Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton

Buy a "perfectly restored" bike. Check it over - no 4th gear. Drain the gearbox - combination: ATF/Water/Grease and stinks. OK, outer cover a bear to get off - glued on with some sort of black substance. Easy enough to see that the shift quadrant is off one tooth. Try everything you can think of to get the inner cover off - no way. On the bench you could use a rubber hammer on the back, but not in the frame. Finally made the contraption in the picture. The wrench already had a hole at one end. Drilled and tapped for 3/8" UNF and used and old wrench to old the other end down. Used grease to hold a washer in place to protect the end of the main shaft while tightening. Had to tighten the bolt a LOT to get the cover to break free.

The inner cover was glued on with some sort of grey crap. All told, 3.5 hours to get it apart and get the gasket surfaces cleaned! Then a half hour to get all the ATF/Water/Grease cleaned up. Still have to put it back together.


Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton
 
marshg246 said:
Buy a "perfectly restored" bike. Check it over - no 4th gear. Drain the gearbox - combination: ATF/Water/Grease and stinks. OK, outer cover a bear to get off - glued on with some sort of black substance. Easy enough to see that the shift quadrant is off one tooth. Try everything you can think of to get the inner cover off - no way. On the bench you could use a rubber hammer on the back, but not in the frame. Finally made the contraption in the picture. The wrench already had a hole at one end. Drilled and tapped for 3/8" UNF and used and old wrench to old the other end down. Used grease to hold a washer in place to protect the end of the main shaft while tightening. Had to tighten the bolt a LOT to get the cover to break free.

The inner cover was glued on with some sort of grey crap. All told, 3.5 hours to get it apart and get the gasket surfaces cleaned! Then a half hour to get all the ATF/Water/Grease cleaned up. Still have to put it back together.


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Is the grey crap thinned out JB weld, maybe? Either way good job getting it apart. Good idea.
 
Larry S said:
Is the grey crap thinned out JB weld, maybe? Either way good job getting it apart. Good idea.
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Don't know. It's light grey and unaffected by alcohol and acetone. Whatever it is it's hard setting and only very careful work with a single edge razor would get it off. Really annoying - high quality gaskets don't require sealer IMHO.
 
Another crank pinion puller I made around 15 years ago when I couldn't find the first one!!!!!
 

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This puller is to pull the outer roller bearing out of the gearbox
 

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Okay - here's one to prove that I too belong to the blue-and-white apron brigade.
Working on a riding friend's Mk3 estart and needed a method to set the torque on the anti-kickback ball clutch.
No method to turn that odd spline to 55ftlb (if I remember correctly) so made this special tool. 1/2" key steel to fit torque wrench.
We did use some brass shim stock to protect the spline.
Worked a treat.
Cheers
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Edit: you may not see it but the key steel is welded on both sides so that the torque can be measured in both directions. Visegrips only hold well in one direction.
 
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Here are 2 tools I made for specific jobs. And a mikuni slide adjuster screw which makes it a lot easier to turn the idle up and down and easily locate the screw. I looked for years for this and finally made them myself.

Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton
Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton
Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton
Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton
Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton
Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton
Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton
The T-handle was made for the lucas headlight screw, it's much easier to control than the usual foot-long screwdriver. It's also good for the Oddie fittings on the Atlas side cover and turning rocker spindles among other things.. The cut down phillips is for the carb float bowl screws, either Mikuni or Amal. I turn down the O.D. in the lathe and dimple the end. The dimple allows for much better control and makes a frustrating job quite a bit easier. I can make more of them for a very reasonable price.
Idle adjust screw...$20
Cut down 3/8 flat screwdriver....$12
Phillips stubby screwdriver....$10
 
marshg246 said:
Buy a "perfectly restored" bike. Check it over - no 4th gear. Drain the gearbox - combination: ATF/Water/Grease and stinks. OK, outer cover a bear to get off - glued on with some sort of black substance. Easy enough to see that the shift quadrant is off one tooth. Try everything you can think of to get the inner cover off - no way. On the bench you could use a rubber hammer on the back, but not in the frame. Finally made the contraption in the picture. The wrench already had a hole at one end. Drilled and tapped for 3/8" UNF and used and old wrench to old the other end down. Used grease to hold a washer in place to protect the end of the main shaft while tightening. Had to tighten the bolt a LOT to get the cover to break free.

The inner cover was glued on with some sort of grey crap. All told, 3.5 hours to get it apart and get the gasket surfaces cleaned! Then a half hour to get all the ATF/Water/Grease cleaned up. Still have to put it back together.


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Sounds like a mint condition perfectly restored Norton.

Yamabond is grey.

Obviously, you are a student of the Rub Goldberg motorcycle technical institute. I've done similar stuff. Necessity is the mother of invention.
 
marshg246 said:
We have a winner!

It seems like most of the bikes I build/fix have been dropped on one or both sides and most rear brake levers have had all kinds of damage. Norton rider footrests are difficult to hold while trying to straighten and they are chromed so cannot be hammered back into shape. My mobile worktables with a bike sitting on them are very stable. You mount the footrest on the appropriate side without the rubber installed, put the old fork tube over the foot peg and apply force in the direction(s) needed - quite easy to accomplish. For the rear brake lever (pre-MKIII), you mount the drive-side footrest with brake lever installed and use padded tools as required to grip it and straighten - often in two directions. Since the footrests are mount link on a bike, it is easy to see when properly straightened.

The aluminum plate you see is replicated on the other side of the wood. The aluminum is not for strength, it's to keep the footrest or bolts from digging into the wood. I could just as well of mounted this on a normal work bench as long as it was stable enough to withstand the pressure applied when straightening.
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Have you tried to straighten the Mk3 right side footrest/brake cylinder arm? My go to technique is to bolt the bent arm to a large steel plate (3 feet square and 5/8" thick), pack under the arm with a steel wedge (to prevent the arm bending elsewhere) Then bolt a much thicker footpeg in place of the normal one (1" dia steel foot peg) By using a large copper hammer on the footpeg the arm can easily be straightened without damaging the chrome. Done a few like this. I tried the tube on the normal footpeg approach, just bent the footpeg, hence the thicker one. Lefthand side straightened the same way.
Bent footrests are a pet hate of mine, even a small bend looks horrible. One Mk3 that came my way had both sides bent in different directions, left side bent up and forwards, right side bent down and back, That looked really awful
 
dobba99 said:
Have you tried to straighten the Mk3 right side footrest/brake cylinder arm? My go to technique is to bolt the bent arm to a large steel plate (3 feet square and 5/8" thick), pack under the arm with a steel wedge (to prevent the arm bending elsewhere) Then bolt a much thicker footpeg in place of the normal one (1" dia steel foot peg) By using a large copper hammer on the footpeg the arm can easily be straightened without damaging the chrome. Done a few like this. I tried the tube on the normal footpeg approach, just bent the footpeg, hence the thicker one. Lefthand side straightened the same way.
Bent footrests are a pet hate of mine, even a small bend looks horrible. One Mk3 that came my way had both sides bent in different directions, left side bent up and forwards, right side bent down and back, That looked really awful
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Should the left side rest sit perpendicular to chaincase? Mine is angled up some, unsure if thast is normal.

Also, where can I get footrest rubbers that don't wear out within a few months riding?
 
Hortons Norton said:
But it's fun to make your own tools, I have done it also. I really don't think he spent much time making it. I enjoy seeing what people have come up with. That's what the the thread is about.
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Yep, agree...when I make a bicycle or motorcycle specialty tool it rarely has anything to do with saving money or time/trouble, it is a lot of fun and very satisfying when the new tool does the job (that is not always the case ;-)
 
Im with you on the footrest problem. The new ones that I get wear quickly. My old boots had some narly lugs on the bottoms. I got new boots last year that are smoother. Maybe that will help.
 
Saber said:
Im with you on the footrest problem. The new ones that I get wear quickly. My old boots had some narly lugs on the bottoms. I got new boots last year that are smoother. Maybe that will help.
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My boots are either smooth like a hard soled running shoe or deep treaded, no lugs to be seen.

Seems the foot rubber makers have mixed up the rubber compounding recipe with the isolastic/nicker-lastic rubber compound recipe (those are rock like these days).
 
This not a tool I have made, only because I lack the lathe to make it on. But I wish someone would make it, and I would be happy to pay a fair price for it.

This tool would allow me (others) to time the engine working from the timing side only .... no need to open the primary cover to fix a timing wheel on the drive side rotor.

The 9/16 bore will slip over the crankshaft end (that enters the timing side oil seal), a nylon set screw in the 6-32 tapped hole will allow the tool to be secured from rotating without digging a divot, and a timing disc can be secured to the tool with a 1/4-20 screw.

All dimensions in inch fractions.

Tools You Have Made to Maintain your Norton


Slick
 
^^ Useful tool .......

just a thought ..... If you wanted to use a steel screw all you'd need do would be to have a copper slug sitting between a metal screw and the crankshaft, this way you'd have plenty of tightness and no chance of any divots - ever !

^^ We used to fix gears cams and genevas etc to shafts this way in industry a few decades back, no divots and the ability to dismantle.
 
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