THE DOUGLAS PROJECT
Project Managers (Prior family)
Laurie Prior
Dr R.C.Prior
Christopher Prior
Project funding 2001-2002 - Laurie Prior
Skilled Services
include:-
Engine Rebuild,
bike-construction & consultation - Pat Gormley
of Liskeard Cornwall:
(Cornwall
section of the London Douglas
Motorcyle Club).
Gearbox overhaul by
Brian
Cranch of Liskeard Cornwall.
Douglas Spares supply
from
original parts (Eddie & Margaret Turner
Southampton)
Shot-blasting by "True
Grit" of Liskeard Cornwall
Paintwork: Nigel
Buckthought -
Liskeard Cornwall
Chrome Plating: Doug
Taylor.
Weston-Super-Mare Somerset
Speedometer (Smiths
Chronometer)
repair and service by David Woods of Chichester.
Magneto Rebuild by
Fred Cooper -
Kent
Rebuild of dynamo and
supply of
Solid State "replica" Voltage Regulator by FTW Motorcycles Sheffield
Wheel Rims and spokes
manufacture - Central Wheels Birmingham.
Control Cables by T
Johnson
Cables - Warwickshire.
Wheel-bearings by
Brian Trott of
Totnes Devon (Classic bike specialist)
Engine fine-tuning;
Carburation
and road-going preparation by Doug Cross &
CJ in Exmoor Somerset
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My original aim was to get this motorcycle
back
"on the road" by the summer 2002. That
target was achieved
The engine has been rebuilt by a good
friend in the
London Douglas
Motorcycle Club mentioned in above
credits, who has
rebuilt many
of the marque beautifully and lovingly
before.
Specialist companies were used for
items
requiring skilled manufacture
such as new control-cables,
chrome-plating, and
wheel-bearings etc.
This shows a montage of photos of the rusty components and the rusty
rider-
prior to shot-blasting! Also shown are major parts of the bike
re-sprayed such as frame, tank and front forks. The brown blob marked
"40" was the fuel-tank.
The photo top centre is of my sister and me riding on the very
machine
and was taken by my father in 1963 while on holiday in Worthing Sussex.
Lower left shows newly painted bits on the floor in the office.
The newly sprayed parts look very good and inspired me to
keep the project going. Remember that these parts had lain in a damp
garden-shed for 33 years!
The bike is a Douglas Mark 4 Sport and is the predecessor to the
Mark 5 and finally the "Dragonfly" which was the last model before
the
company ceased motorcycle manufacture in 1957.
It's a 350cc Horizontally-Opposed twin (for the technically minded
reader).
The design was marketed under license by BMW for their first flat-twin
and
Douglas were the inventors of that format.
Below are a few photos of parts now restored
Dynamo Rebuilt superbly by F.T.W. Motorcycles of Sheffield
Though the Cutout (Regulator) did smarten up ok, it
has had to be replaced with a "Solid State" electronic
version which looks very similar and performs more reliably!
ENGINE REBUILT
READY TO PUT BACK IN FRAME
Petrol tank
AND NOW HERE ARE THE REBUILT WHEELS
AND THE START OF THE RE-ASSEMBLY
Wheels placed in frame. Saddle perched
on top, with tank to see how it all looks.
It's starting to look like a bike now.
June 2002
Build-Up day. Pat Gormley and my brother Rod and I
got some good re-assembly done July 20th 2002
----- 
Click on either of these thumbnails for a larger picture of the end
of
today's handiwork. JULY 2002
AND NOW AUGUST 2002 THE FIRST TEST RUN ALL READY
EXCEPT FOR REGISTERING IT WITH ITS OLD
NUMBER AND HAVING IT ROADWORTHINESS CHECKED.
A QUICK ILLEGAL BURST UP THE ROAD AND BACK!
Again click on either of the thumbnails
and see a
detailed full picture,
but beware you'll get an enlarged photo of
the fat
git riding the bike!
HERE IS THE FINAL PHOTO OF THE FINISHED JOB TAXED
INSURED - RE REGISTERED ON THE OLD NUMBER
ALL READY FOR THE ROAD SEPTEMBER 2002
(150 miles on the clock now at November 2002)
Click the thumbnail to see full sized picture.
An outing to run it in. Parked by a Triumph
Vitesse. Note the new screen on the bike.
Here's a photo with yours truly standing behind it -
taken Sunday Feb 9th 2003
Click on any image to see
full-sized version.
Or yet another 
UPDATE DOUGLAS
IS PUT OUT TO GRASS MAY 2005
With much regret the story of
the Douglas for me
almost ends there in MAY 2005, at least as far as my/our own
association with
the machine goes. We will however, be able to visit it when it's
sick! I
have sold it to the person who rebuilt the gearbox for me, Brian Cranch
in Liskeard as he wanted a Mark V (similar to our Mark IV sport) and he
is a real
enthusiast who will give it a good home and make much better use of it
than we
can.
Latest news of OPH
57 as at 2008.
The London Douglas Motorcycle Club celebrated the Douglas marque's Centenary last year with a much publicised (in the classic bike press) Lands End to John O'Groats and back again run.
I'm pleased to report that Pat Gormley (who rebuilt the engine on this Douglas) has just told me (April 2008) that the current owner of OPH 57 Brian Cranch, lent the bike to another club-member who wanted to do the Run. The journey was successful and OPH 57 made it there and back over 2000 miles with only one mechanical hitch. The only minor breakdown involved a stripped idler timing-pinion. Pat was on hand to rescue the situation and he managed to acquire another pinion from a Scottish club member up at Fort Augustus and fitted it the same evening.
So pleased was the rider with his run, he's asked the owner of OPH 57 if he ever wishes to part with the machine, he'd like to have it. To quote Pat ………"He'll have to join the queue, as he's about the third person who is after that machine!"
Personally speaking, having progressed from 1950's and 60's bikes, to much more modern machines I found the Douglas to be very lacking in performance and safety on modern roads after riding it for the first 700 miles since the rebuild.. False expectations perhaps, as I mustn't expect it to be like a modern machine because it isn't one. I find it very boring having to adjust my riding now to cope with the shortcomings of the bike in today's traffic. The brakes need a week's notice to stop! One of my main reasons for being a biking enthusiast in the 1960's was the addictive quality of their speed and performance. Back then it was able to hold its own among other machines of higher capacity on acceleration, if not on top speed. But today it isn't able to be any more than a bit of a nuisance to following cars. I also find that I have to allow for the unreliability of the mechanicals and the high percentage risk it will break down leaving me stranded getting the AA to come to my rescue.
So nothing has changed much since the 1960's when it was already a bit unreliable. Though some of that was our own fault and we got what we deserved after under-servicing it and mechanically neglecting it. We left things rather too much to chance being short of money..
Brian Cranch has two other Douglases and an AJS and will show the machine at County shows and other vintage machinery events. This pleases me greatly as I know the Douglas will outlive him and probably our family as well.
I enjoyed the project of
breathing life back
into it and feel I have done right by it. In effect I had a drink
and a
chat with an old friend and we exchanged memories of old times and then
we
moved on to go live our own lives independently.
That can't be bad. Things
like that are never
wasted time.
Meanwhile I've just bought a
BMW K100 RT found
on ebay, and I intend to enjoy the summer riding around the local roads
of
Devon dodging the holiday-makers.
A CHANGE OF SUBJECT
Nothing to do with the above but from the same era here is a photo
of the
Saab Safir aeroplane my
father flew in the late 1950's from Luton aerodrome. The airport then
was just
a grass track runway
with a control tower and a couple of large hangars. This was long
before
it became a National Airport.
G-ANOK is still in existence somewhere on a farm on the Scottish
Borders.
It too is "out to grass" I think
just gathering dust and was for a time in the Aero Museum in East
Fortune
Scotland.
I don't think it will ever fly again. So the Douglas faired better than
G-ANOK
did.
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Though Douglas used to make the VESPA in the UK back in the 1950's
and
1960's
there is no connection between my Douglas project and this brand new
Vespa you
see
below.
I bought one of the last of the traditional design Vespas to be made
early last
year (2003) and fitted a
sidecar to it. I don't like scooters, being a motorcycle
person,
but I built this outfit so that we
could tow a useful "satellite" vehicle on a trailer, behind our
MotorCaravan. This would let us scout
around exploring a locality without having to uproot the Motorcaravan
once
"pitched" at camp.
Here are a couple of photos showing Joshie our dog, sitting
patiently by the
park
and one of me showing it off outside our house on the day I first tried
riding
(driving) it.
It's a lot more fun than I imagined it would be.
Click on links to see larger photos.
Me on the new
outfit.
My
wife collects pottery Egg Cups. This was just somewhere to display
them!
Final Postscript (I promise !)
We sold the big Motorcaravan and bought a Volkswagen Topaz by Auto
Sleepers
in Plymouth.
Decided it would be more healthy to have a bicycle rack on the back and
so I
sold the Vespa outfit
to someone who only wanted it for the scooter. He'd never ridden
a
"chair" before and as he
drove away from here, he nearly drove into someone's bungalow as he
hadn't a
clue how to ride
it in a straight line! I assume he got it home to Torquay. I
never heard from him again!
Joshie misses the scooter chair. Well he can't ride on a bicycle
with me he's too big.
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