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@clubman
Background to Sunbeams
http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/Museum/Transport/bicycles/Sunbeam.htm
This link gives a good description of the firm’s history.
I guess that most of the younger forum users will not be very familiar with the Sunbeam marque, but it was very well known in its day and made great claims for itself in terms of quality. ‘Lightness’ was not seen by Sunbeam as being of much importance and so they never appealed to anyone who was interested in travelling at speed. They sold a large number of bikes, but I have my doubts about how much they were actually used.
My frame (and Cino’s bike) are not really typical. Mine was made by Associated Motor Cycles (Matchless/AJS) who owned the firm for a few years up to about 1942 when BSA took over the Sunbeam brand.
Most Sunbeams have an ‘oil bath’ chain case which acts as the right hand chain stay. This does have the great advantage of keeping the chain clean and well lubricated, but it does nothing for lightness or rigidity. As for taking the back wheel out to change an inner tube, unless you’ve got a well equipped workshop and an afternoon to spare, forget it. I have owned one of these machines and when I complained to the Sunbeam expert, Bob Cordon Champ, that I could hear the chain case flexing when I got out of the saddle to climb, he just said: Sunbeams did not expect any of their owners to do that. Fortunately my frame (and Cino’s) were too low in the hierarchy to suffer from this problem. ‘Silver’ in this context meant cheap, which meant no chaincase.
Progress with my machine has been good, and I will soon be able to show you the finished article. In the meantime here are some pics of a small mod I’ve done.
As mentioned earlier this machined is intended to be used for touring, and so it needed to have mountings for a rack to carry panniers. I’m just going to use clips to attach the rack to the seat stays, but it was necessary to do something about the mounting onto the fork ends. I have no access to oxyacetylene, but I have got a MIG welder (every 2CV owner should have one). I cut the material I needed from a scrap chain wheel and here is the result. The fork ends are just about the only part of a bike frame where you can weld – I’ve seen this job done before, and the heat seems to be localised enough not to upset the brazing of the fork end. However, anyone else does this at their own risk!
Pictures refusing to load at the moment - I'll try later .