BSA A65 Lightning

I was searching for more power after my Honda 250 when a guy at work suggested I looked at his BSA. I almost laughed this idea out of court until he told me that it had indicators, electronic ignition and even a rev counter. All things I’d known for the first time on the Honda. The only thing missing was the electric foot. This was not a BSA I’d heard of.

The owner opened the garage door to reveal the tarpaulin covered shape of a large bike. If you ever saw the film Silver Dream Racer, you'll know how I felt when the cover was whipped off - I was very impressed. The oil in the frame A65 looked really massive, high on its centrestand. White frame standing out from the gleaming chrome, high bars and megaphone silencers, with no ugly hump on the back of the seat which I had thought a BSA trademark.

Next, came the clincher - start up. With fuel taps on, both carbs tickled until they laughed (overflowed). Pull the clutch in and free it by operating the kickstart, then ignition on and with the first swing it bellowed into life. The sound was truly music to the ears as it echoed and reverberated around the workshop. I knew then that I had to buy the bike. The motor didn’t want to tick over, the throttle had to be gunned - each time it was cracked open the BSA began to walk towards the door vibrating on its stand. It was really keen to get going.

First ride was difficult with some strange differences from the Honda. Gear changing with the brake lever was soon overcome, but it was a few days until I realised why the neutral indicator light only came on when ticking over - it was the low oil pressure lamp. The latter didn’t worry me much, I could always keep the tick over high enough to keep the light out and, besides, other problems needed more urgent attention before the MOT.

When you sat on the seat the metal pan pressed down onto the battery terminals and shorted it out. If you braked sharply the forks dived so much that oil spilled out of the breather pipe from the frame, which was up near the headstock and tubed down to the rear mudguard. The motor ran on like a diesel when switched off. It was also running very hot, which turned out to be a broken choke cable - someone had designed the choke so that when the cable broke it was fully on, very clever. With the tickler it wasn’t really needed anyway.

Once the MOT was acquired I bought a work- shop manual and was not too amused to read ~ of overheating motors, grenade like bottom end and flying egg tendencies. There are roller bearing conversions around for the motor that sort out that particular problem.

I really enjoyed riding the bike. The engine produced great gobs of power, making a wonderful noise and the bike handled really well, save for ground clearance problems, and a lack of damping in the front forks. The centrestand digs in on left-handers, but compared with the Honda it’s a much nicer bike to ride with lots of feedback from the road so that I always had plenty of warning of my impending doom when tyres started to slide or were on the edge of adhesion.

On the Star Rider course I took, everyone was surprised with the way the BSA could shift. There was never anything very special about the design of the motor, just another in a long line of 650cc British OHV vertical twins. All the more surprising, then, that it could always pull away from a Goldwing and Ducati 900 around the snaky lanes.

I was always road racing a friend, who owned a 750 Bonnie, to the pub or seeing who could pull the biggest wheelie... drop the clutch at 5000rpm from a standstill and lean back. His bike was the Special with a two into one exhaust which stifled performance a little, for my bike was slightly faster, especially in the midrange. Considering the difference in capacity this was pretty good going.

The only time I crashed the bike was when trying to take the Bonnie on the outside of a large roundabout. I could normally do this with a degree of ease, but he’d fitted a different exhaust system that delivered more power and meant I rapidly ran out of road. I straightened up, just managing to miss the Armco and ride up the curb, locking up the front wheel on the grass verge. The Morris Minor brake shoes I fitted to the TLS drum front brake were perfectly adequate, able to squeal and lock up the front wheel in the dry.

After a very short period of ownership the first blow up occurred. Well, yes, British bikes can do this kind of thing. I consoled myself with the thought of all the fun I’d have when it was back on the road. It took a rebore, new pistons, crank regrind and numerous other little things to get the seized motor running again. At least the oil pressure light didn’t come on anymore, and it seemed a little sweeter on the road. I rebuilt the motor myself, a mixture of delight at the simplicity of the thing, horror at what the seizure had done to the innards of the engine and relief at the reasonable price and availability of all the parts that I needed.

When the original K70 tyres wore out, I was a little disappointed when I fitted a Roadrunner to the front wheel its low profile left such an ungainly gap between tyre and mudguard, that I had to fit a couple of brackets. The combination of different profile tyres didn’t have much effect upon the handling, thanks to a combination of rigid twin downtube frame and steering geometry with a few decades of experience behind it after all, BSA were always number two to Norton in the handling stakes, even if the oil in frame design was shared with the Triumph twins, who, until recent times, had a less illustrious history of stability,

The next blow up occurred about 10,000 miles after the first rebuild. Not impressive, perhaps, but I swallowed hard and paid out for a SRM roller bearing conversion and yet another crank regrind. So far, this has done over 15000 miles without causing me any major problems, although a minor palpitation occurred when the oil warning light came on when I was touching the legal limit on the M3. Luckily, it was an electrical fault.

Vibration, as might be expected from a long stroke vertical twin with pistons moving up and down in unison, was present at most revs, and could be destructive at the top of the rev range. If the vibration never fades into the background totally, it’s never really all that irritating at sane speeds.

The bike does need constant attention, it can’t be run and run like a Honda twin with hardly any input. The more you put into the bike, the more you get out of it - thus, it’s certainly not suitable for everyone. I could give you an endless list of faults and breakdowns, but I won't, these British bikes are maligned enough without me adding to the debate.

To me, it’s rather like trying to tame some wild beast that will react to how the rider treats it. When something malfunctions I try to resist the temptation to swear and abuse it (usually), I find out the cause of the problem and when I repair it I try to make sure it can’t happen again - even if it means redesigning the bits. Thus the longer I’ve owned the bike, the more reliable it has become - the Lightning has been reasonably reliable for the last two years of ownership.

M. Rothwell