B.U.S.

Chapter 36

B.U.S.

Early 1980s

( Photo 1 ). This is what the outside of the work-shop looked like back in the day, this photo was taken in 1981, Gaenor is walking towards the main entrance, my bike is on the far left and from the look of it, we were just about to leave for a rally somewhere, to the right of my CB 550 is Wobble’s 550, and fat Mike’s Honda 550, there are two people in this photo, see if you can spot the hidden one.

( Now in 2021, there is a single house built on where the workshop once stood).

Basically B.U.S. is the abbreviated form of the name of a motorcycle workshop, the letters mean ( Bridgend . Used . Spares. ).

B.U.S. was an extension of the workshop of Leslie Griffith Motors, run by the manger ( Hayden Rees ).

P.J. ( Peter Jones ) and Mike Keen worked there for a few years, and their job roll was to maintain and to service customers bikes in connection with the Leslie Griffiths Motors ( Pans ) bike shop across, the Bridgend bypass on Ewenny road.

P.J. and Mike would also strip crashed bikes that were to badly damaged to be put back on to the road.

The bikes would be stripped for all the reusable and serviceable parts that could be sold on to customers looking for cheaper replacement parts.

The workshop was located directly behind the flat that Wobble and Fat Mike rented on Nolton street.

On one occasion a brand new Silver Honda CBX six cylinder bike was delivered to the shop.

This Honda was straight from the factory in Japan, and somewhere along its long journey, the crate that the bike was in, was turned up side down, normally brand-new bikes were delivered in large metal frames completely boxed in on all sides with quarter inch plywood, this was done to protect the bike on its long journey by ship from Japan and because the bike is only partly assembled it avoided some import tax, if the bike was complete with all the parts fitted it would have a different and higher tax slapped on it by the government, and incomplete bikes are less desirable to steal, the parts would be securely fixed onto the metal frame inside the box with the bike.

The normal course of action when there was a delivery of new bikes was to strip the packaging off the create.

The outer packaging was normally made of wood, and on the inside the bike was partly built and bolted down inside a metal frame.

The bike would then been assembled so it was a complete bike, the next step is what was called P.D.I. ( PRE-DELIVERY INSPECTION ).

P.D.I. basically means that a competent person with some mechanical skill and common sense needs to check that the bike is put together correctly, and is roadworthy and safe to ride, because the next person to ride the bike would be the customer.

( Pan’s ) had regular deliveries of new bikes, but this delivery stands out amongst all the other bike that arrived at the bike shop.

The wooden created Honda arrived just like all the others, the only problem was that it was delivered the wrong way up.

When they opened the crate, the first thing they saw was the bottom of the engine sump and because it was upside down, all the engine oil had seeped down into areas of the engine that it had no businesses of being in, and because of its long journey the oil had settled in the opposite end of the engine.

Hayden had the bike built ready to P.D.I., but he sensibly gave the bike time for the oil to settled back down on it`s own, by leaving it alone for a good while, and let gravity do most of the work.

When you see one of these CBX monster coming towards you on the road, it resembles a barn door with its 1000 cc six cylinder in-line engine.

( Photo 2 ) . Mike Keen, about to take the CBX out for it's first run, the exhaust fumes had dispersed quite a bit by this time, in the top left of the photo with the heads missing off the photo is Beaker and myself Phil Frog.

( Photo 3 ) . Mike burning the oil off by revving the engine.

(Photo 4 ) . The exhaust fumes covered the whole area of the yard outside the workshop, that’s my boots and bottom of my legs you see in the smoke at the rear of the bike, why I was standing right behind the bike with all that crap coming out of the exhausts is anyone’s guess, I believe Wobble was the one with the camera.

When the guys had the bike ready to start after they were happy that there was no excessive oil in the wrong areas of the engine, they pushed the bike outside into the open air, in the yard outside the B.U.S. workshop (see photo 1).

There was some interest from us bikers, to see how the CBX coped with its Topsy turvey journey from Japan.

To be honest in my opinion the CBX was an impressive bike to look at, it did tend to stand out amongst other bikes in its class.

It was a bit of a crowd puller.

The size of it's six in-line cylinder engine was always a curiosity to most people, it was far too big for me to ride, I would never had managed to hold the bike up.

I was at the workshop with some others waiting to see the result of the engine clean up.

I believe Beaker was there as well, it's such a long time ago, it is hard to remember every detail.

Someone had a camera handy, most likely this was Wobble, because he always had a camera with him even if he didn’t intend using it.

Like he used to say, “ you never know it may come in handy “, well on this occasion it did, so he took a number of photos of the bike being started up for the first time, which you have just seen above.

The Honda started without too much effort, it did need a little coxing, but wouldn’t you if you spent most of your life upside down.

When the big bike kicked into life, the whole yard area outside the work-shop was filled with thick white burning oil fumes from the exhausts.

It looked like someone had thrown a smoke bomb into the yard.

There was thick white smoke everywhere obscuring everything that was more than three foot away.

The engine warmed up and burnt off the engine oil that had collected in places it should not have been in, and the warm engine was burning off the last remnants that were tucked away in the little recesses of the engine.

The bike was fine after a little while, and in good running order, and once all the oil had been burnt off, it ran as smooth as any other bike of its type.

On another day in the workshop, Hayden caught P.J. and Mike play fighting using cans of W.D. 40 lubricant spray as flamethrowers, they did this by each having a can of spray and then lighting the pressured spray with a lighter and then chase each other around the workshop shooting flames at each other.

They were doing this on one day, and Hayden walked in on them in the middle of a fire fight, he stood by the entrance and watched them, when they finally realised he was there watching them, they both stopped and just stood there waiting for a bollocking off Hayden.

Hayden did not say a thing.

He stayed in the doorway, not moving, then looked at Mike and then turned his head and looked at P.J. and still not showing any emotion or saying a word turned around and left.

They both knew he was not happy about them running around trying to set each other on fire, but he never did say anything to them, the next time they had a fire fight they locked the workshop door first.

( Photo 5 ) . Mike Keen and P.J. walking up Nolton street back to the workshop after having a dinner break, Wobble took this photo hanging out of the flats bay window.

When I first had my Honda CB 550, I had the standard handle bars fitted that were supplied from the factory.

I wanted to change them to a different custom type handle bars.

The bars I wanted fitted were semi ape hangers.

( which I still have in tucked away in my garage somewhere ).

The problem with swapping bars on the factory Hondas, was that the wires that ran from the light switches, were tucked away out of sight inside the bars.

On the standard bars the wires were fed inside the bars themselves and could not been seen with the naked eye, it did give the bike a cleaner look with no wires tie-clipped to the outside, but removing the wires was a bit of a bitch to get them out, without damaging the end connectors and not to mention it was time-consuming.

So me being lazy ( I was very busy in work running two department at the time ) well that’s my excuse.

So I opted to pay someone to do the job without messing the wires up, and to refit the semi apes at the same time, so I asked P.J. and Mike to swap them for me has they could change the bars in a fraction of the time that I could do it.

I believe I paid them £5 for doing the job.

£5 does not seem like a lot of money for paying two mechanics to spend an hour or so to do some work, but check out the WIMPY menu below from the late 70s / early 80`s and you will see how prices related to this time period differ from today.

You could get very fat on £5.

( Photo 6 ) . The Wimpys special grill looks nice, and a nice price at 42 p a meal.

I called into the B.U.S. after normal working hours of the workshop had finished.

I rode the bike into the workshop and the boys started working on the bike as soon it was on the bench.

After a while they had managed to get the original bars off.

But in doing so damage two male end connectors on the wires, so they needed to replace them which took a little longer to finish fitting the new bars onto the bike.

Has luck had it, Hayden was driving passed on the bypass that is adjacent to the workshop, he noticed the lights were still on through the screen of trees as he passed by, and pulled off onto Nolton street to investigate why they were still left on.

Mike and P.J. were just about finished with the bars and the bike was still on the workbench.

Hayden walked in, and seen all of us standing around, he knew it was my bike.

He had expressed his concern that I never cleaned it, and he said this same statement on more than one occasion.

First he looked at me then at the boys and said “ what’s going on here “.

To begin with no-one answered.

Then I said, I was lying through my teeth “ I asked them to do me a favour, I could not get the bike started outside after I had been up to see fat mike, and I needed to get home, so I asked them to have a look at it for me “.

Mike keen the mechanic said “ we can't leave him walk home, he lives in Pontycymmer , it`s ten miles away“, and p.j. added“ its only a small electrical fault “.

Hayden then looked at me.

I shrugged my shoulders “ it’s my fault, if there is an issue “.

Hayden looked back at the boys, and said “ don’t forget to turn the lights off when you leave, I will see you two tomorrow “ and then left as quickly as he came.

The next day he never said anything to the boys, and oddly avoided the workshop for a week or two, and stayed over the showroom in the bike shop ( Pans ).

He had caught the guys red-handed ( hobbling ), they could have been in trouble if he was inclined to penalize them for doing work on their own time on company premises.

Nothing happened, but I believe he kept a closer eye on them from that time on.

( Photo 7 ) . A rough plan, I made of the area of Nolton street, with a lot of the places I have written about in some of the other blogs.

( Photo 8 ) . This is how the bikes arrive at the bike shop, with the surrounding cardboard removed off the create.