restoring a francis barnett

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ChrisC
Posts: 1023
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:32 am

restoring a francis barnett

Post by ChrisC »

Anyone out there restoring older Brittish bikes give a wide birth to an on line company or fella calls himself Bantam John of Staveley near Chesterfield, £28 70 for 2 fork seals, a tad expensive me thinks
tattoo
Posts: 826
Joined: Sat May 22, 2010 8:19 pm
Location: March,cambridgeshire

Re: restoring a francis barnett

Post by tattoo »

thing is chris people think restoring an old bike will be cheap but in my experience it's far from cheap...i've restored a few bsa's and a panther and the older the bike the rarer the parts are...i needed two tank badges for a goldenflash i did 5years ago,when i searched for them they turned out to be a rare thing and had to pay £350 each,i did buy some reproduction ones for £100 each but they were thin,flimsy and looked utter sh!t....i also needed some acetylene lamps for a norton flat tanker i was restoring and they cost £500+...

i'd hit newark auto jumble and the stafford shows if i was to restore another
ChrisC
Posts: 1023
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:32 am

Re: restoring a francis barnett

Post by ChrisC »

Ahh Tatoo, a panther, you have hit my week spot there, just think they a really nice looking machine, anyway.. the fork seals.. got the same seals for £6.60 P & P, elsewhere, so I rang this******* back and asked why so much ?after a bit of verbals he said Quote "well we have your money where not interested".....I ' WILL' be looking forward to catching up with this fella when he brings his stall to the next Staffordshire show. I know restoration ain't cheap, in this case it was not about the money it's about his attitude, that's why I put this post up.

Regards from a piss wet lancashire
tattoo
Posts: 826
Joined: Sat May 22, 2010 8:19 pm
Location: March,cambridgeshire

Re: restoring a francis barnett

Post by tattoo »

it was a 600 sloper single..a real bitch to start if you got the de-compressors wrong but once you got it running it was great...as they say "it fired every lampost"...it did however bite my mates dad when he tried to start it,showing off saying it was a piece o piss to start,he kicked it twice and the third time it kicked back and pushed the kickstart through his calf :eek2

i only dealt with bantam john once and he was ok with me but then i did spend a few hundred quid with him and i was helping out one of his "classic bike club friends" (and i use that term loosely) in his mot station,i was the bike tester for him...

i'm sure i dealt with a bloke on the south coast when i rebuilt a mates d7 bantam...i'll look through my paperwork and if i've still got them i'll pm you his details...
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Furrybiker
Posts: 748
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 3:08 pm
Location: NW London

Re: restoring a francis barnett

Post by Furrybiker »

Phew, my ma in law was Frances Barnett, I thought you were tinkering with the old girl!!

:beer:
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