Need a tool?

Robert_Norton said:

Visually checked the Blue Point 1/4 Whitworth wrenches I spoke of earlier in this thread, and from the factory the sidewall at the end of the thinnest wrench of the bunch, is about the thickness of U.S. dime..

Click to expand...

I appreciate the tip. If I purchase the Blue-Point 1/4W socket, it will need to be cut down to fit under the nut, then it will require welding to attach a suitable handle; a lot of effort, and I have yet to meet a socket that would yield to a hacksaw or not kill a lot of carbide on a lathe; grinding is slow, but it works. After all that it might not fit.

I have attached a lot of Norton heads and never experienced this issue; I have a Proto 1/4W combination spanner that has never failed to do this job (up until now, of course). I'm going for the sure bet (machine the barrel), more involved, but a fix that will allow virtually any spanner to comfortably manipulate the fastener, as the original design had intended.

I'm sure that the Norton gods are trying to help me learn something, but it sure feels like running on fly paper...

A bit shade tree as hobot would say but you could dremel off a small area around where the ring spanner needs to go. Id rather
just grind down the spanner. If it breaks, so what. Try again. I used a Snap on short ring type crow foot and had to grind it for
height.

RoadScholar said:

... If I purchase the Blue-Point 1/4W socket, ...

Click to expand...

We may be having a miscommunication, as the Blue Point wrenches I was recommending you consider are box end wrenches, not a socket.

No modification should be necessary, unless your barrel has some sort of anomaly. Actually, there are several manufacturers of 1/4 Whitworth wrenches that should fit with no modifications; Gedore would be another brand to look at. I think they actually make a wrench that they call a "thin wall" in their marketing literature. Here's an example of a Gedore wrench:


https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gedore-3-1...874821&hash=item4889fe799e:g:~g4AAOSwZd1VWvw~




.

I had the same problem, as I keep Italian bikes I have an extensive collection of metric spanners, found a twelve point 13 mm was perfect. Ok maybe it was 12mm, I can't remember, but is was around there.