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  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

BSA Bikes Birmingham

Hi.it was put together along with the beagle.as you said dif barrel and piston.but rest of engine same.i found them horrible to ride. wish i had a quid for every beagle/pixie head i put together. ta for memories
 
View attachment 64962 Having a spin on the computer This pic would have been 1957 or 1958 BSA Dandy race at the shoiwgrounds a Sale Victoria Australia I sild quite a lot of them and never had any problems as regard servicing them
 
what a great pic ta. i never had any probs with mine.wonder who thought the pre select box idea up?
 
This pic looks real good whem I get it up here at home on full screen . I can seem to bet any of the forums pcs much size zt all . Must be some trickthat I dont know of Cheers
 
Hi Everyone,

I'm new at this (this is my second post since joining) so please bear with me while I find my way around the site. I've arrived here as this is the first place I came to that mentions the BSA. My Dad worked at the BSA in the early 60's and I have some GREAT stories of his to tell. I'm just not sure if this is the right place to do that. If someone can let me know where I can deposit some giggle inducing tales that would be great.
 
Well, its been a while since I've been on here...and I did say I'd put some of my Dad's tales on here. So here's the first (hopefully of many - if I can get him to write everything down for me!).

"Amongst many other places, I worked in the "mechanical test", a laboratory environment which tested steels of all kinds. It was housed on the ground floor of the only building still standing, you can see it as you drive along small Heath bypass. Before delivered steels were put into the factory to make bike parts, lengths of about twelve inches were cut off the bar ends for testing. There's hundreds of steel types and they all have a colour code painted on them for identification, often stripes of many different colours. Just to make sure the mechanical tester would test them by subjecting them to tensile tests (stretch em till they break) and many other tests too. This was done before steel was issued to production, every day. The steel stores was located at the front of the BSA factory, the mechanical test was right at the other end of the factory and either me or my mate Dave Wadhams had to drag an old British rail type of flat truck with rattly old cast iron wheels all the way there and back loaded with sample bars of steel following a phone call from the steel storeman, most of the journey was outside. Imagine the scene, we were about seventeen ish, Moms had been instructed to cut the bottom off our 'cow gowns' so they were sort of three quarter length (Teddy boy-ish), DA haircut, bootlace tie, eyes scanning the coast for office crumpet. To be seen draggin this soddin cart about was not good for the image. The boss of this lab permanently had a co boss with him and neither of em seemed to do anything other than talk, drink tea and snigger when we had to fetch the samples. One day it was peeing down with rain, the other Dave was at college so I made myself scarse and went to a phone in the gate house, put my best Irish accent on (like the storeman) and phoned the lab saying that there was quite a lot of urgent samples to pick up. The ginger headed boss had no choice but to go out in the rain with the cart which I thought was quite funny but the real funny bit is.............there wasn't any samples. He wasn't best pleased when he eventually got back but he never found out."

He may now, if he reads this!!
 
Forgetting now how to reply in the proper manner / I have never seen this colour scheme...... Only a lavender lightish blue
 
I remember a BSA test rider being killed outside Cannings, where I worked in the '60, when his bike collided with a truck that was pulling out of the loading bay in Gt Hampton Street.
 
I did not hear of anything about that accident. One of the tesers Bill Morgan was killed while on the way home on his Go Home .test bike in the early evening . He was Bill Morgan A very quiet man who was agoof friend though of Jimmy Pointer. I think Bill had worked on the test Pre war along with Jimmy . I know that Jimmy was the only one that went to his funeral I would just have a guess and say around 1952
 
If Bill was on he's go home bike and he lived near Warstock he would be on the wrong side of town. I know that he helped me out on Bantam test in 1950 - 1951 and for some reason I cannot remember he's funeral, Maybe I had moved to dispatch inspection by then.
 
R e Bill Morgan . Bill lived up somewhere on the way up to Kings heath Area . I cannot pin point just where . I dont think anyone knew a lot about him exceptmaybe Jimmy pointer It is obviuos that he os not the same man that oisin was writing about though as the dates and location are wrong
Can you tell us why you mentioned Warstock I have a photoo of Bill I can send you sometime direct to you at home
 
Just that he would pass our pre - fab in Yardley Wood Road at night on he's way home with Jim. Thanks for the picture of Bill.
 
Thanks for putting the pic up Lou. Dont know who was under the coat but was most likely Reg Griffiths Perhpas best leave it at this point as we are getting of the Dandy thread Cheers
 
Re BSA Dandy, BSA Beagle, Raleigh RM's etc., these were AWFUL things! Defunct before they came off the line, they were a nightmare to sort out in the Worklshop as they were abused and built of poor quality, poorly thought out parts. These machines arose from the transitional period in the 50's when mass transport was being sought, but people had little cash to do so. The ubiquitous Motorbike & sidecar, (usually a single cylinder, sidevalve Ariel VB, BSA M series, Panther, or similar, hitched to the Busmar or GIANT Canterbury Carmobile), was still popular but could be costly.
The Japanese were some years off producing the 'Cub' 50cc scooterette, and most Eouropean offerings were 'odd' (Like the French Velomoteur). A lot of Manufacturers went into this market, James & Excelsior in Greet, BSA, Triumph with the TINA T10 Scooter, and DMW and others into Scooters. The Italians soon had the 100cc - 200 cc Scooter market sorted, but our (UK) factories continued up the blind alley with the Dandy and others.
One has to understand the total lack of understanding of the two-wheel user that existed in Armoury Road back then. If you can, read "The Giants of Small Heath" or "Whatever happened to the British Motorcycle Industry". By the time you get to the Dockers and their Champagne lifestyles, funded by "Dirty, smelly, dangerous motorbikes" you can see where the rot had come from. That this total lack of foresight and valuing key personnel still exists in many Industries today is why B'ham is no longer the World leader in manufacturing it once was.

Thus, by the time of the Dandy, the UK was ripe for Alc Issigoniss's Mini. The Riley Elf & Wolesley Hornet, Fiat 500, etc., soon saw off the Sidecar, and it wasn't until the mid 70's that the new Japanese "Superbikes" rejuvenated the stagnating Motorcycle Trade. 40 years on, and the new breed of 'Plastic Rockets' and 'Harley Lookalikes' have repopulated the roads. The 50cc 'Twist & Go' scooters have succeeded where the Dandy failed. The Dandy - Good idea, but lack of design appeal.
 
hat you Ian.? I presume so as you are a Shropshire lad.. I dont know about parts in the Uk at all . There is afirm in Brum that does real good buisness with Bantam parts Cnt think of the name right now but will later I suppose and will let you know. They were in buisness when I worked at BSA in1957 and I beleive they have just grown bigger over the years. I did have some parts left over from my shop days . You can see some Dandy pics if you go back thru the photo stream on Flickr .
I sometimes think I should enquire amongs my old customers who bought Dandys from me and ask them whatever happened to them . Maybe I should get the local paper ti do and article on them and pop in a couple of pics.
From the look of the parts you have showing on Flickr you have a lot of restoring to do . I wish you all the best . with your project . Maybe the one you have just bought is a gower?? Cheers Joe
 
Hey Joe, thanks for your kind words, it sure is a pretty big job but I'm thinking if any other bikes come along I might snap them up and hang on to them for future rebuild projects. If I can get original parts, I have an engineer friend who will replicate bits for me, he has all the latest CNC machines etc so not much he cannot make, even got a lovely lady in our village who makes one off seat covers so all seems positive with it! Regards

Ian (yes it's me on flickr with the BSA dandy group)
 
well done getting a dandy.i loved my red one. never had any probs with it. but i hope the s***head who pinched it did.
now i have a honda 90 cub, but less said about that thing the better lol.
hope you can restore the dandy all the best with it
 
fascinating Inever had heard of or saw a "Beezer", or Dandy, and I went to the 57 "Jamboree", at Sutton park.???????????????paul
 
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