Vintage British Motorcycles Repair/Restore

[@MykleCykl]

Thank you for acknowledging the “heat the fitting then push the tubing into the heated fitting ” method. That tip was shared with me by a much wiser and experienced mechanic than me. Thank you for continuing to share your tips and tricks of British motorcycle maintenance and repair. You have an extensive and impressive cadre of methods! I’m very thankful for your efforts with respect to Brit bike maintenance. Happy Thanksgiving!

[@TornadoCAN99]

Sorry, but did I catch that correctly, that you place the rocker shaft notches facing towards center of the head? That is not what the shop manual states, the flat notches of each shaft should face outwards towards their valves.

[@fjdelmonte]

Wow! You are correct. I will release the tappet adjusters and partially extract the rocker shafts and rotate them. And the fun . . . just never stops. I will do a video of the process.

[@TornadoCAN99]

@fjdelmonte lots of folks on the AccessNorton forum habe made this same mistake. It can lead to poor lubrication of the tappet to valve stem surfaces as oil cannot make it from inside the shaft along the rocker arm tunnel to the tappet head.

[@daveco1270]

Good catch. And I appreciate Frank doing a follow up video to talk about what he did wrong and show how he remedied the situation.

[@tonyjesshope6861]

When I rebuilt my triumph 500cc tiger I alwsys used to call the valve retaining clips as "collets"

[@kevinhoffman6592]

Always liked them old Norton's had an old Matchless power by same engine had a few after buying a garage full for 300 dollars good times but i miss the 58 Triumph the most not as fast maybe but more fun n ladies loved it

[@stephenbaron5681]

When you drop the head down, holding the push rods with your fingers works well. Usually three out of the four rods will find their way into the rocker cups and then just using some needle nose pliers you can pop the last one in.

[@sparty94]

looked like a pretty big crack on the head (16:00), i might have missed it but i didn't hear you say why you put it back together like that.

[@billcobb9408]

It helps to settle the keepers

[@BiffBallbag]

I know the copper gasket will take up some of the tolerance between itself and the head, but are all those marks on the sealing surface of the head normal?

[@fjdelmonte]

Yeah, pretty much. I actually asked the machinist to plane off a thou or so to ensure flatness but I guess he forgot and I wanted to get the bike put together so . . . .

[@BiffBallbag]

Huh, on an air cooled bike I guess it should be fine. I don't have any experience with old British bikes, but had a set of solid copper gaskets on a sporty years back that got reused at least half a dozen times as we kept doing more and more head and cam work to it. I also noticed the rockers didn't contact the valve stems square, is that normal too?

[@simonbirt6121]

Interesting channel. Do you quench the copper casket because you are in a hurry to cool it after your have annealed it?

[@stephenbaron5681]

The annealing process is to heat to cherry red and quench in cold water. That freezes the molecules in a disoriented position which results in a pliable state.

[@deanadams3099]

When Mr Honda left Johnson Motors he was laughing so hard in the van he almost pissed his pants. He knew he was going to bury the British motorcycle industry and their caveman engineering.

[@nickbarber2080]

...and I thought my BSA A10 was tricky....

[@stephenbaron5681]

You may not think so but people would like to see at least one of four difficult operations (installing valves completely) you cut away and say it is done. You may think it is a better video that way, but it eliminates a significant portion of the institutional value.