Bent Brass Lever

[cycarmark]

I recently purchased a set of brass throttle and air levers for another bike and the lower (throttle) lever is bent out of position.  Attached is a picture of the bent one and a picture of a proper one.  Any thoughts on how best attempt to straighten it?  The lever is from the late teens to mid twenties.

[phil1]

Hi  I see your problem with the out of shape throttle lever. I would say it can be done, but you will need some very careful gently applied heat in the right place from a small flame gas torch. Then a gentle push into shape with a pair of pliers.  Regards.  Phil.
       
     

[Jonathan Hewitt]

Perhaps it was bent for a reason,  quite a nice bend. Maybe try it and see how it works. looks sort of functional to me especially if  wearing thickish gloves. I am sure that fairly recently ( last couple of months ) I read something in a Douglas publication about bending levers to suit ones self.
Have fun .
Jonathan

[cycarmark]

The bend does look very nice, not at all what I would expect from some sort of mishap.  However, the way it is bent it would hit the handlebar when it is moved so I don't think it is right the way it is. 

I did manage to straighten it, just gentle pressure using a drill press chuck did the trick.



Image rotated and aspect ratio corrected - Dave, 29Nov2023

[cardan]

Well done - I've straightened many and broken a few, without figuring out the "proper" way to do it. Nice lever - what's the bike?

Leon

[cycarmark]

As I pressed it, I checked for cracking but it actually bent back nice and smoothly.  It's a throttle and air lever for a 1921 Cleveland two stroke, and the direction that the levers move is opposite all the British two lever carburetor bikes I have including the 1929 Douglas, so it is a challenge to remember now for all the bikes!

[cardan]

Cleveland - lovely technically-interesting bike. Some serious non-Douglas material, but I think we can we can get away with it. Here's a photo of a Cleveland in Australia, rebadged as a "Regnis Cleveland". Douglas in the middle, and I suppose Williamson on the left. Regnis (Singer spelled backwards) was a Melbourne brand, usually fitted with Swiss MAG twins, but the Cleveland filled a gap in their immediate-post-WW1 range.

Re lever directions: even through the 1920s there was no real convention, with some opening inward and others outwards. In the early 1920s AMAC brought out levers that could be switched from one to the other by taking out the through-bolt and flipping the bits over. Douglas used these on the W20, S1 etc. from 1920-22. Here's my entry for whacky levers: 1909 AMAC on my 1909 Lewis - one of the first AMACs to use cables. The view is looking down the bars. Both are closed at 12 o'clock (sticking up vertically from the bars), and they open in opposite directions (swinging around the bar). Both levers are about quarter-open in the photo. Luckily there is no real power to be accidentally unleashed!!

Leon

[cycarmark]

Those levers on your Lewis are so different that you would have to think about what you are doing just to make them operate.  Speaking of having to think about what you are doing, the clutch on the Cleveland is a long lever on the left side and this, coupled with operating the air and throttle means that you really do not have a good grip on the handlebars when taking off.  Even experienced motorcyclists who have tried riding it wobble a good bit.  Here's a picture of it with the British style knob ended levers, to be replaced with the flat blade levers.

To make things more Douglas related, I took the B29 for a spin today, ran perfectly except the front brake cable broke, tomorrows project!

[cardan]

That's pretty - it must be one of the last ones? The earlier models - with the cylindrical tank and the wobble forks - were obviously heavily influenced by the Baby Triumph.

The in-line crankshaft and chain final drive layout was shared by the Dragonfly, although the gearbox layout and mechanism to turn the drive through 90 degrees was quite different... Some quite innovative design, but maybe a bit too fancy for a lightweight.

Leon

[cycarmark]

That's what I like about the bikes from the 20's, so many ideas and so many different designs.  Some good and some not so good, but they seemed up for trying them all!

It is a later model with the "streamline" tank and larger displacement engine.  They made them through 1923.  One funny feature is the black painted engine, apparently it was an attempt to make the bike look more like the big 4 cylinder bikes for sale in that era that also had painted engine cases.  I don't think anyone ever confused it with a Henderson.  It is a pleasant bike to ride, and an easy starter.  The designer was Carl Neracher, and you can see a lot of similarity of the engine with the one in the Ner-a-car, talk about innovative design!