This BSA came from east Germany. There is so much wrong !! But i get her on the road

Is it an ex BEF bike Theo? What are the engine / frame numbers?

Jan

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

I do not know Jan where the bike is from .I onley know it is a rare M20 it have a duble spring in the girder fork i never seen it before. And its a older fork with the rubber handle bar shock absorber. I wil look at the under lug for numbers.It olso have a litle side stand and no foot pegs on the rear.I wil post more pictures later.

It looks perfect just the way it is, it encompasses it's entire history as it stands. Were it mine I would just get it into a good reliable bike and use it.
Regards Richard

What a load of nonsense...restore it to its proper specification....

If we're all going to preserve complete histories I'd better not put my 1970 T120R back together as part of its 'history' was being reduced to a basket case.... ...
I can also think of a number of hideous choppers, low riders etc. etc. that are best not 'preserved' as well.... ...

Preservation of an unrestored and largely original machine is certainly warranted but really, to 'preserve' a bitza like this one shouldn't be considered as a serious option or a meaningful contribution to the historical record IMO....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Sorry Ian but I completely disagree with you. There are loads of original bikes. This bike has a living history and it would be a great shame to rub that out. My Pride and Clarke bike has a lorry ammeter and an Enfield headlight. I strongly suspect all that was assembled in 1945 when it was rebuilt out of bits. I wouldn't dream of changing that and turning it into another clone.

email (option): j@clogmaker.co.uk

I have more ore less the same problem.
I build my m20 long ago (when I was young and foolish!) in the mid seventies from every part i could lay my hands on.
Its not 100% Original, but in a way it has some "personal historic" value for me.
So not sure wether i should change parts and make the bike like all the others....

I entirely agree with someone conserving a machine in a specific format if they feel it has particular personal relevance, for example, a spec. that has developed through a long period of ownership...

I have owned my own 1951 B33 for 39 years and it has changed through two rebuilds, over 100,000 miles and also due to my changing tastes over the years...It is now far from a standard spec. and will probably remain so...

However, there is nothing to say I won't change it again at some point...I regard its history as fluid, not static and fixed at any given point...

If Theo were to rebuild/restore this machine he is not destroying its history...He is adding his chapter to what is in fact an on going story and any changes he makes will become PART of its history....

My own M20 has well over 100,000 miles and three complete rebuilds under its belt during my ownership..
Before that it was owned by the army as a standard machine (in wartime and postwar spec.) and then fully civilianised by a dealer in ex WD machines prior to its move to civvy street after demob...Years later it was then repainted green again (badly) by the owner who had it before me...

At any point along the way the 'clock could have been stopped' and it could have been 'preserved' in its supposedly historically 'correct' specification...Should it have been left in its all over maroon civilianised specification for example...or was the badly repainted green more 'valid'??? Or perhaps any one of the three different military spec's I have put it into over the years...??

Are we really going to propose that any bike should remain as found, irrespective of its condition or specification on the grounds that its condition as found reflects its full history in some way?....In fact it only displays the LAST part of its history...

Further is anyone seriously proposing that to fully restore a machine (even if found as a basket case or hideous chopper for example) destroys its history and merely produces a clone of no historical value?....That discounts the principle of machine restoration in its entirety!

I think its time to get a grip and reassess just what is or isn't worth preserving from a historical perspective....

In my view a machine in its original spec. and with most of its original finish is worth preserving from a purely historical point of view..
A machine that has particular personal relevance may also be worth preserving, but for personal reasons not purely the wider historical perspective ....

I can't see that miscellaneous boxes of parts, rusted out barn finds, machines that have been substantially altered etc. etc. are actually worth preserving to represent anything worthy from a historical point of view....

A further point to ponder is that if you use your preserved historical artefact for a few decades/tens of thousands of miles you will wear it out and HAVE to rebuild it to prevent its ultimate demise....

You can't have your cake (history) and eat (use) it.. ....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

I don't think it's correct to say "There are loads of original bikes". In terms of early-war specification machines, I can only think of about a dozen, even interpreting 'original' at its most liberal.

There are a number of things on this bike which are not really good practice. The odd small capacity silencer will be either noisy or restrictive, the mudguards are a horrible radius and run too close to the tyres and the odd homemade headlamp brackets are just waiting to fracture.

If the engine and frame numbers show this to have been either a British Army (BEF) or Dutch Government machine then I think it would certainly be worth putting it back to an original specification. It won't be cheap to do though, especially if it turns out to need an MT1130.

That so many posters on a specialist forum such as this one are not interested in whether it is a 1939 machine or 1945 and tend to think that all K and WM20s are 'common' and by implication the same, suggests to me that there are plenty of reasons to put another accurate year-specific model back on the scene.

Personally, I have an obsession with 1930s motorcycles and regard anything which detracts from the period illusion as a negetive point.

What I meant, but didn't say, is that there are loads of bikes that are meant to look original. This isn't by any stretch a hideous chopper and I'd just alter the odd problematic part and leave it alone. But then Daz and I have founded "The leave it alone [and just ride it] club". He has a 30's frame 20" wheels handchange tank and a '46 Norton ohv engine and no lights. I have left the demob paint on my 16H and just fixed the lights [or rather Daz did] and sourced and fitted an original field stand and sump guard. I just like my bikes to work first of all. I like the patina on old bikes. Though where patina finishes and rust starts is a moot point.....

email (option): j@clogmaker.co.uk

Thank for al those good advice but it is not my bike but from a good frend. He ask me to make it a runner and not an original BSA because this bike have a story to tel. This is my M20 and i found it in a barn . I also wil keep it as i found it and i let him see my M20 he says beautiful but not my one.You onley wil not know wath i must do to make it a runner. I let you know !