Lucas ATD "47503" with steel gear: value?

[Rex]

Sure would, but to be fair those two bikes weren't aimed at the same market when they were new.
BSA would have never even dreamt of attempting to lap Montlhery at over a 100mph for 24 hours on a B33 way back then.

[Worty]

So far, I've had three fibre gears shred and one ATD fall apart.  This resulted in the Berg's rebuild as, despite my best efforts, I couldn't prevent some of those bits of fibre gear circulating round the engine and causing chaos.  In the end, I bought a brand new ATD with fibre gear during the Berg's rebuild, and it's been fine since.

I'd have no problems with an alloy gear.  As somone said, sudden maggie seize-ups seem extremely rare, and you would probably get some indication that the maggie was on the way out prior to it locking up completely.

[Black Sheep]

The MSS is quicker throughout. Change into top at 50 mph and cruise at 60-65. It will gallop along at 75 if you wish but I only do that if overtaking lesser modern machines. You notice the extra urge climbing long hills.
Handling is good, but then again swinging arm BSAs handle superbly too.
The BSA 4 gallon tank is much better than the 2 gallon Velo one. The B31 has managed 250m miles on a tankful. On the Velo I start to get mild panic after 100 miles. The Velo stepped seat is more comfortable. Both have E3L dynamos and 6v halogen headlights.

[Joolstacho]

Yes the Velo is designed to rev, whereas the b33 is more of a low down 'plonker' isn't it. Fellers new to Velos sometimes 'under-rev' them, which the big end doesn't really like too much of.
And the beauty of Velos is that this MSS is easily turned into a faster Venom, or Clubman, -just the cam, a higher comp piston and maybe carb change will give you something that'll get close to 100mph, maybe change the front sprocket (a 10 minute job because it's outside of that infamous clutch).
(The later 4 1/4 gallon tank gives much better range, and it's dead handsome too).

[Rex]

There was a Velo press release often reprinted on the Net and the Velo club where Veloce said that there had been complaints that the Venom was actually slower than the MSS, so they recommended that to get the best out of the Venom it needed to be revv'ed hard.
It wasn't a big single "get it into top gear and sit there" plodder and shouldn't be used like that, they said.

[Triton Thrasher]

There was a Velo press release often reprinted on the Net and the Velo club where Veloce said that there had been complaints that the Venom was actually slower than the MSS, so they recommended that to get the best out of the Venom it needed to be revv'ed hard.
It wasn't a big single "get it into top gear and sit there" plodder and shouldn't be used like that, they said.

Which is a reminder to us all, that attempts at performance tuning can easily get you less of a bike than you had before, because you lose flexibility.

[Lindsay S]

For anyone who is looking for a new ATD, I just bought one from Yeomans Motorcycles in the UK for £250 plus £10.80 postage; far cheaper than the usual suspects and it works brilliantly!

[Worty]

For anyone who is looking for a new ATD, I just bought one from Yeomans Motorcycles in the UK for £250 plus £10.80 postage; far cheaper than the usual suspects and it works brilliantly!

I'll second that.  My new item cost £200 from a diamond geezer who was happy to recoup the money he'd paid for it.  It's stopped me worrying whether the 65 years of wear are suddenly going to let go, and leave me with another knackered engine.  I'd have to raid the pension if that were to happen, and Sue wouldn't be best pleased if I was prepared to sacrifice part of our 'retirement bliss' on another engine rebuild.

[Rex]

Bit of a puzzle there. If the ATD shed teeth it wouldn't drive, so wouldn't produce sparks so the engine would stop.
So how then did enough bits of debris get around the engine enough to wreck it?

[Worty]

Bit of a puzzle there. If the ATD shed teeth it wouldn't drive, so wouldn't produce sparks so the engine would stop.
So how then did enough bits of debris get around the engine enough to wreck it?

I ended up with 4 failed ATDs in the end Rex (3 stripped wheels and one complete collapse).  Despite changing oil every five minutes, I was still finding debris in the sump gauze for ages afterwards.  Obviously I couldn't strip the engine down every time I had a failure.  My theory was that tiny bits of fibre wheel were circulating round the engine, and was the primary reason the plain bush on the timing side looked like it'd been reamed out by Rivet Man.

Despite all this (and RM's shocking 'rebuild'), the engine managed 10000 miles before Bergs had the joy (and horror) of rebuilding it.

[berger]

Rex the abrasive fibres going round the engine are enough to destroy things without a full tooth strip of the gear, [ in worty's engine there is no wonder he got through a few ] if you look at worty's engine strip you will see the damage his engine suffered on the timing gears that transferred uneven running and pressure all the way up to the fibre gear making it wear , unless rivet man built it with a camshaft gear that had broken teeth which caused the fibre gear to fail or that gear was damaged then lost bits of teeth  i do know that on rebuilding it i was concerned about the run out contact between timing gear and idler gear.   when i got the crank to the grinders to clean up the timing side journal they had to do the best they could with a crank that had run out on the timing side shaft. when i stripped the engine the idler gear bush had come very loose in the casing and worn because of the run out with the timing gear. after the end of the crank was welded up so a new left hand thread could be cut mwas had to do his best to thread it true so it didn't put force on the oil pump. . the engine strip and rebuild shows the horrors inside the engine and trying to make the best out of a bag of hatchets without worty having to break the bank on another unknown engine.