Here's one for the rivet counters...

A few years back I bought 15 NOS M20 type speedo drives..The majority were painted in a satin black finish...but a few came in a raw die cast finish

Yesterday I received another pair of NOS drives (thanks Darren) and again they are finished in black...

The question is were they usually black, always a mixture of raw finish and/or black or black for some years and raw finish for other years...Ian

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

In wartime photos, they look to be service colour. This would certainly follow the practice of the right angle drives used by other makes.

Could it be that the black or unpainted drives were those produced by Smiths Industries after wartime service production had ceased ?

It's possible..but the M20 only had that drive for 2 years after the war..
It was in sevice much longer of course.....

It's also odd that no drab NOS WDM20 drives have survived (if that was the case) when the earlier, drab right angled drives seem to have survived in quantity....Ian

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

Although the M20 was manufactured in enormous quantity, it was the only machine fitted with that type of speedo drive (except for the Matchless G3L of course but that unit has a different size central hole)...........

Whereas all other WD production with the exception of the lightweight's used the right-angle type with variations in the internal gearing of course.........with over 400,000 WD machines supplied during WW2, with the M20 making up at least a quarter of this, the remaining 70-odd percent utilised a different drive unit........possibly why they are more commonly encountered today, NOS.......

Also worth noting that despite the unit not being employed by BSA after 1947, with the M20 remaining in service for at least a further 20 years new spares for these (and export markets and for owners of surplus ex-WD models) were still required.........sometimes, such parts were of an improved version but in other instances were simply made to the original specification.......as such, those black M20 drives may well be post-war manufacture......? I can remember reading an old article about BSA in the post-war years which mentioned the occasional production of obsolete spares for the home and export military markets, and I should image that similar affected Lucas, Amal and Smith's too.........

There's probably a hangar stacked to the ceiling with them in some far-flung place awaiting future discovery..........

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I have a NOS post war version of the speedo drive.(also black)..The casing was shaped slightly differently and it has both a Smiths name and numbers on it...It is quite distinct from and more robust than the type I would regard as 'wartime'...

It came off a complete NOS M20 front wheel I bought that was also finished in black..(now in KGP3 for my bike.. ).

Black wheels were only fitted to M20s for the latter part of 1945..1946 and 1947 so it seems the drive had already been modified by sometime in that period...

In June 47 tele forks were introduced along with a different front wheel..

From June until August the speedo was driven off the back wheel and from August 47 (the 1948 season) the speedo was driven from the gearbox on M Models...Ian ...

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

I found two speedo drives for my 16H and both painted green with red on the grease fitting end

email (option): goodbell@ripnet.com

Here's a couple of those NOS ones in khaki-green with red ends.........one is longer than the other so much have been for something other than a 16H.....?

From memory, the longer one would suit a 16H as it passes on the outside of the rather large mudguard stay, whereas an Enfield drive for instance passes behind the stay. Of course it would depend on the rotation.
Likewise a Matchless G3L drive runs in the opposite rotation to an M20. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Thanks Ron....haven't checked the rotation of these.....cruded-up with the usual cosmolene ! Got 3-4 of these......may need 'em one day !!!

Hi ian,
Funny this really, as you know I stumbled upon a small stash of these drives from a guy that bought them over thirty years ago as NOS. Although they were all unused, there were a good mix of painted and plain unpainted versions and I did wonder why.
They were all purchased originally in one batch and so it had me puzzled too.

email (option): dwrudd At. Lineone dot net

Most of these components were checked and repacked regularly during their time on the shelf in ordnance stores and they appear to have become mixed up before gaining identical packaging.

It's not uncommon to find SCC No.2 brown and late war olive drab parts in the same bulk packaging.

I assume that they just tipped everything into a bin and then gave some poor apprentice or National Serviceman the job of packing them all in again !

No definite info. to indicate these units were 'drab' so I'm (re)doing my NOS unit black if it needs refinishing after I given it a good clean....

To date black and raw finish are the only two original finishes I have seen...Happy to get definitive pictures though!

I might reconsider if I see a NOS drab one...Ian