Fifty-Buck Beezer

Fifty-buck Beezer

UP FRONT

David Edwards

ONE OF MOTORCYCLING'S GREATEST assets is its accessibility. Nothing short of Russian Roulette provides as. much excitement for so little outlay. This reality did not make itself evident to me in a blinding moment of truth, but in the aftermath of a tele phone call from my mother. She was tired, she informed me sweetly, of bumping into the scattered remains of "that old bike" out in her garage.

Odd, seeing as it had been in the way only since, oh, sometime in 1977. That's when I discovered the ne glected form of a 1967 BSA, one B44 Victor Special to be exact, laying on its side in a neighbor's yard. Mum bling something about a locked-up motor, its owner was only too happy to take my $50 and have me haul the poor thing away. - - -

Yes, you're right, I should have backed away from the Beezer like it was radioactive, but I was young and dumb and couldn't resist the come-on of an old bike down on its luck. Still can't, actually.

Anyway, back in my folks' garage, the extent of the Victor's abuse soon became evident. No amount of prod ding on the kickstarter would budge the piston. Removing the head revealed that several seasons of collecting rain water had quite effectively rust-welded the rings to the iron cylinder liner. The condition seemed sadly impervious to massive amounts of Liquid-Wrench and repeated mallet blows. Unscrewing the points cover divulged a corroded glob that could have been dredged up from the ocean floor. I didn't have the heart to look into the bottom-end, or the money for a complete engine rebuild. The engine went onto a shelf, the chassis into a corner, not to move for almost 20 years.

Some history: The Victor doesn't at tract much attention from classic-bike buffs these days, but in its time it was an important motorcycle. Its roots go back to the C15 Star of 1958, a bike powered by an Edward Turner-penned unit-construction 247cc Single, the first four-stroke BSA powerplant to do away with separate gearbox and crankcase. It's a simple design-air-cooled, one cam, pushrods, two valves-but over the next 13 years, there would be 22 differ ent models built with derivations of this motor, ranging in displacement up to 499cc. Triumph used the motor, too, in everything from commuters to MXers. Most famous of the BSAs were the off-road "comp shop" versions. The great Jeff Smith used long-stroke works 420 and 440cc Victors to capture the 500cc World Motocross Championship in 1964 and `65. Later, Smith and a special titanium-framed Victor gave the dinosaur Thumpers one last great, futile hurrah before the onslaught of two strokes took over motocross.

My `67 Victor Special 441 was a street-scrambler that paid homage to Smith's success. Cycle World's editors of the era were disappointed that the B44 wasn't a more exact copy of the factory racebike, concluding their test with a rather lukewarm, "No motorcy cle is perfect, but everything consid ered, the Victor is appealing." Cycle was more exuberant when it tested the 1968 version of the Victor and its street-only counterpart, the 441 Shooting Star. "We feel that they are the best two machines that BSA builds.. .more particularly, the Shoot ing Star is one of the best motor cycles made by anybody.. .as close to perfection as any bike being made today...the 441 Single is a rare jewel of simplicity and a masterpiece of performance," waxed the report.

Despite the good press, 441s soon earned a cantankerous reputation thanks to oil leaks and weak bottom-ends. Hard starting was among the B44's bag of tricks, as even the pie-eyed Cycle had to admit. "You may curse the 9.4:1 com pression ratio when you're trying to get the engine started-it'll put you in the clouds if you're not careful," readers were cautioned.

CW's Editorial Director Paul Dean, old enough to remember the Victor in clear detail, confirms the bike's spite fulness. "We called `em Victim 441s. They probably were responsible for more broken ankles than any other motorcycle in history," he says of a nasty tendency to kickback. Nor was stopping a particularly strong point. The stalwarts at Cycle said, "Braking on the BSAs, while ad equate, hardly inspires awe.. .but it's good enough." Our friends at Cycle Guide weren't overly impressed, ei ther, describing the 8-inch front binder as "fair," and noting that the rear brake "is just good, but in all fair ness we must add that the machine did stop when asked to." (No, I don't know what that last bit means, either) Still, there is good news. Properly as sembled, with upgraded internals, stronger ignitions and modern carbure tors, Victors can be made to start and last. Contributing photographer David Dewhurst runs a Rickman-framed 441 in AHRMA motocross competition, and claims it's a dependable, quick-fir ing sweetheart. That's inspiring, be cause my Victor is headed for the track, too, as a roadracer. If I read the rulebook correctly, it should be eligible for three classes: Premier 500, Sports man 500 and Classic Sixties.

First step will be to strip and repaint the frame. Weepy fork seals and saggy shocks will need replacing, and I'm al ready stalking swap meets for the dou ble-leading-shoe front brake fitted to BSA's 650 road-burners (thank you, parts interchangeability). From a dusty shelf deep in my garage came an old Gold Star gas tank-black with chromed panels and very cool flip-up filler-that looks like it's made for the bike. By fitting a higher-compression piston (I'll be bump-starting, thank you very much), a lumpier cam and something other than a dastardly Amal Concentric carb, horsepower may soar all the way into the mid-30s. Not a lot, but I think dry weight can be trimmed to not much more than a feathery 250 pounds. The goal is to be on the grid for under a grand. Stay tuned for Project Bargain Beezer status reports.