert bike chat.

LLandow Classics http://www.llandowclassics.co.uk/
The two gents down at llandow classics have forgotten more about motorcycles than i will ever know. Not only are they an award winning Royal Enfield dealer, but they are true enthusiasts who have managed to merge their obssession and their workplace. Chris spent about an hour talking to me about my bike and what i hoped to achieve. If you are the sort of guy who wants to restore your bike to the exact same spec as it rolled off the production line, they will help you.  However, if you are mindful of your budget and want to achieve a similar look by utilising cheaper indian enfield parts, they will also point you in the right direction of where this may be applicable.
They also have a workshop on site where they can assist your restoration by offering things such as wheel building and servicing etc.

I`ve heard various ideas about the method and order of which to overhaul this motorcycle, such as people telling me to get the engine ticking over before i start.  After i discussed it with the guys at llandow, and the fact that the bike has been left standing for so long, i have decided that i`m just going to take one chunk a time until everything on the bike has been stripped, cleaned, restored and rebuilt.

You can`t eat a whole cow in one sitting and so my next blog will begin with the fuel tank. The 'crowning glory'.

So meteorites, Its time to stop talking and start doing, so if i haven`t bored you to death with all this waffle, don`t forget to click the subscribe bit at the bottom of the page to keep an eye on any new blogs coming out. i do like it when that view counter stars rising. i`m on 124 views of the first one, but i think 25 or so is me !

Royal Enfield Meteor Minor Restoration -Adopting My Meteor, The Background Story

Royal Enfield Meteor Minor Restoration
BACKGROUND

 I would imagine that most people who choose to take on a project of restoring a bike in such a poor state of repair would be seasoned classic bike enthusiasts. -They would carefully select a bike which they feel confident that they could overhaul to a decent standard by assessing the motorcycles requirements and measuring it against their own level of ability. This is not the case with me. I am a complete novice when it comes to motorcycles and the biggest thrill I have ever had  on two wheels was when I rode down a particularly steep hill on my Raleigh Lizard push bike aged 12.
This project was not something I was looking for- I have 60hr a week job and a baby on the horizon around xmas time. This was bestowed upon me by my darling wife whom has decided it was time for me to get a new hobby.- Mrs Meteor does like to keep me busy.

 I learned about my new obsession when i awoke in a London hotel room one Sunday morning and Mrs Meteor rolled over and handed me a photograph of a restored Royal Enfield Meteor Minor. It was the morning of my 32 birthday (which is why we made a trip to the big smoke from sunny south Wales). “What an awesome wife” I thought to myself  still somewhat blurry eyed from the night before and wondering if I was still dreaming

–“she`s only gone and bought me this fantastic looking motorbike…mint condition too….i`ll do a direct access motorcycle licence and by xmas I`ll have bought all my leathers and I`ll be away!” Images of  weekends cruising around  the winding roads of mid wales raced through my mind and I couldn`t wait to be enjoying the fruits of some other suckers hard graft on making the bike look so good!”
“Mrs M” I proclaimed “this is the best pressie you could have ever got for me, where did you get it from, it must have cost a pretty penny?”
“Oh…. You`ve got it all wrong” she tittered. “The bike in the picture isn`t “THE” bike. “YOUR” bike is that one that’s been festering in my dads shed for the last twenty years- All you need to do is drive to Pembroke when we get back from London and pick it up! And hey, I`ve bought you a shed to keep it in, all you have to do is make a base for it- don`t worry, I have ordered 2 tons of chippings for you to shift round the back garden as soon as we get home”                                                                             

To cut a long story short, it turns out that her old man had pulled this motorcycle out of a barn near Llanfalteg in Pembrokshire belonging to the mysterious Mr Taylor. My Dad in law had full  intentions of doing it up during his spare time. But life moves pretty slowly in West Wales,  and, about 20 years later, it became apparent to “old man meteor” that it was time to hand the torch over to me.
I have worked as an aircraft engineer for 15 years now, so I have been known to turn the odd spanner when the mood takes me, but regularly serviced aircraft with clean components and gas turbine engines are a far cry away from this rusting old beast.

Nevertheless my friends, I fully intend to restore this classic bike to all its origanal glory. I plan to write the coming blogs as a means of documenting my progress and (hopefully) demonstrating how a complete amateur like myself can begin a project like this and take it through a complete overhaul.

As with all good motorsport teams, I will hopefully have a crack technical support team. This will comprise of:
1.) my old dad, -pictured with the bike by my shed, (outrageous socks and shoes combination) who assures me he has stripped and rebuilt clutches on the side of the road back in the day.
Interesting quote- 
"this will be a piece of piss to sort out".

2.) my father in law, -sat on triumph Bonneville, (in slippers with outrageous hair) -total nerd when it comes to anything old that has wheels.

So hold on tight fellow meteorites its going to be a bumpy old ride. As Captain Lawrence Oates once said    “ I`m just going outside* and and I may be some time”  (*outside = shed)