It's a wart, I tell you!

Bike is one of our Commandos, the "Doug Hele Balancer" bike with 3rd conrod and piston running at 90° to the others, rigidly mounted in a Commando frame.

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:shock:

swooshdave said:

Bike is one of our Commandos, the "Doug Hele Balancer" bike with 3rd conrod and piston running at 90° to the others, rigidly mounted in a Commando frame.

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:shock:

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Very nice. Something I always wanted to do. In fact I had one with a lever type balancer in progress when I had my shop fire. Someday I would like to get back to it. Jim

I wonder if it runs as smoothly as Jim's lightweight setup?

Pix of the motor apart?

swooshdave said:

I wonder if it runs as smoothly as Jim's lightweight setup?

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If it is done correctly it would be extremely smooth as perfect primary balance can be obtained. Just like a Guzzi or a Ducati. Jim

Wow. It would be interesting (&fun) to see what a ridgedly mounted Commando motor and frame would feel like at speed in the twisties? Hell Hobart I bet you could not only avoid the Deer but I'de bet you could out manouver them and chase em down through the woods, crossing streams and rock outcrops etc. Now once you were way out in there teritory I think a pissed off Ram or Mountain goat would take you out!! So be careful. Glenn.

There are a couple modern engines using a similar balancer. Ken Augustine said someplace that you can't counteract a reciprocating inbalance with a rotary one.

BMW's
http://www.ashonbikes.com/node/888


Ducati's. (Mama Mia, one just sold for 110k. Could a bought one for 30k a few years ago. My broker's a dolt.)

Very interesting. Perfect primary balance, just like a Ducati L-twin.

Good pic there Swoosh. Never seen one before, only heard of em! Would be nice to see the internals of that to see the how the mod was fixed to the crank. With the extraordinary craftmanship on crankshafts seen on this forum, its a wonder someone hasnt got it firing aswell?

Here the internals:



Is it bored/stroked to 900cc? This since the name of the picture of Swooshdave is "TouringNC900".

...times a'wastin' Mr Comnoz, out to that shed and power up
that CNC mill!

Onder said:

...times a'wastin' Mr Comnoz, out to that shed and power up
that CNC mill!

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Yes, I already have the crank and the rod. Now I want to cast up a set of cases with the necessary modification to fit a lever instead of doing a weld up. Of course if I had a new set of Maney cases I might be tempted to do a weld up on them. Jim

Figure out how to get some valve train down there and you could have a mean triple. Would that actually work, in theory?

Seems like you would end up with a lot of oil being churned up and since it would gravity feed toward the "head" how do you keep it from pooling there causing hydrolic lock? I can't tell what the rectangular area on the piston is, but is that designed to keep this from happening?

Russ

The square hole goes all the way through the piston. No hydraulic lock. Jim

Engine isn't stroked, in fact it is "short stroke" in that the crank was originally fitted to a T140 engine using its stroke. Then the crank was fitted to the Commando engine by ex- Factory Trident Works Racer mechanic Jack Shemans under project engineer Norman Hyde in NVT days. Jack knew nothing about the Commando engine so some inferior features- like breather via primary chaincase instead of 850 breather which he brazed shut- were used. To compensate the too-short stroke high compression pistons were installed, still resulting in a low compression ratio and loss of some horses.

Vibration is still there, but very different and much less than on any Dominator. My favourite ex-son-in-law-to-be Michi, Commando owner himself, first noticed the front wheel wasn't going to and fro on tickover.

Commando chassis is superb with everything rigidly mounted. Feels better in fact than my featherbed Manx (do I hear booohs from the featherbed fans?).

Engine does not really want to go beyond an indicated 5200rpm, as I believe moving masses are getting too much. Never tried to rev it beyond that point willfully as one notices it does not really want to (as on a Manx or Commando race engine when at maximum revs), and there is only this one, so testing to destruction is not on.

Doug Hele designed it in the way Ducati on the Supermono and BMW now on the F800 do it, i.e. conrod with slave conrod, but to test the principle the experimental Dept. went the easy way with a third conrod and steel piston.

The piston can't compress, because it runs on aluminium "rails" in that front cylinder with plenty of air around it.

Found the engine in the Parts Stores in Shenstone in the early eighties, finally got the bike together- the marriage between chassis and engine done by Richard Negus- about three years ago.

The picture of the engine in bits is copyright Jim Reynolds I believe. I have my own black and white pictures from before 1985 but need to find them to scan them. A very nice motorcycle, good enough for the local roads but a bit on the lame side as one can't really rev it. Last rode the bike today.

Ahem- and the real reason I put the bike on the Andover Norton homepage was our new luggage system fitted to it, not the wart!

Joe Seifert

I'm impressed no end at the wonders of thought and creativity with these ole 360's twins. I've some of my own on to eliminate crank as rpm limiter that has no relation to anything gone before in combustion piston engines. But it'd still have oscillation un-balance.

Has it occurred to anyone to make it a 2 stroke twingle?

Glen
The main thing that seems to drive most deviations form isolastic wonder is they can't out zig zag deer on loose surfaces or goats on firm slopes let alone keep up with about any non-isolatic cycle in powered leaned sweepers. After seeing how sloppy flopping around spring girder fork hard tail Indians can out corner rigid 125's I'm sticking to tri-linked rubber baby buggy Commando to show the world a thing or 5 about fastest direction changes w/o let off and video the freaked out deer PeeI attacks with guns and cannon blazing. I'm allergic to vibration except for pure quantum indeterminacy of digital traction harmonics. Peel+me have injured more deer than have hurt us, sliced hide through barbed wire fence strands, whip lashed necks and busted butts hitting trees and fence strands or each other like Willey Coyote vs the Road Runner.
I know what its like to have a Cdo completely disappear to pilot sensation leaving just a grin and eyeballs shoved into the future. I like the low throbs watching fenders then mufflers then mirrors shake in cycles like a dog annoyed by ticks.

G'day Steve , you definately have a way with words like no other!

Some day will have Trixie and Peel recovered with video always running to show I'm just telling it like it is and maybe being a bit conservative. I seriously thought Commandos were just quaint smoother if lessor performing and handling bikes than vintage Harleys. Still do now I've more seasoned except for one exception I find way ahead of the pack be it squids or fleeing animals. But art is art and innovation is innovation that many men must do to create instead of popping out babies to nurse.

ZFD said:

Ahem- and the real reason I put the bike on the Andover Norton homepage was our new luggage system fitted to it, not the wart!

Joe Seifert

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Need to take a picture of the luggage, not the whole bike. Especially one like that. Kinda like giving a naked supermodel a purse and asking us what color the purse is. :mrgreen: