I thought this was a cool story, so I thought I would share it.
The Restoration of a 1948 Simplex Servi-Cycle
By Bill Erickson
It was a cold day in January when my brother phoned and informed me that he had found a 1948 Simplex Servi-Cycle for sale in the paper. It had been misplaced in the classifieds and appeared under the “Snowmobiles For Sale” heading. Neither one of us were familiar with the Simplex name, but it sounded interesting. After taking a trip to the local bookstore I was able to find a couple of photographs of some old Simplexes. I thought it was a nifty looking bike and decided to pursue the ad.
After talking with the owner I felt very good about the bike. He indicated it needed an air cleaner and the seat recovered, but the rest of the bike was complete. After convincing my wife that this was worth taking a look at, we removed the rear seats from our Caravan and began our trip to a small town in Iowa. We picked up my brother along the way and traveled to our destination, all the while trying to imagine what the bike “really” looked like.
As we drove into the entrance to the farmhouse we noticed several barns and outbuildings. We saw a man wave us into the first barn. As he opened the old barn door we got our first glimpse at the motorbike. Wow! The condition was much worse than what we had pictured, based on the phone conversations with the owner. Boxes of old rusty parts revealed more spiders and mice feces than parts. The frame was then pulled out. The crash bars had been hacked off in an attempt to make it like a Simplex Sportsman. The frame was extremely rusty, and the engine was missing fins from the top of the cylinder. It looked as though someone had taken a hammer to the fins so that they could get at the spark plugs easier. As we dug through the barn we found the wheels which were also extremely rusty and pitted.
Well, it was decision time. It was in much worse shape than we had anticipated, but going home empty handed after a six hour trip didn’t sound good either. As we thought about the deal, the owner motioned to a second barn. He showed us an old CycleMotor engine and cigar-shaped gas tank that was used in 1919 on a bicycle. It was for sale as well, but the price was the same as the Simplex. We were on a shoestring budget and knew that we couldn’t afford both. As we walked further into the barn we saw two more bikes, each of which were covered up with sheets. Wondering out loud as to what was under the sheets, the owner lifted the covers and showed us an old Harley and Indian Scout, both of which were restored. This did it—I got the bug and decided it was time to purchase the Simplex. We shook hands and were on our way back to Illinois with our treasure.
Along the way we decided to stop at a McDonald’s in Rockford, Illinois. As I was standing in line ordering some hamburgers, my wife screamed, “Bill, there’s people breaking into our van!” I dodged over to the window and found that a gang of young teenagers were making an attempt to kick out the back window. My immediate thought was that I had possession of this Simplex for only a few hours, and was now about to lose it. I wondered to myself if they even knew what was in the back of that van. But before I knew it, I saw my wife lunge outside and chase the gang off. Wow! This was proof to me that even my wife felt some pride in the ownership of this old motorbike.
Before long we were home and unpacking the new addition to our family. The neighbors watched with curiosity as we unloaded all of the parts and scattered them over the driveway. Comments like “What is that piece of junk?” seemed to be the common question among our neighbors. My only response was, “Just wait until it is done before you pass judgment.”
I began removing the engine from the frame and continued with the removal of the other parts until I had just the bare frame. Almost all of the bolts broke when I tried to loosen them, due to fifty years worth of age and rust. I knew that the first obstacle on this project was going to be the replacement of the crash bars. All that remained of the originals was about six inches on either side of the frame that had served as foot pegs. I was able to locate some crash bars from another ’48 and set about finding a welder who could attach them to the frame. After calls to virtually every welder in the yellow pages, I finally received a call back from one of the last ones I called. The man said that he could weld it right away. As I drove into the welder’s residence, I noticed an old decrepit building at the back side of the property. I cautiously approached the building. All of a sudden a sliding door was thrown open and out came two individuals that scared the daylights out of me. I started having second thoughts about the situation. Maybe I should leave and find someone else. But then it dawned on me that these were the only individuals that bothered to call me back, and I had to give it a shot. I swallowed hard and explained to them what I needed done. The owner told me to come back in an hour and they would have it ready for me. I drove home to kill some time, all the while wondering what they were doing to that poor Simplex. After an hour had passed I went back to the welder’s shop and to my surprise they had done an excellent job at a very reasonable price.
After getting the frame back to its original design, I took it along with the fenders and gas tank to a local body shop. After consultation with the owner of the shop, we decided that the best thing to do here was to immerse all of the parts and the frame in an acid bath. He said that this was really the only way to get the rust out of the inside of the frame tubes. While this activity was taking place at the body shop I was spending long hours in my garage trying to salvage as many of the old parts as possible. I got to know every nut and bolt on that machine, spending entirely too much time grinding the rust off of each piece and then polishing it back to its original luster. When I needed to replace missing or damaged parts, I was always able to count on Wayne Mahaffey to deliver just about anything I needed.
After the acid bath was complete the bike was sprayed with multiple coats of an epoxy primer and then painted with a black urethane enamel paint. Gary Wollard was kind enough to supply me with the exact paint scheme of a “special order” model, which was similar to the bikes that were produced for Western Union. This style consisted of a black bike with red panels outlined in gold and green pin stripes. I conveyed these details to the painter and went back to my garage to start working on the engine.
Dismantling the engine was a good learning experience for me and also proved to be quite fun. I can remember putting various engine pieces into the oven for a period of time so that the wrist pin, rotary valve, etc. could be removed. When I was baking the engine case my wife yelled into the kitchen, “Ummm...smells good...what are you cooking?” After laughing out loud I informed her that it was a Simplex engine, and that she probably would have a tough time eating it.
I finished taking the parts out of the engine and decided to give Gary Wollard a call to get an expert’s opinion on the situation. Gary checked out the engine and found that the rotary valve only had .003” clearance on it. He was amazed at how tight this was, noting that the factory seldom was able to obtain less than .005” on new bikes. He was sure that this engine must have seized up right away, probably due to an improper mixture of gas and oil. Gary bored the cylinder and provided me with a new piston, rings and bearings I needed to complete the engine.
Before long I had the engine together and magneto rebuilt. As I installed the engine and transmission into the bike, I couldn’t help but to think how quick this part of the job was going. It seemed like it took forever to dismantle and restore all the individual pieces, and now it seemed like the whole thing was coming together right before my eyes. It wasn’t long before I was sitting on the bike rolling it around on the garage floor wondering what it would sound like when it finally started. I only had seven days until the Portland Vintage Motorbike show, and I was working feverishly so I could enter it. One of the last things I needed to do was to “kreem” the inside of the tank. This had been overlooked before. I took plenty of time and was very cautious in making sure that all sides of the tank had been evenly coated. I sat the tank down for a minute while I shot the breeze with a neighbor. When I returned to the tank my jaw almost fell out of my mouth. Pressure had built up on the inside of the tank and had shot some of the chemical through a piece of masking tape and onto the outside of the gas tank. I tried to wipe it off, but it was too late. It ate through the paint and the Simplex tank decal! What was I going to do now? After the panic was over I called my painter and told him the situation and that I only had a couple of days left before the show. He told me that he would work it into his busy schedule and that he would try and have it done in a day or two.
A couple of days later I received my rebuilt MS carburetor from Jim Pettiti at Raceway. I wasted no time in installing the carburetor. I filled the oil bath air cleaner with oil and connected it to the carburetor. All I needed was the gas tank and I would be ready to fire up the old motorbike. I called the painter, and sure enough he had the tank done. I picked up the tank and installed it on the bike. I mixed up a gas and oil mixture and filled the tank. This is the moment I had waited for!
I pulled the choke out and opened the throttle half way. I kicked the pedal down and heard some compression but no spark. I kicked the pedal down again, and this time the engine sputtered to life. The neighbors heard the little engine revving and came running outside. They couldn’t believe the old piece of junk I brought home last summer was running and actually looked presentable. As I let the engine run for a few minutes I noticed that gas and oil were leaking profusely from the base of the engine. Another letdown. After swallowing hard one more time I took the engine out of the bike and dismantled the top of the engine on the kitchen table. I decided that the gasket under the cylinder was not thick enough to seal properly. I made my own gasket and replaced the cylinder. Within the hour I had it installed back into the bike and was ready to try one more time.
This time things went much better. The engine ran flawlessly and was not leaking anywhere. I hopped on the bike and slowly engaged the rocker clutch. The belts tightened and the bike lunged forward. Before I knew it I was cruising around the neighborhood, each corner getting better as I became more familiar with the variable speed transmission. The motor hummed along flawlessly and I was amazed at how quiet the bike was cruising down the road. What a feeling to finally reach the end after spending many weekends working away in the garage. It was all worth it.
Copyright 1999 AMCA, reprinted with permission of the author
