BSA Folding Bicycle

[rob love]

Busy day today as the bike starts to take shape again. Just thought I would add a few things for the future BSA bike restorers.

Paint: As the photo below shows, the paint I used (gillespie 33070 ww2 olive drab) came pretty close to what original paint remained on the bike. Of course, we all know better than to think that 70 year old paint has retained all it's pigments, or that all bikes were painted from the same mix of paint, the same way, and the same temps. Either way, this will do.

Pedals: If you are removing your pedals, just heat up the small washer end. It is brazed on, vice the large end which is peened on. Removing the pedals lets you get in to try and free the poppets.

Poppets: I couldn't see me having drilled through ball bearings, and as it turns out I did not. They are actually cylindrical poppets in there. I am using 7/32 ball bearings instead, along with some suitable length of quality spring under the ball. I do not expect to be going into here again. It will be someone else's turn in 70 years.

You will also notice that things like the bearing retainers, pedal shaft etc are in black. I did not find traces of paint on these parts, so I sandblasted them to clean them up, and dunked them into rifle bluing. Afterward, they were simply oiled.

Here are a couple shots of some of the results