Hi Guys,
With Threads all over the place on the Marty Dickerson 1939 Series A Comet, that Greg Brillus is restoring for me, difficult to know where to post, so hopefully this will be OK.
As usual with all the other restorations that Greg has done I feel that the Series A would be the sweetest.
I hadn't seen the bike during the Restoration process. I happened to be on my way to work in Western Australia when my joining the Oil Rig was delayed. Hence found myself with a couple of days to spare in Brisbane, so off down to Gold Coast to see the bike in the flesh, previous to that only picture and various very positive comments
In among the various Vincent's Greg is working on, stood the 1939 Series A Comet, absolutely stunning. Greg certainly is a master craftsman. Please see some photos and a video of Greg starting the Comet up. Plus a drop box link to the Restoration process including all the photos and a Video of the start up. I kept Marty Dickerson up to date on the Restoration project. I even tracked down two owners after Marty's ownership. Melvin Jansen in 1974 and then John Fregoso whom I bought off in May 2012 and imported into Australia. The full story is in the dropbox folder as limit is 10,000 words here.
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The full story
Marty Dickerson’s 1939 Series A Comet
Dear readers I am Stephen Carson Qld section member, and here is the story of a 1939 Series A Comet {Engine C984 frame D1758} that I bought it, and a 1948 Rapide off a restaurateur John Fregoso, in California in in 2012 for $30,000 USD for the Series A. It was party disassembled with boxes of parts.
John had bought it from another Californian, Melvin Jensen circa 1995 circa $12,000 to $15,000 USD. He in turn bought it from Marty Dickerson for $500 USD in 1974 as per the title.
From the Californian title, I was able to track down Melvin Jensen who still lives at same address. He told me that when the bought the bike, it came with TTR front wheel & brake hub. He also bought a TTR engine {Engine No TTR125} from Harry Morrow, legendary 500 cc Cooper engineer, driver, track owner who had a bookstore “Auto bookstore” in Burbank. Melvin put the TTR125 Bronze head on the Comet. He later sold TTR front wheel and the engine that needed substantial work on the crankcases. The Bronze head went to a guy back east who was tied up with a foundry. One wonders where engine TTR125 and bronze head are now? Melvin was kind enough to send me an original 8 day Smiths clock to suit the Comet.
So, when I bought it was minus the TTR front wheel but had the original Cast Iron head in the boxes of parts.
I caught up with Marty at the International rally in Italy in 2015 and he remembered the bike as he owned it twice, it was so unusual as a previous owner had stripped and painted it red. On speaking to Melvin recently to get the history, he thought the bikes was originally red and was surprised when I told him there were no red frames Comets built. And in Marty letter below me mentioned that a previous owner had painted it red.
It is now almost finished a complete beautiful restoration by Qld VOC member, Greg Brillus here in Queensland. He also noted on stripping the bike for painting he noted the original black frame. Greg has been very active on the VOC Forum to get as much information, so as the restoration is faithful to the original bike. Even organising a run of Series, A guards in Western Australia.
Here below is correspondence on the said bike. If anybody can shed some information on the bike. I would be most grateful. My email address
stephencarson50@hotmail.com
Tuesday, April 10, 2012 From Marty Dickerson
Dear Stephen,
I am sorry I can't be much help about the history of the Comet. I can tell you my history with it. I purchased it from a fellow who owned a muffler shop in South Los Angeles. His name was Oakie Gregory who is now deceased. I rode it for about a year, but it had a problem that may still exist. It would start right away and run fine till it got nice and warmed up, then it would get a misfire and the warmer it got the worse the misfire was. The misfiring would start at about 60 M. P. H. and if you continued riding it come in at 50 M.P.H. It had a Miller Mag/dyno unite installed for ignition and lighting and the symptom of the problem was the coil winding in the magneto. If you let it cool down it would work OK again till it hot again. I checked to see if a Lucas Mag/dyno unit would fit and found the platform it mounted on was way too high and a Lucas unit was out of the question. Probably the only way to fix it would be to rewind the coil in the magneto. To my knowledge no one in So calf. was doing that kind of work in those days, so it never got repaired as far as it know.
I ended up selling the bike to a fellow in San Diego and he is the one that painted it red. I found out he wanted to sell it, so bought it back, but never got it running again. I wanted to move it out of the shop, so I put it up for sale again at which time Mel, bought it from me.
That is about all I can tell you about it. It is a fun bike to ride until that misfire came in, that spoiled all the fun! Good luck with it and I hope you can get it running and that misfire is gone.
Sincerely,
Marty Dickerson
I had sent several emails to Marty with no reply, so thanks to John Ulver who gave me an address for Marty. This letter from Marty a couple of months before his passing
December 1st, 2019 From Marty Dickerson
Dear Stephen,
Your letter did reach me. I am living with my` son and daughter-in-law at the present time, so your letter came to the correct address. I am reasonably well for 93-year-old gent. I am waking up in the mornings.
Progress on the Series A looks likes coming along fine. I am sure you will have a lot of fun riding it particularly if you can get that pesky miss fire out of it. I tried to figure it out what caused the it and came to conclusion it was a problem with the Miller mag-dyno. If there are any magneto experts in your area, they may be able to sort it out the problem. Anyway, keep me posted as to the progress of the bike.
I am returning the $10 note you included in your letter as I couldn’t use it here. Thanks for the gesture anyway. I don’t think our postal service is as expensive as Australia is, so I think I can afford the postage for this reply.
All the best for your future endeavors
Marty Dickerson
13 February 2020, From Stephen Doherty
Thanks for all the info and pictures.
Something seems strange to me. In the MPH article I pasted below, Bob Stafford says that just before war broke out, the factory records stopped on the last page of one of the books, even though a few more bikes were built and sold, and Bob guesses that they didn't bother to start a new record book for the small number of bikes remaining. He says that the last pre-war Comet recorded in the book had frame D1758, which is your bike. It is also ambiguous where Bob says, "The engine number he has is two from the very end of the records". Does he mean two before the end, or two after the end?
But then, in the email from Bob to you from Sat Mar 31, 2012, Bob says "C983 was the last single to have a frame number dedicated to it", and that C991 was the last single. Regardless, the other bike mentioned in the MPH article below, the one with frame D1767, may have been one of the very few singles that were built after yours.
It is also interesting, in that MPH article, that Bob mentions that the other bike had a malleable iron rear wheel hub. I think I recall Greg Brillus asking about pre-war rear hubs on the VOC forum.
Regards,
Steve
January 21st, 2019 From Greg Brillus
That Pesky Magneto
Hi there Steph, yes, the Miller dyno mag is all overhauled. The magneto armature was rewound, and new condenser installed, plus the main housing was re-magnetised to give a better spark. Although the armature and re-mag was carried out by Chris Zoch down in north Sydney, I did the rest myself, including the overhaul of the dynamo (generator). This chap ended up with all the equipment and machinery from a local bloke that lived not far from me called Ivan Brown, probably the best man to rebuild magneto’s in Australia.
Back in 2009 I spent about 7 months working with him and learning about rebuilding magneto’s and generators with the intension of buying the business and equipment from him. Sadly, at the time I did not have a shed big enough to store and set up a workshop, Ivan was very Ill with cancer and had very limited time left. He handed the business over to his longtime friend Chris Zoch, who is a real electronics wiz and has some nice bikes of his own, Gold Stars and so on. So, Chris took on the business and I went back to Geezer’s for a few more years till it closed in Easter 2015 and I started working on bikes full time from home. Chris is a very clever chap and he does excellent work, so I am happy to send him magneto armatures for re-winds when I need them done.
The magneto for the Comet has a great spark even when turned quite slowly, so it should work fine. Hopefully we will know for sure soon.
Cheers, Greg.
