Clutch rod seal

What timing - just getting to this now. Am I mistaken in thinking that this is optional? Is a small dot of 243 smart insurance here? Thanks!
 
What timing - just getting to this now. Am I mistaken in thinking that this is optional? Is a small dot of 243 smart insurance here? Thanks!
The guy that invented/made the original clutch rod seal recommends blue lock tight or equal. He still sell them BTW. As you may know it helps prevent tranny fluid from contaminating your clutch plates.
 
IMHO, blue is good in many places and I wish red had not been invented! Try getting the bearings out of cases when the prior gorilla thought coating well-fitting bearings with red before dropping them in heated cases was a good idea! Or try getting the cam nut off when slathered with red.

Since there are 2-3 threads at most, I use a dot of blue. The direction the mainshaft is turning will tend to tighten the seal, but I feel better with a little blue since there is so little thread engagement.
 
This is @ludwig 's eloquent solution to that problem - made from a 6mm valve stem and o-ring.
It obviously would need the clutch pushrod to be shortened. (It is one of the those things on our Nortons that is metric - 6mm not 1/4")
He explained, I recall, that the elongated o-ring groove was to allow the short rod to slide through the o-ring rather than force the o-ring back and forth through the inside of the gearbox inner shaft.
Cheers - and again kudos to Ludwig.
Ludwig's clutch pushrod seal 2.jpgLudwig's clutch pushrod seal 1.jpg
 
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This is @ludwig 's eloquent solution to that problem - made from a 6mm valve stem and o-ring.
It obviously would need the clutch pushrod to be shortened. (It is one of the those things on our Nortons that is metric - 6mm not 1/4")
robs ss:
not 6 mm . Valve stems are 8 mm.
The clutch rod is 6 mm ( or 1/4" ?) and is a sloppy fit.
The hole in the mainshaft is irregular, but varies between 6.5 and 6.9 mm.
In fact , you don't even need the mod for the O-ring ( or a bearing ball) , if you can find an old 6.8 mm drill bit.
6.8 is a common size (in a metric world) because it is the pilot drill to tap M8 thread.
Lap it in with valve grinding paste in the mainshaft , so that it is a precise sliding fit , about 25 mm deep.
Then cut the drill shaft to 25 mm and shorten the pushrod accordingly. It will practically stop all oil migration.
 
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Why is that better than Loctite 243?
Have you had much experience with it?
Just wondering what the real rationale for changing is.
Cheers
Me too. An engine and gearbox I recently finished appeared to have red on all the bolts, studs and nuts but they came loose with normal tools. Much harder than blue but most with no heat and definetlly not red-level heat. I had no idea what it was at the time, but I'm guessing it was this now.

Here are a couple of quotes of what I wrote-up during the job:

"Next, I started to remove the head. Every bolt and nut were either way over tightened or Locktite'd. Don't know which yet – by the time I got them cracked loose, I had hurt both arms, so I decided to finish that later and moved on the timing cover."

"The screw for the camplate spindle was very stuck. After lots of heat, I finally got it loose. Again, the red-looking Locktite was used and again I'm sure it was not red as I didn't get it hot enough to release red."

I guess the question is, is it needed?
 
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