Norton running!

Ok so I overreacted! The oil leak was actually a petrol leak. I pulled the tank off and used thread sealer on the taps and that seems to have fixed that. Jimi came round while I was doing that and so when the tank was back on we kicked it over. Started first kick again! Jimi adjusted the throttle cable and pretty quickly had it idling at just over 500rpm. Pretty sweet!

I noticed a funny noise in the primary though and when we inspected it noticed that the rotor, which sticks out further now, had hit and destroyed the timing marker that's attached to the primary cover. Bugger. Will look into that, and recess the rotor by whatever we need to to get that clear when I get the new one.

Although, by pushing the rotor out more we're getting the full 70 pounds on the nut onto it. If it's not spaced out like this will it torque up properly?

Norton 850 Commando is go!

This post could go on for ever, but basically it is done. The Norton is on the road again. It's even bloody legal! It's been a crazy week though. Above are shots from when John came round last weekend and we put the gearbox back in. We got stuck though when we stripped the thread on an engine mounting bolt, which was a bastard cause John's busy in the week with work and the following weekend (this weekend) he's running the Norton stand at the British Bike Show. So yeah, it was either wait, or do the rest of the work myself. I've had the week off teaching, so I thought 'fuck it, let's get dirty'...

First up was my learning to solder, as we discovered some really messy wiring and also the earth had been wired to the heat sink, and John said I needed to fix that shit up. My nickname is Shakin Luke Wood, and trust me soldering with a shakin hand is tough... and messy, but I got it done.

My shitty wiring done, and the new engine mounting bolts arrived. Got straight into reassembling the primary side...

Encountered numerous problems doing this... broken tab washers on the inner primary case, real trouble getting correct clearance around the rotor, and then the usual not having the right tools kinda trouble. Borrowed some from John and bought some new shit. John's torque wrench is awesome and I need to get one. I hate mine. I was paranoid about leaving bolts not done up to torque, or even worse, not filling things with oil. Hence my ingenius red sticker system you can see here. I tried my best to take my time and not get pissed off with anything. It sort of worked, but it was down to the wire time-wise. I did nothing for 3 days except work on this bike! Did I mention I was trying to get it ready for the Mods and Rockers 'Winter Rumble' here in Christchurch? Anyway, I had it running by Friday night, and took it for a test ride... all good. Needed a new tyre for a warrant though, and here you need a warrant to get a registration. So... rang around and the only tyre I could find was in Darfield, an hour out of Christchurch! Took off out there on Saturday morning, got tyre on sweet, and then went to a garage in Darfield for a warrant where things slowed down a little. They guy there was anal to put it nicely. An hour and a half later he gave me the fuckin warrant, and I got the rego in about 5 minutes. Only problem was I was an hour from Christchurch, and the rally started in 30 minutes...

Anyway that can be the next post! I'm super stoked she's running again.

Norton gearbox shell

Finally after many dollars, many miles, and many days, it is here! Taking this around to Alastair Mears tonight hopefully, so he can reassemble my gearbox on his bench and test it out there. Fingers fucking crossed this will be the end of my gearbox trouble (for some years to come at least!)? That big hole you can see there was the problem, it had been slogged out by the bearing on the mainshaft spinning in there.

Fuck you Customs

Mostly it's been pretty cool lately, things are starting to come in for the first HFoS issue, been talking about getting dirt bikes for the summer, you know that sort of shit... and have also been waiting around for my gearbox shell to show up from Norvil, getting all excited about getting this gearbox problem resolved but also feeling like I'm starting to run out of fuckin money to throw at the thing. And then BAM! This shit shows up in the mailbox. My gearbox shell is being held by Customs and they want my hard-earned before they'll let it go. Bastards. I have rung up and complained etc, and found out that anything over about $450 you bring into the country you have to pay GST on and also there's an 'Import Duty'. Shit I guess there's someone hard at work on my parcel and hey they gotta get paid for that hard work eh? No. Fuck you Customs. I already paid tax on this motherfucker when I purchased it from England. Anyway,  have now — of course — paid the theiving bastards, but am still waiting to see the  thing. Send me my fucking gearbox already.

Norton update

I'm currently waiting on a new gearbox shell from Norvil in the UK. Tried for ages to get one here, found a couple of secondhand ones but they had the same problem as mine. Basically the mainshaft bearing had been spinning in the case and had slogged out the hole. It was pretty bad actually, Alastair said it was the worst he'd seen in a while. Really hoping this is the cause of my problems, but he didn't seem convinced as he thinks it's a layshaft problem only. My thinking is that because the mainshaft was able to move, twist slightly even, in the casing, then it could be putting unusual force on the layshaft and pushing it out ever so slightly so that it would bind of the kickstart shaft. Anyway that's my theory.

Since I'm waiting on the case to arrive I decide to start work on repairing the earthquake damage to this bike (I have it strapped to a work-bench against a mattress now cause these quakes seem to be an ongoing fucking problem). I think all that's wrong is the 'Z plate' that holds the muffler on is bent, so took that off today and will see if John can straighten it (without it breaking) in a press or something.

Hoping to get this shit sorted and get the Norton rolling for the Mods and Rockers run coming up in August?

Primary removal

I photographed this as I was going but stopped when John arrived to help. I got the primary off myself, but wouldn't have been able to get the gearbox out without his help... and his tools! I photographed the inner primary cover because there's some quite obvious wear there that I want to check out. Obviously the drive chain has been eating into it. Also this (above) is my rotor... which doesn't have a timing mark. Well it sorta does – one, actually a couple, that someone's punched into it. I'm not sure these are correct? How can I find out? I'm thinking this could be the cause of the kick back I get when starting it... even though it appears to be timed correctly, if these marks aren't right it ain't gonna be right!

Kickstart return spring

Ordered a new kickstart return spring last week and put it in on Saturday morning. Was impressed at how quickly I was able to get the new one in and the old one out... I guess it's not that hard, but it does show that I'm learning right? I don't think I cussed much either? Anyway, more to the point, it hasn't fixed the problem. Bugger.

This is the old spring, which I actually thought had more tension than the new one. I thought I might as well give the new one a whirl and see what it felt like, but yeah no different unfortunately. Actually it did sorta start doing it a lot sooner than last weekend... so before it got real hot.

So yeah I'm still bloody confused!? I talked to Bob Nesbit tonight. He's famous here in NZ for his Nortons, he races them, and fixes them at his shop Classic Cycles in Wellington (if I lived closer I'd go see him with this). He pointed out that the problem might be with the kickstart shaft and not the layshaft, and that I should check that, the bushes etc. He also mentioned the pawl, which was replaced, maybe not locating properly. He really made me realise that I need to pull it apart AGAIN (third fucking time) and look more closely at this. I think before I do I'll talk to John again and ask him about the parts and see what he thought when it was apart.

PZ's mate, Andrew, has also mentioned that the spring might not be set right, so may go see him on the weekend. I did notice there are two holes in the kickstart shaft where the spring could locate, but I'm  certain it's in the right hole. Apparently the second hole is there because the same shaft can also be used on a Dominator.

Anyway, tick tock...

Norton back home...

Well finally the Norton is back in the garage at home, but all is still not well unfortunately. John and I got her running on Saturday, pretty sweetly too I must say, and even though it hasn't had a warrant or registration for over a year now I thought 'fuck it' and went for a ride. It was bloody great too. All was going very well until I got the stop sign at Governor's Bay. When I took off from there, so from a complete stop, the bloody kickstarter pulled itself all the way down again. Bugger!

The rest of the ride home was marked by that awful feeling, that I'm getting used to now, of having shelled out in terms of time and money, but to no effect. I was a bit down of course, a bit angry, but tried to maintain a very peaceful and zen-like outward state (the best I can do at this point). Anyway when I got home dad asked me about it and I explained things. he said he thought it would be the spring wouldn't it? And I thought 'what the fuck do you know'... he's not at all mechanical. But I did think about that some more, and then lastnight I left a question about this on the Kiwibiker forum, to which I've just had a reply from someone with an old Honda which did just the same thing. And anyway he suggests it's the spring on the kickstarter too!

Shit it'd be funny if after all that work with John to rebuild the gearbox, that my dad got it just like that? Yeah real funny.

Norton: recent developments...

I've been round at John's a couple more times since my last post about this. Initially (about 3 weeks ago) we put the gearbox back together. We replaced a couple of slightly corroded gears, but apart from that we didn't change much, so I'm really hoping we might have corrected whatever was causing the kickstart to pull down. There was the o ring I mentioned in the earlier post here, that was on the primary side. That could be it? Anyway John seems happy with how the gearbox went back together. Here it is with all the gears back in...

We had some trouble with the gear order, and with the set up and placement of the selector forks, but it was quite good for me to see how John dealt with problems, and to realise that even someone with a lot of experience runs into problems! The other plus here, was that because we took it all in and out a few times, I really got my head around how the gearbox works, and how it is set up, etc. The way gears are selected was really interesting in terms of the engineering. The cam plate in particular really amazed me. Genius!

Anyway, because that took a while I took off later that day and we left the primary side til next weekend.

The primary contains the clutch basket, which I've pulled apart and fucked with a few times. One thing I've always wanted to do with the clutch since I put the flat handlebars on the bike was to shorten the clutch cable. I'd put it off for ages, and the clutch has been so heavy I get a really sore hand on even the shortest ride. So... john showed me how to shorten a clutch cable. Important knowledge for anyone wanting to make cafe racers!

Need a good solid soldering iron first! Then cut the cable and melt out the previous solder from the ball end on the cable.

We next cut the cable to the right length, put it into the vice, and put the end back onto the cable... with the end of the cable sitting only slightly out from the end, like this:

John then used a punch to splay out the wire in the cable...

Then solder is dropped back into the hole on the end. Quite a bit is used as you should see it coming out the bottom of the hole on the cable end. There's then a bit work filing off the extra solder and getting the thing nice and round again, but yeah that's basically that.

Things didn't go so smooth form there unfortunately...

We had real trouble with the alternator not fitting back on properly. We couldn't get the correct clearance around the rotor, and then realised that the stator (aftermarket) was not actually sitting properly on the mount on the inner primary case. We fucked around with this for AGES! And eventually left it for the day. I've heard from John since that he's filed down the mount on the inner chain case, and has mounted the alternator successfully. He's had the bike running again, but thinks the timing is still a little out, and also wants to tune the carb properly. We'll be into it again this coming Saturday...

And hopefully I'll be riding away on the bloody thing?

Norton gearbox strip down

Last Saturday I went to John Taylor-Leigh's house (well garage mostly) and he helped me pull the guts out of the Norton's gearbox. I met John through the Norton Owners Club here, he has an 850 same year as mine ('74) and he's owned it since new. It's the only bike he owns and he rides it daily! Anyway one of the big problems I had been having with the Norton was that when I'm accelerating out from a standstill, so in 1st gear, the kickstart was pulling itself down. I'd been riding around like this until I heard that it's a sure sign your gearbox is about to seize! Which would leave me in a bloody mess on the side of the road somewhere. The theory was, from a few different guys I talked to, that it would be a collapsed bearing on the layshaft... hence the bike not being ridden for ages, and now this — a complete strip down of the gearbox.

I took photos of the process as a reminder and thought I'd put em up here. This (above) is the gearbox with the outer cover removed. I'd done this much before, but hadn't ever gotten in any deeper than this before now.

The kickstarter pawl is pretty worn and I will replace it, but nothing to do with the problem according to John.

So this is the gearbox empty, and with all bearings looking just fine!?

Second and third gear have a bit of wear on them and we will replace these as well, but still haven't found anything that would obviously be causing the problem?

To get the mainshaft out we had to also pull the clutch basket out from the primary chain case. I've done a lot of work on this clutch but haven't had to remove the basket before. I've just been pulling plates out and cleaning them and whatnot. To get the basket out we had to remove the front sprockets, the alternator and everything.

That's the basket. I had the clutch center replaced about a year ago. I asked for a hardened steel center, but John seems to think this one might not be hardened?

There she is empty! One thing we found on this side that was 'odd', according to John, was a rubber o-ring on the mainshaft. He reckons that shouldn't be there, and looking through the exploded diagram of this area I sure don't see any o-rings there either. Could this be my problem? We won't know til we put it all back together. Which is the plan now... rebuild it to original spec, while replacing some worn parts (since we're in here now it makes sense), and then road-test it.

We're currently waiting on some parts to arrive from Norvil in the UK. And then as soon as they're here I'll be back to John's garage to put it all back together. Which I'm thinking will be a much bigger learning curve than pulling it apart! It's fuckin great that John's into this. Originally I thought he'd just take the bike, fix it and I'd get it back. it wasn't until after I'd dropped it with him that I asked if I could come back and actually go through it with him. I thought he'd tell me to bugger off, but actually he was stoked I was interested to see how to do it for myself. Great guy! I'm slightly worried about my bike being up on that workbench while we are having all these bloody earthquakes, but apart from that I'm pretty stoked to be getting my hands dirty again, but with some expert help this time.