Saroléa 450 mono cylinder 1950.

[Bill P]

Top job your doing there Philippe Always enjoy your write up's and picture's

[Peter K.]

Great story and pics

[Philippe]

Hi men

I'm back with some more news. Good and...bad.
First of all @ Bill P and Peter K. :thanks for the compliments guys!

Let's start with the good news:
the rear wheel turned out to be OK after some gentle blows with a rubber hammer. The spokes run straight to the rim and I was able to get the wheel almost straight. There's a little bump of about 1 mm. I guess it was worse before .
The tyre is on and the wheel is in the frame, the brake works, the drive chain is back on.
The rear mudguard is mounted... now it's obvious that the frame is bent, it took me several hours to mount it because I had to use force to get it in its correct place. Anyway, it starts to look a lot like a bike.
The electricity (or what should be electric wires) is connected to the different switches and lights.

I also managed to mount the exhaust.

So far for the good news.

The bad news is that the spokes for the front wheel are not of the correct lenght. Once again the parts catalogue wasn't correct or the hub or the rim or both of them were replaced sometimes in the past.
It seemed to me that the thread of the spokes was cut, M4 with a pace of 0,7.
So I cut the spokes to the correct lenght and cut new thread on them.
They mounted without any problem and the front wheel seemed to look right.
When I informed the seller of what I did with the spokes he said that the thread was rolled and that is was M4 with a pace of 0,6...
He warned me that when I left it that way and would ride the bike, the spokes would pop out of the nipples.
He's the expert and I'm only a rooky so I ordered new spokes of the correct lenght.
So I'm waiting for them to arrive and to assemble the front wheel.
I'm also waiting for a new tin of paint to arrive. One litre wasn't enough for the bike...
Perhaps more news soon.
GrtZ
Philippe

[Philippe]

Hello guys

this morning the spokes for the front wheel arrived, finally !
They were mounted and afterwards, this afternoon, I mounted the tyre.
Finally I could put her back on her wheels. Now it's only a matter of time before the second tin of paint is available.
If the temperatures stay the way they are I'll be able to end this project very soon.

The engine doesn't need a battery to function and my friend doesn't want to buy one, it would only deteriorate by standing unused.
So I asked him if I could make a fake battery and mount it to the bike.
He agreed and this is the result.

It's made of wood and painted satin black and I used some parts of an old battery to make it look a bit like a real one.
The wood came from an old wine crate...guess what happened to the 6 bottles of wine that were inside.
So that's all for today.
GrtZ
Philippe

[moizeau]

Looking very tidy, do you get first play?

P.S. You do like brown seats then, should have put it on the GPZ750

[r3sc]

Hi Philippe, looking good! I can’t see the fuse holder from the battery though!

[Philippe]

Hello men

it's been a few months since the last update on this one.
There are a few "reasons": first of all it took more than a month for the new tin of paint to arrive.
Second: the temperature was so low that I couldn't paint so I had to wait for higher temperatures.
But finally by the end of March the temperature was high enough to do the spraywork.
After a few days I could at last mount the other parts.
There were a few problems to get the engine running. The fuel filter wasn't working in the correct way so he had to find a new one.
After the installation of the new fuel filter the bike finally came to live but didn't receive enough fuel. When the choke was released the engine stopped... it turned out that without a fuel filter the engine kept running.
Then there was a problem with the clutch cable, it broke when the clutch lever was applied. It took a few weeks to find a replacement.
After the new cable was installed, the clutch needed adjustment. We couldn't get it working in the correct way so that will be done by a man who knows a great deal about how a Saroléa needs to be adjusted. I have no experience with those very old bikes and it's hard to find the correct information.
This is how the Saroléa looks now.

The bike is now back to my friends place. A more knowledgable man will do the fine tuning (ignition, clutch, ...) so she can be used on the road once again.
Another mission completed!
GrtZ
Philippe

[r3sc]

Top job!

[Bill P]

Very nice indeed

[z2.john]

Top job!

+1

[deka]

brilliant top job as usual philippe