Thread: BSA A65 Thunderbolt.

Prior to buying my first motorised vehicle I had absolutely no aptitude for mechanical systems. I was always interested in motor bikes and so having worried my folks, and all around me, for 16 years and 9 months I raided my bank account and bought a 1963 A65 650cc BSA Thunderbolt. Man does that sound like a beast – Thunderbolt! $200 was a lot of money to me in those days, I think my wage at the time was around $20 a week. Anyway, I paid the $200 to my brother’s mate and my brother rode the Thunderbolt home.

For the next couple of weeks I was content with sitting on the thing in the driveway and blowing through my lips making motor bike noises and dribbling down my chin in the process; but, eventually it got the better of me and one day when the folks weren’t home I started the bike up and zipped down the road a couple of blocks, as fast as I could go in first gear, I didn’t know how to change gears at this stage. A couple of days later, same deal, folks out so I went for a longer spin, again in first gear all the way. Along the way I came to a skidding halt on some blue metal at a stop sign on Belmont avenue and watched a copper on a bike ride past. He was also watching me. That put the willies up me and I didn’t go for another ride until I got my learners.

Once I had my learners my old man instructed me in changing gears, giving hand signals and so on then he climbed on the back and I took off – silly man he was. I think around 20 times every minute he was pounding on my shoulder and telling me to slow down, pay attention to stop signs and all manner of things I thought utterly ridiculous and totally unnecessary. Fortunately, he lived through that experience.

On the day I went to the Vic Park Police station to sit my practical test, my old man gave me some advice, give good hand signals, don’t sneak up in between vehicles, accelerate slowly and keep the speed down to 25 mph. I managed all that except the hand signals. My brother had tuned the Thunderbolt for me, he was an apprentice mechanic and at the time the 250cc MX state champion, a year or so earlier he had also won the Claremont Speedway Champion of Champions title on his Goldy stock bike.

Unfortunately, MX/stock bike tuning was a little different from road bike tuning, race bikes are tuned so they don’t idle, and so, my Thunderbolt required a hand on the throttle at all times lest the motor stop. Giving hand signals on a bike that doesn’t idle is a very strange affair: take you hand off the throttle for a hand signal and the bike’s engine dies, double that with changing down gears and it results in a strange jerky ride. Halfway through the ride I lost the copper, I think he just gave up on me to be honest, eventually I returned to the station to find the copper standing beside his bike, tapping his foot and displaying his best ‘not so pleased’ look.

So on my test ride I had: ridden up between cars, stalled the bike every time I stopped at an intersection, made some really weird looking hand signals, lost the copper and rode around the streets of Vic Park unaccompanied. The copper gave me a stern look and pronounced I had failed the test – dismally, ‘You can’t tell me you bought a big bike like this to idle around the streets at 25mph’ he added. At this point my old man stepped in saying it was his fault as he had told me not to go over 25 mph and asked the copper for a re-test. Eventually the copper agreed, gave me instructions on the route I should take, mounted his bike and off we went.

I didn’t mess around this time, I grabbed big handfuls of throttle and took off like a scolded rabbit. Halfway through the ride I discovered the copper had disappeared – again. When I returned to the station he wasn’t quite so angry this time, he said ‘that’s a little better, but I’m not sure the roadgoing public are ready for you yet’ Once again my old man stepped in and the copper wrote out my licence. That was a travesty as the next couple of years were to testify.

Two days later after gaining my licence I was returning from the fish and chip shop, an off duty female copper must have missed the blinding flash that was my bike and me speeding through the intersection, she nicked the back wheel of the Thunderbolt sending the bike and me off the road. The bike stopped and fell over when it collided with a fence. I, on the other hand, kept going, straight over the handlebars and introducing my head to a rather solid fence. Concussion is a strange beast, I can remember lying on my stomach, pushing myself up and toppling over before I got a foot from the ground, I kept trying but just couldn’t even sit up. Eventually some good Samaritans bundled me into a car and took me to the local Doctors surgery.

A day or so later I had recovered and was ready to inflict myself on the road going public again; unfortunately, my bike wasn’t, the headlight nacelle and a few other bits and pieces were bent out of shape so the bike stayed in the garage for a few days whilst I fixed it up. I rode the bike to and from work everyday still wrestling with hand signals and dying motors’ fortunately, one of my workmates Garth, new a bit about bikes and showed me how to adjust ide speed, what a revelation, riding a bike that didn’t die everytime I made a hand signal. A few months passed and one night riding home after working overtime a Triumph Herald pulled out in front of me as I was riding down Wellington street in Perth. I slammed on the brakes and realising I was not going to avoid him threw the bike sideways and slid along the wet road in a good mimicry of a speedway rider. Both wheels hit the drivers side caving in the side of the Herald, must have hit a bump or something for both wheels to have left the deck like that. Anyway, this wasn’t my fault, the driver apologised profusely agreeing to make good any repairs. Damaged this time was the headlight nacelle again, gear lever, handlebars and nice gouge marks in the right muffler, never heard from that guy again and I couldn’t contact him so repairs were up to me. Easy, the bike sounded better with a louder exhaust so I left that as it was, the nacelle found its way to the bin and I mounted the headlight using a couple of bits of ½” x 1/8” steel bent and drilled to suit. A big hammer fixed the gear leaver and I was ready to roll.

A few months later I was riding over the Garret Road bridge in peak traffic. I didn’t notice the car in front had stopped as I was gazing down at the river. I smashed into the back of a VE Valiant, two weeks old it was, over the handlebars I went landing on the boot lid bending it like a banana. No idea how fast I was going but the force of the impact bent the forks back so far the rim of the wheel was touching the right side engine side cover. I managed to get the bike home , very difficult that was as the bike would only go to the left, so I’d push it for six or seven feet, then stop, drag the front of the bike to the right, then advance another six or seven feet. I removed the forks and had them straightened then I was back on the road for some more mayhem.

Bike brakes in the early 60s weren’t the best of things, the A65s brakes when applied would cause the front of the bike to oscillate up and down but not really do much else, The rear brakes simply locked up. I never worried too much about the brakes, never having the front drum skimmed or even looked at the rear brakes, bikes are meant to go, not stop, right?

Now, I’m only 17 and a bit you realise, so I’m bullet proof, but better than that, I’m the best rider in the world, I can speed around corners almost flat. As it turned out I was flat going around corners – a lot. Those poor old chrome mufflers didn’t have a lot of shape or chrome left on them. I’d gone through half a dozen gear levers and brake pedals, handlebars, levers and so on, but still I hadn’t learned.

My best trick was sitting at the lights waiting to turn right. As soon as the lights turned green I’d grab a handful and blast around the corner in front of the on coming traffic. I managed to live through these follies. Another trick was to blast around the causeway roundabout in Perth, just to see how fast and how low I could go, my brother even accompanied me on one excursion. He was too much for me though, I couldn’t go as fast or as low as he seemed to want, professional versus amateur I guess.

Along the way, I bought a leather jacket, hung chrome chains of it, bought some calf high leather boots studded the soles with steel inserts so the boots didn’t wear out too quickly and rode around in my bike attire everywhere I went. I was young, so still had some hair, longish blonde locks usually streaking out behind me from the wind. Looking like that and not being blessed with a smiling countenance, people tended to avoid me, particularly the girls, even the bike girls were wary of me and called me ‘The Viking’. I remember going to see my father in hospital one day, of course I had my bike attire on, leather jacket crisscrossed with chrome chains, windblown long, blonde hair trailing behind me and walking a little strangely with a clomping noise in my studded, calf high boots. As I walked along the corridor to my father’s room I came across a young mother with her two young daughters coming the other way, when they saw me, all backed up against the wall, the young girls holding on to their mother’s legs. What was that about I thought as I shrugged my shoulders?

Along the way I was learning about motor bike engines and such, I had taught myself how to tune the bike, timing, gapping the points, adjusting mixture and idle speed and so on, no thanks to the brother who had no time for me and constantly complained and swore at me about having to fix my stuff ups. Around this time I had developed an interest in show bikes and café racers and so one day stripping the side cover to get to a leaking oil inlet pipe, I didn’t stop and soon found a box of motorbike parts sitting next to me.

Not to worry I gathered a heap of parts and sent them off to the chrome platers, made some drop bars and a few mods to the frame. Cut the side covers down to resemble Lightning side covers. Around this time I saw an ad in an English bike magazine for cams and twin carb manifold for the A65, fortunately, I never got around to sending off for them rather I set about putting it all together. I also replaced the rings on the bike at this stage. I learned a valuable lesson here, when replacing rings you should also remove the carbon build ring at the top of the bore, if you don’t it will result in having to buy a second set. I resprayed the bike and it looked smick but was still missing an ignition switch so just twitched some wires together down by the coils.

Unfortunately, the left petrol tap had a slight leak and when I pulled into a servo for fuel one day I reached down and pulled the wires apart. This of course sparked, igniting the petrol and the bike went up in a ball of fire , me sitting astride it and suddenly there were no people around, they had all fled. I dropped the bike quick and rolled away as quick as I could. Fortunately, a young attendant grabbed an extinguisher and doused the flames before they set alight to the bowsers. So much for the new paint job. I pushed the bike home, must have been 5 miles, rewired the thing and was ready for some more mayhem, albeit on a rather charred looking bike.

At the time I had my eye on a 1966 BSA Spitfire. These things were hot, they came with GP2 carbs that could run on alcohol. Not many knew at the time, the Spitfire, running on petrol, was a faster bike than Triumph’s Bonneville, running on alcohol??? But that was just a pipedream! Fortunately, an XM Falcon panel van entered my life around then, the steel cocoon enveloping me probably saving my life, and that was the end of the A65 and motor bike mayhem, just for a little while, once motor bikes bite you tend to stay bit for life!

Your experiences are similar to mine, walking home from school every day I could see a motor bike parked down the side of a house covered with an old canvas lap rug, over the course of the year it hadn't moved so I eventually got up the courage to ask if it was for sale, the lady said yes the man said I don't think so - six months later it was still there so I asked again - this time the answer was - I guess so, pulling off the lap rug revealed a BSA A10 - it could be mine for $10, in 1966 this was a lot of money that I didn't have so I approached the benevolent older brother who had just started working, we struck a deal - he would pay and if I passed my Yr10 final exam the bike was mine, needless to say I sailed through the end of year exam, but still had to wait a painful 6 months before I turned 16 and could sit for my L's.
Back then a 650 twin was really something - most school kids had push bikes and those that were motorised had things like a Bantam or similar - one guy had a Velo 350, my bike was parked on the footpath next to the school side gate - every day as I left there was always 3 or 4 girls standing around so there was never a shortage of someone to give 'a ride home' - no helmet - I cringe when I think about it now.

The A10 caught fire one morning - a backfire through the carb ignited the air filter, I didn't notice at first and only when I started to feel heat on my legs I looked down to see flames, a few moments of panic resulted in a bucket of water that missed entirely and 3 of my mothers freshly washed tea towels being ripped off the clothes line and used to smother the flames.


Back then British motorbikes were becoming unpopular while Japanese bikes were becoming more popular - we cruised the streets on push bikes looking for unused bikes parked down the side or in the front yard - over course of a year or so we bagged a Velo350, a Douglas 350, a Sun autocycle, a Bantam Major, a BSA M20 with a box side car that had at one time been owned by ETSA and a Messerschmitt 3 wheel car. In my 20's I took up motor bikes again - a Gilera 300 twin, 2 Kawasaki triples a 500 and also a 750. The 2 Kawasaki's changed my perception of 2 strokes - bags of torque from just under 2000rpm all the way up to the redline.

I had a Thunderbolt also, must have been about 1968 or 69.
My First was a Honda 250 dream bloody awful handling thing which I had a few decent stacks on. Gave the bikes away for a couple of years then had a Suzuki Hustler, Triumph Saint, Norton 650SS, Bultaco Metralla, then the BSA Unit 650 Thunderbolt.
It was very light in the handling at city speeds unlike the Norton which was great at speed but heavy going as a ride to work hack.
My Thunderbolt had Siamese pipes into one muffler and a father annoying habit of running on one cylinder then suddenly back on two.
Put me on my ass in a big way riding on a sandy corner into the Brickpit where the Foundry was situated.
About the same time I had a kitted Metralla which I tried around Amaroo much to the amusement of the locals in a private practice day.
I had a lightweight Mini at the time and was taking car lines and getting cramps in my legs from the crouched riding position. Decided tar bike racing wasn’t for me.
After I had numerous dirt bikes and did a bit of short circuit.
Enduros later and built a frame etc for an XL 175 Honda, the IT Yamahas came out about 6 months later so that was a waste of effort but the 175 was lighter than my 125 Honda motorcross bike even with lights and other rego gear.
I never really took any photos of my bikes but there’s one if I can find it of a mates BSA Spitfire.
H.