First big spanner adventure

My Norton has sadly seized up. Stalled at traffic lights, kickstart rock solid. Dismantled the primary drive with spanner in one hand and manual in the other. Found that the chaincase oil seal disc had been chewed up and a bit of it had got between the engine sprocket and chain, jamming the chain up against a stator post.





Interesting that in one of the threads on this forum, someone mentioned that there probably wasn't enough clearance to use pop rivets to fix the two halves of the disc together, and amongst the debris were the remnants of some aluminium pop rivets.

Taking the opportunity to clean up the clutch plates, check primary chain alignment, etc. Bit of a learning curve but no major hiccups so far.

I fitted a belt drive and took those sheet metal plates out, never had water in there.

Yes perfect excuse to go dry belt and forgetabout leaks and chain wear. I've gotten my belt primary under water lots of times with it forced into front faced vent w/o an issue as just drained out back low vent then dried up again. Grit is only thing to bother a belt so a bit of faom filter helps as you've got a good vent around the main shaft now. Lucked out with low power/rpm let go.

Too late! Already got a man to rivet the new plates in position and the chaincase should be going back on this evening. Then, while it's in bits anyway, the head and barrel will be coming off to try to sort out a cylinder base oil leak.

ed.lazda said:

Too late! Already got a man to rivet the new plates in position and the chaincase should be going back on this evening. Then, while it's in bits anyway, the head and barrel will be coming off to try to sort out a cylinder base oil leak.

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I'd say you had a lucky escape there!

Lots of engine leaks can be cured by using a reed valve breather - many threads on the subject here; the Mike's XS offering seems popular. check the search function

Riveting with a couple of hammers is not very difficult but it takes a little practice. The tendency is to make the pin too long and then to bash the thing trying to get it to pull tight. I'd be willing to bet that with a little practice on a couple of pieces of sheet metal that a small nail could be clipped off and peened with good success. A short length of solid copper wire from some romex makes a great rivet in applications where there is not a lot of stress and it is super easy to rivet with. Anneal it just like you would a copper washer and it is even easier.

Just something to think about I guess, that or just find somebody with a spot welder.

Russ