Honestly, in my opinion, the worst thing you can do for breaking in a fresh engine, is starting it and letting sit there and idle. Rings won't break in correctly that way. Should start the bike and immediately ride it to bed the rings in properly. That's how I've always done all engines and never have a problem with rings bedding in.
We did a test ride on 6-21-24 and a couple of other rides while looking for oil drips. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0dwtOhSBY-4.html 06-21-24 - 71 Norton - Green FB - Test Ride Success
You have far more experience than me Frank but wouldn’t straddling the bike and getting the kickstart lever almost parallel to the ground and then look upward, say a silent prayer to the Norton gods and then put your foot on the lever and then come down on it with all the weight and strength that can be mustered be tried? I saw a guy wrap a 10 pound weight around his ankle before the starting ritual.
I love when customer come with crazy ideas like this. I'm curious, do you charge customer for leaving bikes at your shop for extended periods of time? I have been wrestling with this question myself as I don't want the responsibility of storing their bikes for them until they finally decide to come pick them up.
Hi Rob, thanks for watching and thanks for commenting every now and then. Actually, no, I don't charge storage. Usually the client has a pretty good reason for not being able to pick up their bike, so if I have room available I just tell them leave it. But in the fall, winter, spring, when I get overwhelmed with folks wanting to get their bikes into the shop I will "press" a little bit anyone whose bike has been here too long. I'm retired, and run a home based, informal shop, and so I'm pretty easy going with picking up bikes and stuff. If I were a real business, or if leftover bikes were impacting my space, I just might be a bit more strict. Ride On! F.
What do you do for the the Swing Arm bushings on the Commando? These are only "sealed" with rubber o-rings on the pre-MK3 bikes and seem to always weep the oil pumped inside via the "grease" fitting. I use very thick oil....basically STP Oil Treatment additive but it does still weep. Cannot use grease here as the bushings are "Oillite" made to absorb oil....using grease will clog that material and prevent lubrication from spindle contact location.
I think, if I were to be working on a swing arm I would look into the Baxter Cycles www.baxtercycle.com/product/bcr-01-swing-arm-conversion-kit/ or British Cycle Repair at: www.britishcyclerepair.com/rocker-spindle-oil-seal-upgrade
Maybe a quick check that the rocker spindles are oriented with the oil ports facing the correct way in the head (flats on spindle should face away from center of head for both intake and exhaust spindles). This can be checked just be removing the cover plates and poking a thing bit of wire with e tiny 90 hook on the end, feeling for where the oil feed hole is on the inside of spindle....should be facing away from center of head. Apparently this might seem counterintuitive having the spindle oil drilling opposite side from the rocker oil drilling to tappet head....but this is by design to require oil to be forced with pressure around rocker/spindle surface before getting into rocker to tappet head drilling....keeps pressure in the system better.
Yeah, I agree that is a good way to check for proper orientation of the rocker flat. But . . . I (we) had just put the valves and rockers in a few days prior (see the video) and I was pretty sure the flats were forward. Soooo, we pressurized the rockers and got good oil flow out of both ends of the rockers and decided it was OK. The general consensus is that my machinist's client expected to see a lot more oil when he did the same test. Thank you for watching and writing. F.
You need hardly any oil in a commando cylinder head In fact the dunstall racers had an inline 20 thou restrictor in the head oil feed line Hope this helps
Thanks for your video. Why did you only go halfway with such a job? That mild steel chunk from a bit of angle iron will start to wear too. Why did you not ask the welder to use hard facing stelite rods leaving a surface that will stand up to the thumping. He would probably have to MMA or TIG weld to use stelite rather than using a soft MIG wire weld, but the difference would be enormous. Hard facing rods are used to re-surface digger buckets which get a lot of wear. It leaves a surface that you would have to labour at with an angle grinder for quite a while but would be much more durable in the long term. I would guess that the fixed bracket on that bike will now continue to wear round as you did not fix that too; you fixed the stand arm but not the frame part. When the frame bracket wears round, the same problem will happen. I am going to reweld mine and build up both faces with hard facing rods, then I will soft-weld a small buffer cup holding a tap washer as a rubber buffer on the outer periphery of the stand and a trapping plate on the frame bracket to take the thump when the stand is flicked down. A lot of the force is made by the spring throwing the two parts together - it really needs a buffer to take this thump. You have a buffer for the retracted position -so why not in the down position??? Most people also ignore the wear in the centre bolt/spacer. I will replace both mine to get a more precise movement and drill a hole in the diameter of the stand and spacer and put in a grease nipple, put two ptfe washers either side between the stand and the ears of the bracket to keep out the crap. It is a classic bike and worthy of a bit of extra finer attention. Additionally, the spring on both the side stand and centre stand wear out very quickly and eventually wear through the frame pin and the eye on the side stand too- if the spring hasn't broken first!. They need a tubular pivot swivel or some form of load spreader at both ends. Norton realised that with the Commander rotary in the case of centre stand - that wear would take place quickly on a bare spring. They made a swivel bracket so the rotation is not on the spring eye but on a wider bracket. Japanese bikes often do that too.
Hi, I LOVE your plan! It is a great idea for a privately owned bike and I applaud your ability to do the work you describe. (I am completely serious.) But, it would be a radical case of overkill on a client bike. Remember, it took 50 years of riding, and probably a hard fall over to get the side stand screwed up to the point it needed the adapter, and the repair made will give the bike another 50 years as is. But thank you for watching and taking the time to write. Ride On! F.
I will mention the magical tube is more likely to aid in ventilation of the upper most part of the OIF cavity, so condensate will not build up in it. note the venturi set up were all the tubes converge.
The only OIF bikes that relocated the filler were BSA singles.All the Triumph models such as the TSX and Harris bikes retained the original filler site.
Are the air intake tubes part numbers 83-5448 & 83-5449 missing from inside the airbox of this particular bike? Not sure how critical they are but they seem pretty hard to get hold of with most suppliers on back order.
Parts Book 1973 doesn't show the tubes. Parts book 1976, '77 does show them. I don't have Parts books '74, 75. But my '74 Norton came with the same style downward facing intake tubes in the air cleaner and I was told they were "sound suppressing" devices that pointed the "intake noise" down to the ground in order to comply with U.S. sound reducing laws. I expect the tubes in the Triumphs were for the same reason. We always removed the tubes (Triumph and Nortons) as we thought they restricted the intake air flow. They probably didn't, at least not enough to make a noticeable difference, but we were really cool back then and believed everything each other said. Thanks for watching and for writing. F.
Oooops. Clarification. The bikes mufflers are not pea-shooters, but they are not the stockers for this (1972) model. They are stock style as used in earlier Triumph models. Great sound tho!
The oil return pipe up by the headstock is a return & breather for the oil in the frame tank,an overfilled oil tank will return excess oil dwn the tube into your primary case,so the oil in frame tank will be over full hence the dipstick should be used..Ian..UK .👍
In 1976 Triumph deleted the alternator hatch and moved the timing pin up to 12.00 position. They also introduced gearshift shaft hole by that time but I can’t find an example of a left shift case with alternator hatch.
My guess is the bike is wet sumping. When on the side stand the oil pooling in the crankcase is transferring to the primary. There should not be 18 oz of oil in the primary. Check the oil pump to make sure there is no debris preventing the balls from seating.
I'll be really curious to see how high the primary oil gets on it's own. Seems weird that it would get high enough to leak out of that timing cover, but we'll find out.
No. Just stock Triumph mufflers. Search thru the published videos and look for some of the 1971 Green Goddess vids. It has pea shooters. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--gpBzpNuPp0.html 07-12-24 - Oil Leak Checks ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--gpBzpNuPp0.html 07-12-24 - Oil Leak Checks ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oLbG-lpMv1A.html 07-07-24 - 71 Norton - Green FB - Oil Leak Check ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LUzUO9frfJo.html 07-05-24 - 71 Norton - Green FB - Sump Vent Extension
Hi Frank, I did some research and found the source of my confusion. Apparently lots of people are calling the original "sausage on a stick" mufflers pea shooters. When you see real pea shooters (green goddess) you can see the name fits. Looks like pea shooters are a Norton muffler. Emgo makes them to fit Triumphs.
Wow! I never noticed but the Haynes manual is speaking in British measurements, which means that 5/8ths of a pint should be 12 ounces rather than the 10 ounces I computed. I think. But the British ounce is smaller than the U.S. ounce. So, I just dunno. (Now a days, numbers make my brain hurt.) Anyway, the oil that came out of the primary on this '72 Triumph measured 18 U.S. ounces. It seems like a lot. Thanks for watching and thanks for writing. Now go out and treat yourself to a 16 oz steak dinner. U.S. or British.
Maybe if the engine was wet sumping and left standing for a period of time the excess oil seeps through those 3 holes overfilling the primary case. When the engine is started the excess oil in crankcase is scavenged out of the crankcase by the pump. I have had an oil leak from the alternator cover but usually that is easy enough to see. The primary does have a level plug at the 4 o’clock position, btw. You can see it at 23:00 bottom left.
Hmmm. I went thru the parts books from 1966 to 1976. 1966, 67 - No Level Plug. 1968 Thru 1973 - Level Plug. <==== Includes this 1972 1974 - No Level Plug. 1975 - No Level Plug? (Don't have Parts Book for 1975) 1976 - No Level Plug. So, I THINK the 1972 bikes had a Level Plug just because they were still using the leftover (with Level Plug style) primary covers. BSA's and Nortons wet sump because they have rotary oil pumps. BSA's have a ball valve that "usually" stops the oil from leaking down. 1975 Nortons also have a ball valve. Older Nortons can be modified (AMR) to install a ball valve. Triumphs have a twin pump style oil pump with ball valves built in so they don't wet sump. (In my experience). It gets complicated, doesn't it! Thank you for watching and writing. Ride Safe! F.
@@fjdelmonte my T120s & T140s have all wet-sumped despite the twin tube oil pumps and despite tapping (reseating) the ball bearings down. I’ve had 5 of them so I know from smokey, oily experience. I’ve torn down and rebuilt several Triumph twins over 40 years and that still e…… it’s a mystery. Maybe debris gets under the return side ball. My present T140 is a ‘73 build (during the lock-in) according to the engine number registered and sold ‘74 and it has no plug - I’ve just been out to check! I have an external spin-on oil filter on the return side before the oil in-frame tube so hopefully the oil will be cleaner in the reservoir and into the pump.
I am amazed that my 1965 TR6 was a hardtail at magneto has less problems than much newer bikes with lower miles that are much prettier to look at but have a devil in the details
Which problem does it not have? A difficult to find oil leak, or the high oil level in the primary case? I'm still puzzled by the 18 ounces of oil in the primary. Can't figure out why that was a good design idea to someone.
Surprised to see what looks like the original rotor and stator on that bike. I had to replace the original rotor on my '72 several years ago when the magnetism became weak and no longer charged the battery.
It could be original. I don't know. If I have a bike that doesn't charge very well I test the rotor by hanging it from a big box end wrench. If it hangs well and can't be shaken off easily I figure it is still good. That's not very scientific but it's one way to do a quick check. I have seen rotors that would barely support their own weight. Changed them out right away. Thanks for watching.
I have this system on my t100. We've always been told in the manuals that the primary chain should just 'lick' the oil level. I just take the oil level plug out occasionally to keep the level correct. Great channel Frank.
When safety mats become the catwalk 😍 Showcasing a cool and timeless design there Frank 😎 Reminds me of a time when I asked a jeweller friend of mine to fashion a pair of BSA earrings from silver for my GF at the time...they were equally exquisite. Sadly he was killed shortly after whilst riding his beloved FXE.
After the bike was started and idled for a while then left overnight the oil leak appeared on the floor more to the rear of the primary case. In the last vid the underneath search for the leak was not shown on camera.
I will continue the search. Next test will be after Kevin returns and does an extended test ride. Then we will let it sit on the sidestand and see what develops. At this point I THINK the big leaks (dinner plate size) the owner photographed were from the Primary Case Timing Access Cover due to the 18 ounces of oil in the primary case resting on the cover. Standby. Time will tell.
I missed one of the previous videos. Is there a seal/ bush set up behind the clutch basket? I had an old 6T pre unit and stopping oil leaks was a daily chore.
Both the Primary case seal and tranny mainshaft seals were replaced when we changed out the clutch assy and I can't find any evidence of oil on the backside of the primary case nor on the front of the tranny behind the sprocket. I will continue the search. Next test will be after Kevin returns and does an extended test ride. Then we will let it sit on the sidestand and see what develops. At this point I THINK the big leaks (dinner plate size) the owner photographed were from the Primary Case Timing Access Cover due to the 18 ounces of oil in the primary case resting on the cover. Standby. Time will tell.
I'm actually surprised the oil gets that high in the primary.. maybe thats why they changed that primary cover to have the smaller inspection hole that sits up higher.
Gear oil has a very specific smell, so it's not too hard to identify. I hate the smell or gear oil. I like using that Penngrade green gear oil, so it's easy to ID from a drip. Looks like someone went nuts filling that primary. Maybe they got the engine oil capacity and the primary capacity mixed up. You'd have to put more than a quart in there to flow out the timing inspection cover like that. That clutch had to be sticking badly. I think I mentioned this in a previous comment and maybe it's common knowledge but as a newbie I didn't I realize when doing an oil change you're not supposed to put the full 350cc capacity into the primary when dealing with later bikes that have three holes to share engine and primary oil. The manual says to put about 120cc's in to "prime" it, and then it'll level out eventually on it's own. In all the Triumph related videos I watched, I haven't heard anyone mention that. The capacity for the primary is listed as 350cc's but putting that much oil in from the start made my clutch plates stick really bad. I emptied about 230cc's from the primary and it was all good. It never stuck again, even as it eventually found it's correct level which I'm assuming is close to 350ccs.
As a professional, it must be satisfying when your work remedies a customer bike oil leak. As a rider who tinkers to keep his/her bikes running, fixing a leak is a massive relief! Lol.
I use that same oil on my 64 Triumph TR6 but the spec sheet on their website says "not for wet clutches" which make me think it's not good for later oil in frame Triumphs that share engine and primary oil. I've never tried it on my OIF, so I don't know. Why are Nortons harder to start? Higher compression pistons, or just the way they are?
I really don't know of the dynamics of the harder kick required on the Nortons. It could just be the bigger bore, it could be more compression (but I don't think so). It could be the gearing between the kicker and the engine sprocket, It could be the length of the kicker itself. A lotta "could be's." I have never tried to figure it out. Maybe some of the other followers have an idea. Guys?
As for the oil, well, I used it for years in all the different bikes with no (known) ill effects. But now, with the feedback here from followers I now only use it as engine oil in bikes that don't share the engine and primary oil. Thanks.
One of my favorite things to do is come out into the garage with my black light after fixing an oil leak. The black light shows all...and when it shows nothing, it's a victory. It feels great when you actually fix a leak. I had a push rod tube seal that was leaking like crazy, along with the base gasket on my T140. I put a new top end gasket kit on the bike and it's been dry as bone ever since.
