Dommie primary case and Commando engine

Hi All,

It's my first post on this site so let's start with a short introduction:
I'm 62, living in France in the Alps and hit again by the Norton fever 3 years ago. I got my 1960 Dominator via Ebay from a nice guy in the UK, and I now plan to give her more hp because of the wonderful but steepy roads in the neighbourhood (and because of my wife's unexpected attraction for motorcycle rides!).
A 600 Dominator is a bit short of power for 2 passengers on mountainous roads.

I'm in the process of putting together all I need to have a 1972 750 Commado with some Jim Schmidt parts (pistons, conrods, tappets) replacing the 600cc.
By the way, it's a pleasure to deal with Jim : thanks to the time difference between France and the USA, you ask him a question and you get his asnwer overnight.

What I'm trying to sort out now is the primary case: I'll re-use the belt drive I have on the Dommie, so no need for it to be oil-proof.
I would prefer re-using the Dommie case because of the 60s look and mainly tbecause it would allow to re-use the Dominator footrests (which spindle goes through the inner primary case). I don't want to use rear-sets.

Have you heard of Commando engine in slimline Featherbed chassis with Dominator primary cases?

Any comment and suggestion welcome.

Merci beaucoup.

Laurent

Hi laurent, apart making a special adapter as told you by PM, you can also fit the the stator carrier of the Atlas on your cdo case, as far as your engine is still dismantled !normally your Atlas (or any alternator dominator inner steel primary case should fit directly to your cdo drive side case, so just need to drill and tap (helicoiled) that stator carrier , some spacers should be needed to respect the distances..........my two cents!

marinatlas said:

Hi laurent, apart making a special adapter as told you by PM, you can also fit the the stator carrier of the Atlas on your cdo case, as far as your engine is still dismantled !normally your Atlas (or any alternator dominator inner steel primary case should fit directly to your cdo drive side case, so just need to drill and tap (helicoiled) that stator carrier , some spacers should be needed to respect the distances..........my two cents!

Click to expand...

Erm, maybe I got you wrong there but IMHO the tin primary/carrier combo is sufficiently different from the cast alu primary of a 1972 bike to give a little head scratching. The Atlas drive side has two shoulders whereas the Commando has only one and AFAIR the locating ID of the stator carrier is different from the one of the cast primary. Fiddling with adapters is a bit difficult as we're talking about a few mm here and there. It is not a straightforward swap IMHO.

Plus a 1972 crankcase might already have this rectangular area on the timing side casing bottom - see Dyno Dave's excellent website- this fouls the lower frame on a Featherbed when using the original engine mounting plates AFAIK - I just traded a 1971 crankcase against a 1972 crankcase with a friend because of this.

A Commando engine in a Featherbed frame is far from being difficult to install but it is not a bolt-in replacement.


Tim

there is an excellent account of dropping a commando engine/tranny into a slimline on the internet...google featherlastic and i believe it comes up.