I'm not gonna moralise (oh, alright, just a little bit) but at least I've had the last laugh with that particular JP: I'm still tearing around like a lunatic and he was done to a turn long ago at Leeds crematorium. If you are wondering what's brought on this bout of nasty nostalgia from my murky past, I'll, tell you - I've been perusing the latest copy of Money Grabbers Chronicle and boggled at Goldie prices. How anyone can ask between 3 and 4000 pounds (sensible offers? A sensible offer for a Goldie is £35 not £3500), and look the buyer in the eye is quite beyond me. I sold my DBD34 twenty years ago for £110 and felt guilty about taking that much! (From memory the registration was VKY449; if anyone reading this owns a Goldie with that number [somebody does - it's currently taxed till 2022! - 2021 Ed.], you've my sympathy, and, no, I don't want to buy it back.) I wonder if the well-heeled, born again rockers who buy Goldies know what they're getting for their four grand. I suspect not. So to give 'em an idea what to expect, I'll reveal the disadvantages of 500 Goldstar ownership. Don't ask about the advantages - there aren't any.
Firstly, stripped of its (false) glamour, the 500 Goldie must rank as one of the most godawful devices ever made by mankind - ranking somewhere between the thumbscrew and nuclear weapons. Although at the time of ownership I thought they were really neat motorcycles; I suppose that was because I was a naive and impressionable youth. But who wouldn't be impressed by this mean looking proddie racer? Particularly if you happened to be riding around on a ratty AJS banger and had only recently passed your test.
At the time I was saving up furiously for a 500 Dominator as a crony of mine had one and after being loaned it for a few rides felt life was desperately lacking without this bike (to show I'm not a complete cynic I've still a sneaking regard for 500 Dommies). But fate intervened when I was thudding through downtown Wakefleld one February night (the wife's right, I must be going senile, that sounds like an intro to a Tyke easy rider), there in a grubby shop window, lit by two forty watt bulbs was this shiny BSA. The brakes on the Ajay weren't too good (I'm exaggerating again), so I had to walk back some distance. But, oh boy, was it worth that walk? BSA sold this bike on appearance alone - even I won't deny that in the sharp-looking stakes it's definitely ace. Pity that actually riding it was such a drag.
When the shop manager (he was also salesman, mechanic, sweeper-up and tea person) managed (ugh!) to get it running by bumping it, a la TT races, I thought it sounded great. The blat from the exhaust was so loud it drowned out all the mechanical clattering - not that I'd been put off even if I could have heard the engine self destructing. We soon struck a deal. I thought he was a complete idiot for allowing a hundred notes for the Ajay, I had to pay an extra hundred to take possession. His final advice was to invest in a box full of Champion N5s for town and then change to N3s for serious riding.
On the way home, I soon learnt that when a 500 Goldie stalls, it's best to be at the top of a hill - not at the bottom. To state that Goldies are a pig to start is rather like saying that cancer's bad for you. Even when you think the thing's behaving itself, just to show you not to be so cocky it'll either play dead or try to splat you onto next door's roof. When I did eventually arrive home, me mam came out to see why the army was playing games with a howitzer in our backyard. She was amazed that one motorbike could be so noisy. Forget the sentimental crap about twittering silencers, this bike is plain, straightforward deafening. There was a guy on the same street who relied upon me snarling past at seven o'clock to waken him up every morning. If the bike was more reluctant to start than normal he'd bollock me for making him late for work.
But the plain clothes pig who once followed me for twenty miles summed it up nicely, he pleaded with me to slow down - "My job is to prosecute, not persecute," but his main complaint was, "that thing's like a cannon going off in your face, get a new silencer." After a bemused inspection of this terrible monster, my ma crossed herself several times, pressed a half gross of St. Christophers (slight subs) onto me and then went inside to scan the funeral director ads in the local rag. She still hates Goldies, incidentally, or that 500 BSA, as she puts it, in spite of my surviving 'em,
I soon got the hang of slipping the clutch up to 35mph and apart from checking that there was oil in the tank and air In the tyres, rode around without a care in the world. This was 1960 and life still seemed to offer some possibilities. The only problem was the recalcitrant starting. The word recalcitrant was especially invented for Goldies (it's true - look it up in a dictionary). On some cold mornings I had to drag me poor old dad out to give us a push. I'm sure this must have helped to hasten his early demise (that an' smoking 80 gaspers a day).
I wrote to BSA for enlightenment. They told me to collect a manual and tool kit at my local agents (who'd never sold anything bigger than a C12 and seemed genuinely concerned that I was destined to die young). The book issued a dire warning that Goldstars were racing bikes and definitely not suitable for road use. But as lights were fitted (6 volt) and I treated public roads as a racetrack anyway, this had the opposite effect to that intended - I started riding faster and falling off. The tyres that Avon sold in those days were made from "high hysteresis rubber’ - their term. Judging from the number of times I slid off they must have included margarine in the mix - they were certainly very slippery. The biggest improvement in motorcycle safety (apart from brakes) over the years has been tyres. Today's tyres really are wonderful compared with the awful things I was forced to start riding on. I can remember falling off three times in one week during the early sixties - I think that would take some doing on modern rubber, even by a determined scratcher, lobotomized head banger or LC artist...
After a few uncritical weeks of riding, it slowly dawned on me that BSA were right - DBD34s aren't really suitable for road work: even after changing engine sprockets to lower the gearing it was still a swine in traffic. Power characteristics are so peaky they make for a very intractable engine - if it isn't spinning at 6-7000rpm progress is quite sluggardly. A seven speed gearbox would be a real advantage, but I think BSA considered that even four ratios were only for sissies.
A result of this ridiculous gearing and finicky power was the need to abuse the clutch - woe betide anyone foolish enough to venture into town in the rush hour or on a Saturday afternoon - the plates swell, giving less and less lever control until the inevitable happens. Clouds of acrid smoke pour from the chaincase, while you sit by the roadside waiting for the transmission to cool, sadly reflect on the daft decision not to wait for a Norton twin.
A BSA dealer (who should have known better) once sold me a set of A7 clutch plates instead of genuine Goldie parts, they lasted exactly 300 miles. The real plates did at least double that and could occasionally last for as much as 5000 miles. The clutch drum runs on a skinny cocoa tin cum push bike type bearing which looks suitable for a kiddies tricycle, God (or more likely his oppo Satan) alone knows how it stood the racket for as long as it managed. Primary drive is by a single row chain which has to be replaced very regularly, but, at least, they stocked the same size in work, so I didn't have to pay for it. Although the chains had shed all their rollers a couple of times, I never had an outright breakage.
But I suppose they were used to such treatment, as below 6000rpm (which, natch, is where it spends most of its time) it's like riding a mobile steam hammer. Road drillers, pile-drivers and extremely large wood peckers will be quite at home on this one.
Between 6 and 7000rpm the DBD34 Goldie is a smooth and powerful motorcycle, but as this equates to speeds of 90-110mph, its practicality in the real world is zilch. Although I used mine all year round - even riding when there was snow and ice - it's only when I think back that I realise what a tedious struggle it all was. Take that impressive 13" GP carb, it does have a pilot screw fitted, but only Amal know why - tick-over is a prohibited word to Goldie riders, forcing me to invent the verb, to blip, whilst waiting at a red light in sunny Batley. Natch, all this leads to rapid throttle slide wear. I actually had a chunk of brass slide break off and pass through the combustion chamber - without any damage.
Another neat idea is having the throttle cable nipple screw into the slide. This means that the wire strands are always under an extra twisting tension - they frayed badly and once jammed the throttle wide open. As I was in Leicester High Street at he time, I was lucky to get the plug lead off before hitting something solid. I didn't stop shaking for two days - and it wasn't with laughter.
As a bean (not baked) based engine oil was used for lubrication it meant stripping the motor every 12 months to clean off the gummy deposits burnt onto everything. At the same time I always changed barrels and pistons and exhaust valves, even if they looked OK. The cams and followers never wore out and were the only moving engine parts not to be replaced at least twice. I thank the vegetable oil for cam durability, but don't reckon much to its trick of turning semi solid in winter.
The crankshaft is held together by rivets which look as if they'd be overstressed on pram mudguards and were usually loose when inspected. A quick smack with the ubiquitous hammer fixed this and as I never had a crank explode someone must've known what they were doing. For some reason which I can't explain, the timing side mainshaft was always out of true (or bent, as us precision engineers call it), but responded well to you guessed it - a hammer and a large vice.
The only gearbox problems I can remember were with the kickstart. The ratchet wore rapidly, presumably as a consequence of poor starting - if it takes twenty kicks to fire once... and the rubber stop was flattened after a 1000 miles and then allowed a distressing metallic clang every time the starter crank flew back, resulting in damaged gearbox casings. I used to repair them - by drilling and welding - but every 12 months? Jeez, I must have been a patient, suffering in silence, sorta guy back then (or stupid bugger as my close relatives prefer).
Although BSA insisted that their forks were good enough for scrambling (they were lying) and therefore over engineered for road riding, most Goldie riders fitted the Superleggera fork conversion. This consisted of alloy yoke, crude dampers hanging inside the stanchions and lengthened bushes. The only detectable difference that I noticed was to reduce movement from 3" to 2". At the rear, the eyes would break off the Girling struts, leaving the swinging arm flopping about on one unit - a sort of early mono unit. The handling in this state was terrific, simply because you dare not exceed 10mph.
My memory is a complete blank regarding the rear brake so it couldn't have been too bad. Not so the front. This 190mm fancy looking affair was pathetic and downright dangerous. I fitted a TLS brake plate and AM4 linings. These transformed it into a real cracker - for about 10 yards, it would then fade away to practically nothing. Many experts explained this away with a host of technical terms (bi-metal expansion rates, drum belling when hot, etc) all I know is it didn't work very well.
If I haven't put prospective Goldie buyers (or mugs, as they're called in the trade) off yet, I'll move on to the electrical bits. In six years I went through hundreds of ammeters, dozens of voltage regulators, about twenty dynamos, a dozen batteries and three exchange magnetos. Only Joe Lucas was eccentric enough to make stop light switches that came on when the brake was off - and vice versa. But that's exactly what used to happen after a few miles. And the speedo and rev counter clocks failed so often that even thinking about Smiths instruments brings on a migraine.
Handling must've been pretty stable because I can't recall any bad tank slappers, and whilst I'm praising, the clipons were very well made, the paint was proper enamel and the rear wheel had the best quick release device (sounds like a premature ejaculation machine) 'til modern endurance racers got their brain cells working. But enough of extolling its virtues and back to fault finding - there're still plenty to pick from. For instance, the front mudguard stay which defeated all my efforts to stop it rattling.
Anyway, what's one niggling little rattle when you're petrified that it won't ever start again next time you stop for petrol? Before stopping you have to turn the taps off to avoid petrol pissing out of the float chamber. It was often a gamble whether the plug became soaked before the luckless (brainless?) biker received a mashed ankle - the wet plug was a bleedin' nuisance but the leg injury could mean weeks on_ crutches. None of this was helped by rubber mounting the carb - it was supposed to stop frothing, but under the influence of all those vibes actually encouraged it.
At the other side of the engine is the exhaust pipe (there's observation for you). In theory this was a tight push fit into the port and was held in place by a welded on bracket which is then bolted to the engine plate. The bracket would shear and the pipe would then chatter merrily away in the soft alloy, destroying the gas tight seal. I made a new bracket in quarter inch plate but even that broke eventually. Just like the magneto strap, another heavy duty item that suffered from the chronic vibration. I haven't given mileages for consumables because I was too worried about important things to take much notice of such minor matters.
Sorry to spoil the classic collectors and dealers fun (well, I'm not really) but the intrinsic value of this bleeder is scrap or perhaps a museum piece... Right, before I wrap this strange tale up, there's someone knocking at the door... shit, it's the BSA Owners Club ...an' they've got a rope with a noose in it... er, look I was only jesting... er, I mean Goldies are incredible and reliable and er... gulp...
H Sivyer