66 Atlas speedo cable routing

does it go under the bike like a Commando or straight up from the drive box and just under the seat and tank?
Speedo on the right or left?

Originally, my speedo cable was routed under the right swingarm, lower frame tube, and then up to the headlight bucket (62 - 63 - dunno 64+?).

I choose to route it up and under tank because because it looked cleaner, and remained cleaner from road grime that way.

When I added a tach, I was almost forced to place the speedo on the right, and tach on the left, otherwise I would have had a surplus length of tach cable hanging off the timing cover and out in space.

Slick

seattle##gs said:

does it go under the bike like a Commando or straight up from the drive box and just under the seat and tank?
Speedo on the right or left?

Click to expand...

I have 1966 and it goes up and along top rail. My speedo is on the right.

Orriginal dommies have a cut out for the speedo cable in the tin cover in front of the crankcase. So it would appear that along the lower frame was the Norton factory route. AMC had little respect for anything Norton had done before so after 63 your guess is as good as mine.

Hi,

When I ran a bitsa Dommie café racer in the '80's the speedo cable was routed under the engine but when I restored my '64 650ss I re-routed the speedo cable over the engine as this appeared to be the correct routing shown on period photos.

As regards left or right location of clocks, although my paired chronos are not considered to be standard fitment (I believe some did leave the factory in this configuration), I have placed my speedo on the left and the rev-counter on the right as per Commandos and other contemporary bikes. My understanding is that pre-65 clocks were a speedo recessed into the headlamp and the rev-counter as an optional extra fitted to the fork nut by the dealer and could be fitted on either side. My config causes no problems with cable lengths.

Having just flicked through a few books, period photos reflect my orientation of paired clocks but photos of restored ones show many with the reverse configuration. So as always 'do what suits you' on the understanding that what ever you do will probably be wrong!

Cheers
Graham

Notice speedo cable behind the shock, heading towards top of the frame.

Thanks Beach. It looks like tach is on right.

A small clarification to my first post. Both my 62 and 63 Atlases had the chrono speedo clock in the headlight bucket, and both had cables factory routed under the frame. Both came from factory "sans tach". I suppose the change coincided with the year Norton decided to include dual clocks fork nut mounted.

Slick

My idea is to route the tach cable along the right side of the Atlas, either up or down. Currently it is running along the left top rail under the tank and it always gets in the way of the petcock...which brings the next question...the original petcock is very awkward to use..as mine has "perished" what is a good replacement? Everyone of them seems awkward.

My original fuel tap is pictured in this link:

https://www.accessnorton.com/NortonCommando/flow-measurements-on-ewarts-fuel-tap.21225/

It is pull on, twist 90 deg for reserve. It is easy to operate, and provides main and reserve from one bung in the tank. These Ewarts taps are nearly impossible to find. If you can locate one and it needs rebuilding, see this link:

https://www.accessnorton.com/NortonCommando/replacing-fuel-tap-corks.21293/#post-317816

Slick