My Velocette love affair

My first bike was a 1930 Velocette KSS, which had been upgraded by the previous owner with KTT cams, and performed likewise. He threw it down one of South Australia's major highways and lost a leg, and almost his life in the process. The Velocette after being straightened out, passed into my hands for the sum of 27 pounds 10 shillings, a considerable sum for a 17 year old lad who earned less than 2 pounds per week. Somehow about half the amount was raised by selling a few possessions, including a much treasured lightweight racing push bike, and I visited the owner who was recovering at his mother's home, and not only made a satisfactory deal, but gained a much treasured friendship, which only ended when he passed away some 40 odd years later. He was a big guy who led a very active life, married and was a full time worker in the auto retail trade. He never used his artificial leg, but hopped about on a heavy duty wooden crutch for the rest of his life!

My very first Sunday ride on the bike, a couple of days later, in the company of Les Diener on his earlier KCR, taught me something about oil tightness, as applied to the early KSS's – the cambox just poured oil out on to a new pair of trousers, and I rode home with a canvas lap rug wrapped in behind the engine, both it and my trousers and shoes dripping black oil! In those days the destruction of a pair of trousers was a major financial loss and I copped a good serve from my mother who washed them in petrol and then dyed them black!

With Les's advice, and the experience of removing and dismantling the cam box several times over the next couple of weeks, oil tightness was finally achieved, and so I progressed to the intricacies of clutch adjustment, which involved the replacement of push pins etc. I was so enthralled with the experience of riding a machine, that while it was some eight years old, was capable of outpacing pretty much everything on the roads at that time.

1939 –the world was at war and I joined the RAAF. The KSS remained registered through the war years to take advantage of a meager monthly petrol ration, (50% extra for sidecar attachment) but kerosine and other combustible liquids were added, and it was ridden by members of my family and Les Diener from time to time. Les at least ensured that there was always a gallon of petrol stashed away for me should I come home on leave. Les was by now riding a MOV for petrol economy – this machine becoming the basis of his post war racing exploits, until he built Eldee.

At war's end and discharge from the RAAF in March 1946, I joined Les and his racing friend Frank Tuck, in their motorcycle shop venture, and met their office boy – a 16 year old Bruce Pederick. By this time I was in possession of three pre-1935 Mk1 K models – one a KTP, and another a 34/35 model with a 4 speed gearbox, with a bolt on foot change. I also had a complete engine that Les had bought on my behalf during the war, but this turned out to be from a stolen motorcycle and was returned to the owner (minus it's racing magneto, via the police department!) shortly after my discharge.

My KSS was now completely rebuilt using the best parts of the other machines, including of course the four speed gearbox, and upgraded cosmetically in many ways. The old boat type sidecar that had been fitted during the war years was discarded, and the machine was now raced and trialled at weekends as well as ridden to work every day. A little later an almost mint pre-war Dusting sports sidecar was attached, but eventually the bike was sold minus the sidecar for 104 pounds, complete with all the racing accessories, and I moved on to building a three-wheeled car to carry my wife and two young children.

Move on to 1956 – I was married for the second time and had another five young children and was now scrambling once again on Kangaroo Island. A pile of KSS parts were sourced from a farm on the mainland, but apart from the fact that some Mk1V parts were included it was basically wreckage, (the clutch was brazed solid!) and so a 1937 KSS was bought for 10 pounds and immediately stripped to give me a mount in the 350cc class. I already raced a Bantam in the 125cc class and a Talisman Twin in the 250cc class. This lasted until 1960, when I left the Island and moved to Melbourne, Victoria, where a growing family meant no motorcycles in the family garage. The KSS still resided on Kangaroo Island, to be dragged out at Christmas vacations there, when the children learned to ride it up and down the beach where we camped.

The mid 60s and motorcycles were fashionable again, and the KSS was brought to Melbourne and stored. A '37 MSS was found in a country farm shed and restored and fitted with a tradesman's box and used as daily transport to work, and is still part of my collection. Around this time the KSS Special was built, using the cycle parts of a 'Green' MAC that I had bought on Kangaroo Island for the sum of $4, and fitted with a KSS motor that I had bought as part of a pile of completely dismantled parts advertised as an 'Iron MAC' which proved to be a 1948 KSS, which had been paddock ridden by teenagers and suffered accordingly.

The KSS was dragged out when classic racing became popular and an MSS motor was fitted. It was campaigned for a short time, but my employment situation changed and I found myself working in Hong Kong, and by the time I returned to Oz a few years later it was time to retire, so the KSS/MSS racer was sold (I still have the KSS motor as a spare) and I moved to the country, and started to rebuild the collection of incomplete 20s Velocette two-strokes that I had found in pieces over five States, from south of Perth in West Oz, to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland over the years.
I had for some years prior to retirement been making reproduction tinware parts for Velocettes, and now this spare time hobby extended to other makes, and before I knew it, had become an almost full time occupation, leaving little time for personal restoration work!

Around this time the KSS Special which had been my everyday solo transport and used on club runs together with the MSS Trade Outfit, was fitted with a lightweight Velorex sidecar, and became my rally machine, along with a 1929 Model 32 (actually a runout of model 'U' parts cobbled up by Veloce with a blue petrol tank and marketed alongside the new GTP).

At the same time I assembled several GTPs, MACs, a MSS and a MOV – these from parts that I had collected over the years. These unrestored machines were sold to finance my restorations. Later the surplus 20s two-stroke parts were also built up into complete machines, mostly with repaired frames and an assortment of manufactured and/or repaired parts.

The Mk1V parts that I had bought back in the mid 50s, had been added to as parts were found, and 40 years later I had almost all of a Mk1V, and quite a bit of a second machine, but I had reached the age where I realised that I would never get around to completing either of them, with so many other Velocette projects under way – plus I had been seduced by the Veteran scene and now had two restored Rex's – a 1906 and a 1912 combination, as well as a 60s Gilera and other odd machines.
So all the pre-35 KSS parts and the almost complete KTT, were sold as a job lot, without me ever having assembled and run the motor, although all the cycle parts had been restored and stove enamelled, and the wheels and gearbox (4 speed internal shift mechanism) rebuilt.

This brings me up to recent times, during which the 1924 Ladies' has been restored, and the 1924 GS is almost complete, lacking only the nickle plate and the painting of the petrol tank. Unfortunately advancing years and some indifferent health has intervened, and we no longer attend rallies, but of course made an exception for the 100 years Velocette Rally, but am sad to admit that riding a rigid framed machine over any distance is now beyond me, and so I had to ride a modern machine with armchair riding qualities, but I did attempt to redeem myself somewhat by bringing along the1924 Ladies' two-stroke for the two days that we followed the Rally.

It is now 69 years since I first rode Les Diener's KCR Velocette, some time before I bought my own KSS which never let me down once over the 11 years that I rode it almost every day, raced and rallied it on weekends, and did the occasional interstate 1000 mile round trip ride two-up – once with sidecar attached! The only maintenance was rebores and a sleeve, and rings and valve grinds, new valve seats, and one big end replacement as far as I can recall.

My other Velocettes have been almost as reliable, I lost the top off a piston in my then solo KSS Special on the homeward stretch of an interstate trip (pure metal fatigue). A new big end assy. failed from a manufacturing fault at a very low mileage on the same machine during a local rally. I burned out an exhaust valve in the MSS while riding solo on an interstate trip – but made it home! The points spring fractured and lost the moving point in the 70 year old Round ML magneto of my Model 32 two-stroke during a local rally, apart from that, my Velocette always got me home!

My collection includes an original 1946 British registered KSS with black stove enamelled spokes, brought to Australia by a British immigrant (restored cosmetically) – these were not sold in Britain officially it has been said. A Viceroy, LEs, MACs, MOVs and GTPs have come and gone over the years as well as a Thruxton, and of course quite a few KSS's.