An unusual ABC find

- a brand new ABC crankshaft with journals still in protective adhesive paper.
It would appear to be for a V4 Bee engine?

The V-4 crankshaft is indeed from a Bee engine and was salvaged by me from the factory in 1971 together with various other Ridley/Bee ancillaries. I have not as yet seen a complete Bee unit although the Woking ATC apparently had a couple in the 1970s. I thought Bob Thomas had one, or the makings of one, and hence I passed a number of bits and pieces of Ridley and Bee units on to him. I also salvaged four or five Ridley units of which Bob had one, Bill Boddy had one for his Welsh Motor Museum (since sold), one I think went to a friend in the Outer Hebrides and I kept one for quite some time before I sold that a few years ago. I still have a few Ridley ancillaries which will no doubt end up at Brooklands in due course. I thought Bob also had my spare 12/40hp Supersports engine which should be somewhere in the store!

Keep Beevering.

David,

You have just reminded me of Viscount Ridley, father of Nick Ridley, who was chasing the 750cc World Record in 1930 at the same time as William Morris with his Minor and Austin with their Seven which Pat Driscoll, whose Norton are in the Museum, became their lead driver in 1931. What a small world especially as the rebuilt Ridley Special is also in the museum. This was rebuilt with an Amilcar chassis and the original engine after Ridley's near fatal crash endeavouring to recapture the record from Austin - Morris never achieve it although Ridley did.
What has this to do with ABC? Ridley was a director of ABC at the time and the engine was a one off short stroke ohc four which could have been made by ABC. Any thoughts?

I don't have a picture of a real Bee but David Hales managed to get the original drawings and a wooden set of cylinders (yes wooden).

dhales wrote:

The V-4 crankshaft is indeed from a Bee engine and was salvaged by me from the factory in 1971 together with various other Ridley/Bee ancillaries. I have not as yet seen a complete Bee unit although the Woking ATC apparently had a couple in the 1970s. I thought Bob Thomas had one, or the makings of one, and hence I passed a number of bits and pieces of Ridley and Bee units on to him. I also salvaged four or five Ridley units of which Bob had one, Bill Boddy had one for his Welsh Motor Museum (since sold), one I think went to a friend in the Outer Hebrides and I kept one for quite some time before I sold that a few years ago. I still have a few Ridley ancillaries which will no doubt end up at Brooklands in due course. I thought Bob also had my spare 12/40hp Supersports engine which should be somewhere in the store!

Keep Beevering.

Thank you - for giving us another piece in the jigsaw!

There are also 2 brand new cylinder heads along with a Solex carb which I am fairly sure are for this engine.


There is a Bee engine -albeit rather dusty at present:


No sign of the Supersport engine, I ‘m sorry to say - that would be wonderful, though there are several (cast) cylinder barrels an a 3 used pistons/ rings.

There is a complete APU of Sunderland flying boat type


The task is identifying, rescuing and sorting with an aim ultimately to display everything- along with the machinery that Bob used in the mill.

-and, where possible getting them running - on Weds, pleased to say we got another ABC running again- the 1919 SkootaMota

gioorl wrote:

I don't have a picture of a real Bee but David Hales managed to get the original drawings and a wooden set of cylinders (yes wooden).

That is very interesting, Giovanni.

The wooden cylinder heads are intriguing - I am staring at them and looking at the Bee engine pics and the cylinder head pics.
- are they the same?