Search results

Canyoncarver, also, I put those Norton rebuild videos onto my hard drive to watch during quarantine. Thanks again!

Well, I have been off the board for a bit getting ready for my move down south. Alas, my final ride in this area showed there's an issue in the LH cylinder after all. Oil fouling on the plug and seeming to be some seepage from the head/barrel junction, so once I have the bike back, I will need...

Curse of the dirtbag! (Ask me how I know...)

So, the throttle problem was twofold... throttle housing allowing twistgrip past the zero position under hard use, leading to the cable popping out the bottom and perversely hanging up enough inner wire to put it at like 1/3 open. Ordered new throttle. Did this to keep the cable in place till...

Spin up the road was magnificent. Felt like a totally different machine between the engine performance, braking, and posture/controls changes. There's a stubborn throttle cable issue I have to sort before it's prime time, though. I've lubed them and it works just fine with the bike...

^Running snortier than ever. New plugs were necessary, among other things. It loves the new timing advance and the carbs finally seem balanced. Put on new handlebars and levers. Bar shape is better for me. Old levers had lots of flex due to the design and it made the pull even harder than...

How was I not watching this? That rear end setup has a lot in common with my Enfield; Dzus fasteners, same taillight and tag used as a mudguard even.

Yep! The clutch cables, especially, have a great rep. Love them on the Norton.

While reinstalling everything, I found the drive spade on the cable bent, presumably from the poor position of the original (to me) timing cover and the way the cable ran over the pipe. Replaced, bent the spare back to straight, re-greased the cable staying away from the instrument head, and...

(Pre-full-cleaning gears) Well, I can't find any flaws with the gears or the tach body, so I cleaned thoroughly and reassembled, this time with vastly less grease in a less-stiff variety, and repoured epoxy over the covers to hold it together. Hopefully there's no more gear ejection. If...

Beautiful!! But now I'll be singing "My my my my my my my....myyyy Bultacos" all day.

Forgot about those before I put the fuel tank back on, lol. Next time it's off, maybe. Got the carbs and spacers cleaned, dressed, and reassembled easily. Discovered a poorly-feeding master carb; when the fixing bolt is too tight, it won't flow. Found a throttle cable issue that was in fact...

Dunstall finned rocker covers, or no?

Hopefully, tomorrow morning all the crud can come off the flanges and spacers and everything dressed and put back together with some fresh Hylomar to seal up tight.

I think my next move is once again de-mounting carbs, de-mounting head spacers, cleaning/sanding all to confirm flatness, cleaning the head, and re-mounting with fresh Hylomar to get a good seal everywhere.

Also, compression hot is 151 RH and 144 LH. Seems close enough/high enough that it shouldn't be any valve issues or major imbalances in the cylinders, right? Guess I wasn't done fucking with it.

Yep! But...seems to be running pretty well this morning now. Air filters are off to check the slides, but the filters haven't seemed to make much of a difference. In any case, I'm getting each cyl to idle independently at just over 1k and together they're working fine and slides are perfectly...

OK, compression on both cylinders (cold) is ~100PSI, LH is like 98 and RH is like 102. It's a Craftsman testing set, not something super-expensive; not sure how accurate in the absolute, but my intent is really just to see if there's any difference across the sides. I'll proceed with other...

I'm still having trouble getting those cylinders to play well together. This is my first twin; my Enfield's a single. But when the carbs are in perfect sync, the LH cyl doesn't want to idle like the RH. Stumbles and feels like it's idling too low on that side; you can hear it sort of come in...

I rebuilt the tach drive again...used very little grease this time, thinking that maybe I had overstuffed previous attempts and caused lots of pressure at high RPM. Also, I suspected maybe the drive spade was butted hard against the camshaft nut when mounted...so I shimmed it slightly...