I had a goal to restore this 1953 Chief inside of 4 months and beat Greg Cooney’s record restoration time. I look at the calendar, 19 April 2001. Four days later I had everything apart with anything smallish put into designated plastic bags and labeled with which part and what needed to be done. First  I had the frame dipped in a strip tank then washed, sand blasted then primed. The sandblasted the side stand, rear front brake hubs etc. and primed them.

Interesting enough all the wheel bearings and steering head bearings were okay. Although I still intended to replace them. The handlebar assembly complete with brake, mirror fork dust covers and all other chrome work was sent away. The only part we couldn’t save was the rear rim. The chrome was sent to Otahuhu Chrome Platers.
All the tin wear along with the frame was sent to Classic Car Restorations. The legendary Alan Bowden and Max Mumby had a lot of work to do. The tanks had to come apart and were welded. The front guard needed extensive work included replacing one side panel. The rear guard was in good shape along with the chain guard but still needed a days work. Everything was filled and tested on the frame.

While all of this was going on I took the engine over to John Williams workshop. John has been working on Chiefs since the early ‘60s and helped me restore the ’44. As we gently pulled the engine down piece by piece we were pleasantly surprised to find it had been rebuilt around 10 years ago. Jim had said he’d had the engine sitting on his bench for 10 years so we just replaced the gaskets with James gaskets.  Zinc finished all the fastenings, cylinder base nuts and polished the castings. The gearbox looked good although I decided to replace the slider and cluster gear and bearings anyway.
Putting the clutch back together was an interesting exercise as no one seems to have worked on a ’53 clutch brake system in this part of the world. Not even Jim Parker could give us the setting to activate the clutch brake, however John soon had it sorted.

The torque evener came apart, bearings were checked on the drive side and were A1. So back together she went.
Meanwhile the Linkert carb was sent down to Malcolm Brown who was also putting my ’46 Chief back together. I’d replaced the big end, pins and bearings and were fitting a set of Peter Arundel ductile cylinders. More on that later.

 The frame was painted black 2 pac and baked. Then assembly was started...<to be continued in Part Three>

 
Part Three, The Assembly, Restoration comes to an end...