Dresda Restoration

[masonmart]

Recently set off on a very interesting journey to restore a very sorry looking Dresda 550. which is a 550 engine in a lightweight Dresda racing frame. Interesting history in that it was exported to Spain around 1978 but was impounded by customs and left outside or in various sheds since then. Obviously very low mileage but interestingly it has a 600 cc kit fitted. I'm very lucky in that DD is letting me use an area of his workshop to do it and if I can do it well then it should be a really nice bike as it will be tiny and much lighter than the stock 550 and it'll be true cafe racer style.

This is a very good site btw and I'm sure that I'll benefit from membership, if I can be of help in return then I'd be very glad. I have some before pictures but at the moment the bike is in its component parts waiting painting, zinc coating and chroming. I'm waiting on the bottom crank case half to be blasted and painted so that I can start assembling the bottom end but it was damaged in a few areas and needed welding and grinding to shape.

I'm just retired and luckily so as I'm having to put in a lot of hours which would have made the job very expensive. My character makes me not good at work like this because I'm driven to get on with it but good restorations need a lot of patience. I did a trade apprenticeship at ICI in the 60s but done nothing hands on since mainly paying for others to do work for me so I'm having to learn as I go especially in separating things that don't want to be because of corrosion.

[MCTID]

The great Mr Degens........hope he is well.........he is certainly 'an indomitable' bloke. I discovered that I lived quite near him a few years ago in the Surrey Hills - me in Brockham and him in Rusper so I went to visit him.......his Wife opened the gate, took me round to his workshop and left us to it like it was an everyday occurrence.

He very kindly showed me some of his lovely bikes and gave me some tips about Triumphs.

A very nice bloke who made a difference to the motorcycling world. Not many individuals can beat factory racing machines......but he did on a number of occasions.

Good luck with the rebuild.

[K2-K6]

Be interesting to see as you get along with it.

Nice connection working next to DD as well as it kind of completes the circle for the bike.

Used to go to his shop when he was in Putney bridge Road years ago as any of us near there wanting taper roller head sets for our jap bikes would shoot over to him.

He was on an American TV program I watched recently also, very clever engineer.

[masonmart]

I live just down the road from his place in Rusper and have one of his Tritons too.

He's a fiery character for sure but a really nice bloke under that exterior and a wonderful hands on engineer. His ilk are fast disappearing unfortunately and biking will be much diminished for it

I'll put up some photos when I start doing the assembly.

[masonmart]

Have the bike disassembled, cleaned and everything that can be is either in for coating or already done. The wheels are in for rebuilding, the original Borrani rims were perfect under the cement and dust and I'm going for black hubs with SS spokes and polished rims for good contrast.

Very lucky that I decided to strip down the engine because it had obviously at one time been crashed on the points side with damage to the engine bolt lugs but, despite heavy welding, still with hairline cracks through some of the cylinder stud holes. One cylinder hadn't been running neither.

I've found some crank cases and the intent now is to get the engine, barrels and head all coated with Cerakote which is a very high quality ceramic coating, the finished product is very good: already had the down pipes done in satin black to contrast with the silver engine. I've had the speedo, tacho and carbs all restored, all of the valve seats recut and am only short of a tank now, some clip ons with risers and a few little bits like a cylinder stud. As soon as I get the crank cases back I can start reassembling the engine and that's the critical path now. Will post some pictures when it starts to look like a bike or if anything of interest crops up.

I've been really glad of workshop space and the use of machinery and tools especially impact drivers which were needed on just about everything. Especially glad of the advice from DD and Russell, I've tried not to bother them as they are always busy and they take the Mickey out of me mercilessly

[SteveD CB500K0]

Here's a couple of my favourite Dresda pictures:

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North Weald classic sprint meeting 2006 (Westfield Andy was there too with his Seeley)

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Degens on the MCN bike (also summer 2006)

[Aly-b]

Agreed,they are very nice bikes in these photographs.  

[masonmart]

Last picture's a bit like how my 550 looked back in the day but while Dave is a great hands on engineer his bikes tended to be well back on style compared to Rickmans and Sealeys for example. I think I'll do the tank and seat differently and not have a half fairing.

[Bryanj]

As I remember Dave from back in the 70's he didn't care about style just function. Seem to remember that the was a shop specialising in Sunbeams at the other end of the block

[masonmart]

All of the bits that need to be restored have now been done and I start assembly tomorrow. Wrt painting of the engine cases, covers, head, barrels, etc., I finally went for different temperature grades of Cerakote which is a baked on ceramic and even better than the two pack epoxy painting that I had done on other restorations.

Just a few examples below



Cylinder head from below, valves cut at triple angle.



And from above



Barrels now finally fitting the casings



Crankcases from the breakers looking a lot better than the original bike's cracked ones.

[JamesH]

Looking very nice indeed. Who did the Cerakote for you? Flying Tiger?

[JamesH]

Oh and a silly question probably - did you intentionally leave the exhaust copper crush gaskets in there?

[masonmart]

Hi James, Hi-Spec Coatings in Coolham on the A272 toward Billinghurst.

Ha!! yes, forgot all about the copper gasket but they needed soda blasting.

[UK Pete]

Them parts are looking nice
pete

[masonmart]

A question.

You have the crankshaft, primary drive shaft and kick start mechanism fitted in the lower case and the main and counter shaft plus shift drum and forks in the upper case. Everything seems fine and it seems to change gear OK. I have all of the fasteners ready to bolt up the case halves: there's no gasket between the cases so I'll need to paint the surfaces with, say, Hondabond and bolt them up.

The question is, would a careful person have a "cold" match up to make sure that everything functions correctly with cases assembled and partially tightened. It's a bit of a pain but could show up an assembly mistake before putting all of the sealant on.