79x100

Don't forget to replace the bolt below the chaincase fixing as well !

By co-incidence, there is one of the special extended nuts / studs on eBay at the moment :-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Norton-16H-Engine-Mounting-Bolt-/181294237783?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts_13&hash=item2a35fa8857

Ron, might Lex have suggested to me that the swd Big 4 clutch had some alternative parts from the WD16H ? I don't have enough B4 parts books to check though.

I wouldn't expect a worn thrust washer to cause contact on the inner case. the tendency is for the clutch to move outwards so I'd agree that you're probably OK there. It takes very little error to cause these cases to rub. In fact, I think it's possible to have it rubbing on both sides of the inner case and inside the outer case all at the same time !

It can be something as minor as the rear chainguard pulling the primary case out of line...or it can be caused by bent gearbox plates.....

There are variations in the inner cases, in terms of depressions for a sealing ring and indeed the outer lip (some have a welded-on lip and others are a single pressing). Both types are for 'open-diamond' frames and I can find no changes of part number so it's difficult to pin down which are earliest.

It's worth having a look at the splines inside the clutch centre. There is a shoulder which provides the positive location and if they've been run loose then that can become pretty chewed up and allow incorrect positioning.

I don't think it's a new problem as pretty well all used Norton chaincases show witness marks. Most are worn right through. There is no harm in skimming the clutch backplate a little.

You certainly have the early type clutch drum with friction inserts and a plain backplate. That screw with the square broached adjuster looks like the Manx type. However, even they can sit a little high, although that can be corrected my making deeper spring cups and reducing the length of the shoulder on the screw and indeed by making a low-domed slotted screw, which is what I now have.

I hope that you approve of the use of the correct tool kit....

Yes, you've got a later one, as used up to and including the 50bhp Atlas models. So have I, but don't tell Ron or I'll never hear the end of it. This is a better clutch but does have a slightly thicker backplate which makes the clearance on the inner chaincase even more critical. You may need to gently 'ease' the backplate. Certainly, you don't want the studs and retaining nuts standing any prouder than they have to.

There is nothing to stop you modifying the outer screws as well to give a bit of extra clearance. I have matched springs and a slightly different screw set-up from Ken McIntosh and they did need a slight mod to fit under the 16H cover.

The Norton gearbox is a nice simple one to work on, but you will need a manual just to set up the change mechanism correctly. There are few shims to get wrong and as long as the gears aren't 'too bad', they'll cope with your 12bhp !

Bearings are as per much more recent Norton / AMC boxes and widely available. The only source that I know for the bronze thrust washer is Andy Molnar.

http://www.manx.co.uk/pdf/MPL-Norton_Singles.pdf

If it's worn so that the grooves are no longer visible then it requires replacement. The biggest problem with these boxes internally is that the hardened retainer for the sleeve gear rollers is sometimes cracked (I'm not clear how this happens) and it was never listed as a separate spare which means finding a decent secondhand part.

You have to be in Normandy whtever it takes !

There isn't much room inside the Norton chaincase and it's a fine line between catching the outer cover or the inner case. A common cause of witness marks on the inside of the outer cover is wear to the bronze mainshaft thrust washer. There is no positive location of the mainshaft in the 'Doll's Head' gearbox and if the thrust washer is below limits, it will allow the shaft to move into the chaincase (with clutch attached). It's worth pushing and pulling on the end of the mainshaft to see if there is excessive end-float.

The original internals included five plain and five friction plates but these had cork inserts rather than the bonded plates that you have. The original stack height is pretty much in line with the drum. I'd have thought that you'd be sitting low with two plates removed and perhaps not be able to obtain spring tension.

It's pretty usual to put a ball bearing between pushrod and mushoom on Norton clutches and this gives a degree of self-alignment and a generally easier operation. I can't see the point of putting a roller in ! If you fit a ball, you can compensate by altering the position of the operating arm on the worm which is part of the normal set-up procedure anyway.

The original steel band was designed to keep oil out of the clutch. It was originally a dry clutch and didn't take kindly to the oil bath but this was only a problem with the cork inserts and you don't need it with modern bonded friction plates. The circlip is a puzzle as its only function seems to be to retain the plate pack when dismantling. It serves no function in use and I've never found one still present....

If you've got the time, it might be worth considering a conversion to bonded friction material on the drum as well. Several of the racing specialists offer this service (the clutch being the same as the International competition models).

What would that 'ST' serial number relate to ?

The old Lucas MCR1 motorcycle cvcs were known to be somewhat unreliable and were superseded by the larger MCR2 which looks wrong on a wartime motorcycle so the choice for most of us is a later mechanical unit or a solid state regulator hidden in the original case which is probably the more common choice.

Obviously, electric starting isn't a problem for motorcycles of this era and the battery is only used for ancillaries.

6v AGM batteries are available in various ratings. They're not cheap but they are good.

Ron, Jan is the chap to talk to about 1940 French contract deliveries (and redirections)...The smooth-talking b*st*rd is taking his missus to Paris next month...and I'm not sure if he's told her that he's booked time in the French ECPAD archive ! He's also got a contact with the Velo club so we may find out if there are any FTE series on their books. If all those....362 to 669 were products of Messrs. Veloce Ltd. then it may have been a complete mixture at the moment that they decided Velos were no longer needed for military service.

The rumours about sunken bikes off Dunkirk include the 100 lightweight Nortons...and they weren't delivered until 1942.

Ron, Did you spot a handful of Velos on the July 1946 Sales listing which Wally Dugan posted ?

http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?40706-post-war-sales-catalogues/page8

FTE 669, 668, 443, and 362.

None seem to be current on DVLA. These are a Lancashire series issued Feb 1944 - Feb 1945. By July 1946 they'd been sold off !

Presumably they were transferred from WD to CD or Fire Service etc. for the duration ?

Fascinating Stuff Wally. 'FTE' was a Lancashire civilian series issued Feb. 44 - Feb. 45 - Those Velocettes were presumably passed from WD to another Government department at that time.

The RAF motorcycle numbers are particularly interesting as there is such a lack of surviving information. Do you have any showing 633cc (or 600cc) Norton sidecar outfits with RAF numbers ? ...A shame they don't show chassis numbers though !

Hi Ron,

 

No problem. Of course I could paint it green and put a star on it or blue and put roundels on it !!!:-D

 

Regards,

 

John

You could, John but I've heard that the organisers have stocked up with tar and feathers so personally, I wouldn't risk it....:-)

I've never seen any evidence that Rudge supplied during the 1920s. They took part (unsuccessfully) in the 1936 trials. The War Office seemed to go over from the WW1 Model H Triumphs to the Models P and N on a small scale but generally there was little modernisation. There's nothing to stop you donning Service Dress and riding it home on leave though !

The market for WW1 and WW2 vehicles seems firm but they represent only the first forty years or so of military vehicle production. Almost seventy years has passed since then and a huge variation of vehicle types. I'd hazard a guess that with the exception of a few specialists and ex-servicemen, many of these vehicles will have passed in and out of service without making much impression on the general public or being linked to any particular conflicts.

I think it's inevitable that after the first flood as they're sold off, at which point they're accessible to almost anyone, only comparitively few will seek them out to own and restore in the long term.

I rather fancy a 1938 Norton twin-port with a 'cows-udder' each side....maybe even to Trials specification with the high level pipes. Four tail pipes....Nice ! It's a puzzle to me where those Model 18s came from and why they had 1938 silencers. There is no record of a military delivery of Model 18s during 1938 and I can't imagine a Guards battalion taking on two year old 'impressed' bikes in late 1940. There is also anecdotal evidence to suggest that Nortons dropped those silencers during 1938 as customers kept asking for the earlier type.

I'm not sure where this picture came from but the gun rest looks more like a unit-level modification. It looks to be a Norton (1940 pattern separate Doherty levers and centrally mounted non-illuminated Jaeger speedo). It has the WD spec rubber johnny on the twistgrip so probably a 16H.

Radek is exactly right though. This is the sort of price that you see them for at Beaulieu...although not generally intact adjustable masks (which are only correct for very late on). Some will be civilian types with the Lucas badge on but it can be removed.

The best option is to opt for 1940. Black manilla masks cost me 10p to 20p to make !

Those with the flap are very late war, introduced as the blackout restrictions were gradually eased. It's probably harder to find a matched pair of those.

You've just missed Beaulieu jumble which is probably the best place for this sort of thing..Plenty of shed clearouts and not too many MV buyers.

Odd WD type blackout masks were available there for £10 - £20 but again an exact matched pair in all the details might be harder to put together. Rim fixings can differ but can be modified.

It's difficult to pin down the build dates even using comparisons with known deliveries. The census numbers were issued in batches but manufacturers with a back-log might not use them for eighteen months and others began production before the contracts were signed.

The Tank Museum have a substantial collection of what might be called 'Contract Receipt Cards'. They appear to be duplicates of records made at RAOC Chilwell. They certainly include softskins and Austins but I can't confirm which contracts. It may be worth asking. They're filed by manufacturer and consecutive 'Catalogue Ref. No.' and not by model or type.

79x100...

 

 

 

...although I would have thought that if any problems were ever going to have arisen with the "M"series oils - it would have been 1940-42 in the Desert???

 

IIRC there was an American "MIL" oil grade directly equivalent to HD 30; I wonder if the specification change was after the Americans began arriving in the UK in numbers, together with their vehicles...? To simplify the supply requirements in the field...

 

..but that's very much an aside to the K5 issue.

Hmm...Did Austin blame the Yanks for the oil and the Septics got their own back by re-writing history (that's a new one !)...and put it about that Austin were single-handedly responsible for the logistics failure associated with Market-Garden ? What was the U.S. Department of Dirty Tricks called in those days ?

My point about the oil was that the problem might be more to do with quality than specification. It could be that the earlier less sophisticated oil was consistently supplied above specification but that later deliveries of an oil which should have provided better protection may not have achieved the quality levels for any number of reasons. Austin's refusal to countenance it in the post-war cars might simply be based on their knowledge that the quality was inconsistent and that batches were below spec.

Whatever it was, it is clear that something in the Austin engine was borderline as the problems are not documented with other makes. I suspect that the poor old K5 was being thrashed mercilessly to keep up with Ford V8s and Bedford / GM sixes and the 4x4 version simply couldn't take when fully loaded. It's much harder to overload an ambulance.

I have the impression that there was a real squabble going on between Austins and the War Office (or more probably the Ministry of Supply).

Presumably the MoS were blaming Austin for engine failures and Austin were laying the blame on the oil type used by the War Department. Whether this related to detergency or simply to poor grade base oils is not clear. Certainly the military authorities were testing recycled oils during the 1930s (as well as new processes such as hydrogenating to improve stability). If the quality of the oil was declining, it may well be that the problems would also have arisen with the earlier 'M' series oils.

What does seem clear is that Austin were asked to supply standard civilian specification cars (presumably without a scraper ring) for use by the occupying powers and, following normal practice the oil specified for a civvy vehicle would be the higher end commercial blends from Wakefield Castrol or Essolube etc. Having checked whether this would be the case, they were informed that standard military 30 HD would be used and found this unacceptable. Was the wartime HD oil the equivalent of 'pool' petrol ? Certainly, it did not survive long post-war as by 1949, there was reference to the OMD codings.

Austin probably had no choice regarding the change to OMD in 1943. It was that or nothing. However, it's quite possible that they did test it at the time and found no problems but that there was a lowering of standards or a lack of quality control due to the large number of suppliers and that the problems were caused by this. What does strike me as strange is that they brought up the aspect of previous problems (presumably the K5 saga) instead of simply saying that their 1946 pattern civilian market car engines were not suitable for use with military 30 HD oil. Maybe it was just a bit of tit-for-tat...'You've cost us a fortune in warranty returns. Now you're going to pay extra for your new car engines...'

One of my teenage daughters is already asking if she can have the motorcycles when I stop riding. The trouble is, I suspect that she's expecting a lifetime free maintenance contract.

It is the peripherals that are likely to be discarded but I can think of no way at present that I could cough to what I've paid for some of those musty old booklets and spark plugs in original boxes...let alone the toolkit items.

I believe that Jan ('Rewdco') identified that the alloy WD/C brake plates were not used on civilian production but were developed for the pre-war Experimental lightweight tenders. Unfortunately, they seemed to have been a little on the weak side and there was a DME modification for the rear brake anchor at least.

If Ron can't identify the brake above then it almost certainly doesn't come from a WD contract and probably not from an impressed machine either. All I can say is that it definitely isn't Norton.

Other posters are quite correct that HMRC are now very interested to ensure the correct duty has been paid on imported vehicles

Even had a request from the owner of a Leyland Martian to issue a covering letter to say that it was built in the UK and was not built abroad and imported !!

Where do they think a Martian comes from ? Which planet have they been living on ?

It's the sidecar wheel drive of the WD version that make it an off road vehicle and in the right hands, it can go to places that a Jeep can't but it requires more specialised skills to drive well and of course carrying capacity is less. I had a day out in Lex's chair and we crossed terrain that brought all of the solos and Russian BMW copies to a halt. I was expecting to have to push but I was able to sit there with my feet up emptying the hip flask.

Apart from the side valve engine, the WD 16H was very close to Norton's pre-war trials machines and they entered an army team on them in the Scottish Six-days trial. The pre-war tests were very much off-road biased and based in the sandy ground around Aldershot The choice of the Norton as the main service machine in the late 1930s was probably based on that. The Ariel has a good name as an off-road frame and on fast ground, the Matchless Teledraulic forks would probably give an advantage.

There is quite a difference between 1939 and 1945, not least because of the extra rear-end weight of the pannier racks and pillion equipment. The skill level of the rider also plays a part. The Instructors made it look easy but the recruits needed something stable and not too powerful.

Thanks to all for the comments and top 5/10 listing ...Must admit to a bit of disappointment that the 3sw is near the bottom of the list but its not much lighter than the other bikes and is 350cc ,,,,,

 

 

OK lets change to off road ............Which are the top 5/10 for fieldwork....

 

 

Jenkinov

1) SWD Big 4 Outfit

The work done at Brooklands with the 'Loch Ness' Wellington shows that an aircraft doesn't have to be restored to flying condition to make a worthwhile exhibit.

I can't think of a better memorial to the Defiant crews who went up day after day during the Battle of France and the BoB in an aircraft with no forward-firing armament. Once the Luftwaffe had learned to distinguish it from a Hurricane, it was an extremely vulnerable fighter.

I read it as 600 per month also. Having glanced at the entries for numerous classes of vehicles, I have to say that either the manufacturers were constantly trying to fiddle on the tool kit contents or there was a clerk at the MoS obsessed by them. Most of the detail relates to the additional bits and pieces rather than major structures.

I'm surprised by the lack of chain guards on many of the machines from the 1930s and '40s. I'd had the impression that they were quite keen on tinwear. There must have been lots of oily gaiters.

Just out of interest, whilst looking for the Hercules entry (which I knew I'd seen), I found bicycle contracts for Hudson Ltd., Enfield Cycle Co., Phillips, Sun Cycle, Coventry Eagle, BSA and Raleigh. Interestingly, there was a Raleigh contract for folding bicycles.