For those of us currently restoring or seeking wheels for the WD James ML...........

Having recently spent a few days with the excellent Peter Brown re-spraying my wife's ML plus putting together the rolling chassis of our good friend John Tinley's other ML, we came across one particular issue............

ML wheels are near-impossible to find today.....WMO rim size and fairly unique hubs too, all to fit 36-spoke wheels..............old-fashioned cup and cone hub bearings with the rear being far larger than the front...........

When it came to fitting the rear brake shoes on the brake plate, we found that the shoe cam-lever would not fit properly, in that the cam was too short to emerge on the other side of the plate to fit the rear-brake operating arm...........

We then compared the original brake plate from Vidya's 1943 ML with the one for John's ML...........differences were confined to an extra rivet on the plate (three, instead of two) plus, the boss from which the brake cam emerged, was higher than the wartime plate................

A bit of judicious grinding saw the hub ground-down to the correct size, so that the "flats" of the brake cam emerged sufficiently to fit the brake rod arm................but, this was after everything was painted-up.........

I suspect that after WW2, with ML production going on in volume until 1948, some changes and modifications were made, and clearly, it seems we had a post-war rear brake plate to hand.....but, unless you examined them closely, the differences were very subtle................in a hard-to-find item, add post-war changes and the task of finding is made even more difficult.....!!!

email (option): sjmwdbikemad@aol.co.uk

I've found that there is an identical Francis Barnett hub apart from the torque arm going in the opposite direction. It has a speedo drive hole in it which is easily ground off and filled.I'm not sure what model it is from but I suspect that it would be an early postwar rigid one. I notice too that your top yoke is a post war one too, machined parallel to accept the handlebar clamps I have an identical one on mine.
Dave

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com

Not a post-war top yoke Dave........it had traces of the original SCC brown when stripped plus has the WD arrow and inspection stamp on it (as do other parts on this bike !!).........I have a post-war yoke to compare and they seem identical to my eyes..............

email (option): sjmwdbikemad@aol.co.uk

Hi Dave, could you please explain or post photos of the war time and post war top yoke as I would be interested to see what the differences are. Cheers John

I took this picture off the internet and it's obviously the handlebar clamps that Dave is referring to. As opposed to the central tube up the steering stem. Mine also looks quite parallel, and my bike was not built from bits. It was found fairly complete but had been fitted with civy mudguards. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I don't have the correct one myself, but the difference can easily be seen in the parts list. It tapers towards the links as opposed to being parallel along their length.

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com

Having thought about your comment on the rear wheel hub I seem to recall that I did not have the correct brake plate but I managed to get one that was close but I think Terry Roberts altered it for me. It is all a bit vague now and I cannot be certain that this is what happened but certainly I think I was missing the brake plate when I bought the bike. This may well explain your issue. JT

I can assure you that it now fits and works John !! And apart from the extra rivet looks identical........

email (option): sjmwdbikemad@aol.co.uk