Norton Dominator 99 problems

Fuses go in the battery lead. If you have no electric starter, put the main fuse in the battery's earth return lead.

A fuse should be of a rating that will only blow when a short circuit occurs, not when you switch on all the lights. 15A or 20A as a main fuse should be ok.

Triton Thrasher said:

Fuses go in the battery lead. If you have no electric starter, put the main fuse in the battery's earth return lead.

A fuse should be of a rating that will only blow when a short circuit occurs, not when you switch on all the lights. 15A or 20A as a main fuse should be ok.

Click to expand...

Hello,

There is no electric start, only lights. Im going with negative earth polarity, so battery negative lead is going to frame(ground). So you say that the main fuse for example of 15A should be fitted between battery negative terminal and frame(ground)?

Is it enough to fit only one fuse to the circuit and it will protect the whole light circuit if shorts occurs?

You do not as a rule fit fuses to the earth side of the electrical side of the circuit .

you could fit one main fuse, then fit lower fuses to protect different parts of the circuit, i.e. lights.

Bernhard said:

You do not as a rule fit fuses to the earth side of the electrical side of the circuit.

Click to expand...

There's no reason why the main fuse can't be fitted on the 'earth'/'return' side, as many British (and other) bikes had.
It does, in fact, make more 'electrical sense' to put the fuse on the earth side of the battery as the system is then protected right from the feed' terminal and not just from wherever the fuse happens to be.

(Example from a typical late 60's Triumph wiring diagram)

Bernhard said:

You do not as a rule fit fuses to the earth side of the electrical side of the circuit .

you could fit one main fuse, then fit lower fuses to protect different parts of the circuit, i.e. lights.

Click to expand...

Hello,

Atleast one fuse will be fitted to the circuit, i think its going to be between battery + terminal and magkey. Either 15A or 20A.

The electric schematic that i have posted earlier has fuse for stop light and horn, and fuse for main and tail light, but i dont know if its worthy to put them there. Of course if shorts appear at some point its easier to look for the source thats causing fuse to blow when you have more fuses.

If i would fit 2 more fuses as explained above, what size should they be?

If i have 2pcs 10A fuses fitted intrusion(if its called that) the circuit needs 20A current to blow either one? When fuses are fitted in series it will not duplicate the capacity.

So would the right fuse size be 5A? So when circuit has over 10A current i will blow the fuse? Is this correct?
are those two fuses now fitted in series or are they intrusion?

Or are they two completely differend ones

Re;"If I would fit 2 more fuses as explained above, what size should they be?"

In general slightly higher than the max of draw on that particular part of the circuit, but not as big as the main fuse that runs from the battery . It is easier to find a fault if, say, the lighting fuse only blew, you usually wouldn’t have to look at any other part of the circuit

Bernhard said:

Re;"If I would fit 2 more fuses as explained above, what size should they be?"

In general slightly higher than the max of draw on that particular part of the circuit, but not as big as the main fuse that runs from the battery . It is easier to find a fault if, say, the lighting fuse only blew, you usually wouldn’t have to look at any other part of the circuit

Click to expand...

Yes, thats why its easier, if only had one fuse then the problem could be anywhere in the circuit.

KuusistoNorton said:

Hello,

Atleast one fuse will be fitted to the circuit, i think its going to be between battery + terminal and magkey. Either 15A or 20A.

The electric schematic that i have posted earlier has fuse for stop light and horn, and fuse for main and tail light, but i dont know if its worthy to put them there. Of course if shorts appear at some point its easier to look for the source thats causing fuse to blow when you have more fuses.

If i would fit 2 more fuses as explained above, what size should they be?

If i have 2pcs 10A fuses fitted intrusion(if its called that) the circuit needs 20A current to blow either one? When fuses are fitted in series it will not duplicate the capacity.

So would the right fuse size be 5A? So when circuit has over 10A current i will blow the fuse? Is this correct? are those two fuses now fitted in series or are they intrusion?

Or are they two completely differend ones

Click to expand...

Refer to the following thread wherein I explain how to size fuses.

relays-for-dummies-t20354-15.html?hilit=Dummies#p264558

Your latest circuit diagram has flaws, if only because of poor symbols.

Your On-Off switch is shown as a DPST, as such it will not do the magneto cutoff you desire. There is what appears to be part of a pushbutton switch labelled as magneto cutoff. As drawn, this is simply an open circuit and the magneto cannot be killed at all.

There may be other flaws, I cannot read the diagram- too small.

Slick

Bernhard said:

You do not as a rule fit fuses to the earth side of the electrical side of the circuit .

Click to expand...

Yes I do, when a bike has no electric start. It means you won't burn the wiring by shorting the battery live terminal to the frame with a spanner.

Explain your "rule."

Bernhard said:

Re;"If I would fit 2 more fuses as explained above, what size should they be?"

In general slightly higher than the max of draw on that particular part of the circuit, but not as big as the main fuse that runs from the battery . It is easier to find a fault if, say, the lighting fuse only blew, you usually wouldn’t have to look at any other part of the circuit

Click to expand...

Why only "slightly higher than the max draw?"

What fault is going to make the lights draw slightly more than usual current and why do you want the fuse to then blow and plunge you into pitch darkness while approaching a corner at 80 mph?

Hello,

All wires are rewired and all critical connections are soldered straightly since i dont like to use abikos. Old wiring harness had few of them and over half of them came off by small pull and twist. I do use abikos in my harness, but i remove the plastic color thing and solder it to the wire so its solid piece. And only used the ring type abikos because few fittings use bolts/nuts connecting wire.

It takes little bit more time to get the harness ready when soldering those wires but i think its worth it and of course the connections are protected with heat shrink after soldering. Only negative thing i see with this is that if i need to remove something i need to cut the wires.

I ended up using only one fuse, main fuse 20A. The instructions that came with the reg/rec says that recommended battery would be above 5Ahr + 17A main fuse.

I have 6Ahr battery and going with 20A main fuse, hope i can hit the road tomorrow!

And Slick, the pic of the schematic is old one, i sended the message with my phone and i havent got the time to draw it clean yet. The switch originally drawed doesnt exist anymore since i've bought the Magneto keyswitch so i also ditched the relay setup. I'll see if i can send tomorrow revised wiring diagram with magkey and negative polarity anyway(the old diagram has positive polarity)

Triton Thrasher said:

Bernhard said:

Re;"If I would fit 2 more fuses as explained above, what size should they be?"

In general slightly higher than the max of draw on that particular part of the circuit, but not as big as the main fuse that runs from the battery . It is easier to find a fault if, say, the lighting fuse only blew, you usually wouldn’t have to look at any other part of the circuit

Click to expand...

Why only "slightly higher than the max draw?"

What fault is going to make the lights draw slightly more than usual current and why do you want the fuse to then blow and plunge you into pitch darkness while approaching a corner at 80 mph?

Click to expand...

Drawback/danger of using that method is that there is a danger of the higher fuse not blowing and the wire or connector burning out with the fuse still intact – I have had this happen to me, though not on a motorcycle.

Hello,

Got all the wirings done and its charging battery good.

Went for a ride and everything was working good, no problems so i am pretty happy with it.

One fuse is fitted between battery + and magkey switch, its 20A fuse. I was only wondering how can i know if the fuse has blown? Since even without the fuse the lights are lit while bike is running because reg/rec is still producing current without battery? Of course you'll notice it when the bike is shut and power is on and there is no lights anymore.

Of course they are not lit that bright anymore without battery i guess, and then maybe you can tell if the fuse has blown with the ammeter? I would assume that the ammeter needle is sailing alot if the fuse is blown and battery is no longer attached to the circuit(with battery the ammeter shows +8A all the time when lights are on)

Whatever problem blew your fuse may have other symptoms.

If the battery is isolated, such as by a blown fuse, but everything else is working, your lights will go very dim or out, at idling rpm.

Triton Thrasher said:

Whatever problem blew your fuse may have other symptoms.

If the battery is isolated, such as by a blown fuse, but everything else is working, your lights will go very dim or out, at idling rpm.

Click to expand...

Yes the dim lights at low rpm would probably be the symptoms with blown fuse, i think you'll be able to see it with the ammeter also.

With the old power box(batteryless system) it was showing about 4amps idling, now with battery its straight +8amps. If the fuse is blown i dont think there would be +8amps anymore so you would see it from there also.

I just would no like to get into a situation that i would drive my bike with blown fuse without noticing it soon enough. Im afraid that driving with blown fuse long enough will brake the regulator/rectifier.

20A fuse was intact after the ride, so atleast se circuit is free of shorts i guess.

Went for a ride today again, man i love this bike.

Now when the weather is little colder than summer i can see that the oil is not that hot either, the oil pressure stays much higher at colder weather than summer. Maybe thinner oil would be better for colder weather (using now 20w-50 mineral oil)

Also i have noticed that the clutch adjustment/setup affects gear engagement? I mean the clutch plate centre screw adjustment.

I read the manual clutch adjustment guide (if i remember right it was something like that with slack clutch cable you "tighten" centre screw until it hits the clutch rod and then back up half turn) but i did not like it, even with the cable adjusted to full tight there was huge slack movement to the lever. So i just adjusted it with my feeling it felt good.

Clutch is good, its working as it should i think(its engaging and disengaging normally, not slipping) but the slight problem is that the gears are not engaging the way i would like to, but if they never do then its okay. I'll try to explain few cases.

When i shift from neutral to 1st gear, that gear wont engage when clutch lever is pulled all the way "in". I need to let the lever go slightly (its about 3/4 pulled in) and then 1st gear engages.

Down shifts feels to be always hard, when im shifting for example from 3rd to 2nd gear i need to wait speed to drop little bit and pull clutch in and give throttle little bit at the same time when i shift 2nd gear. And its almost impossible to get 1st engaged if you have moving forward. Many times when im coming to intersection i will need to stop with 2nd gear in and and then change 1st gear. If i try to engage 1st gear at low speed it just rattles and wont engage. I dont like to force gears in because they engage with loud unpleasant bang.

Also some times when im giving little harder acceleration than normally, 3rd gear might jump out of gear sometimes. After all i have noticed that there is certain range of rpm with differend gears that engages easiest.

Is this normal that would be caused by the wear of the gearbox or is my clutch adjustments bad? I would say that the clutch is engaged when the lever is between 1/2 - 3/4 pulled in. Sometimes i can hear small "rattle" or chattering when clutch is pulled in, i diagnosed that the noise is coming because of the plates are moving back and forth hitting the basket.

What would you guys say about the centre screw adjustment? Or could it make any difference how "tight" those 3 springs are? I would remember that i adjusted them same values as the manual says (the "nuts" are flush with the pressure plate caps). I remember that the gear engagements have been better before i changed clutch rubbers, but i would remember that the springs where tighter as they are now.

This bike has been great pleasure to ride, also its nice to see people turning their heads early to see what kind of bike is coming (when riding in town) and those smiles on their faces. Theres not so many Nortons here so its pretty rare view..

Adjust the springs to get the pressure plate lifting evenly.

Squeeze the clutch lever and work the kickstart, while watching the rotating pressure plate. You should be able to see any uneven-ness.

Putting it into first from neutral, sometimes the dogs meet head on and it won't go into gear. Letting the clutch out a little while maintaining pressure on the gear pedal lets the bits turn a little, so it clicks into gear.

Triton Thrasher said:

Adjust the springs to get the pressure plate lifting evenly.

Squeeze the clutch lever and work the kickstart, while watching the rotating pressure plate. You should be able to see any uneven-ness.

Putting it into first from neutral, sometimes the dogs meet head on and it won't go into gear. Letting the clutch out a little while maintaining pressure on the gear pedal lets the bits turn a little, so it clicks into gear.

Click to expand...

Hello, thats exactly what i need to do to get it from neutral to 1st gear (adding pressure to the gear pedal and releasing clutch lever), but i can live with it.

I need to check the uneven-ness of the pressure plate while rotating it. Is there any values given for the uneven-ness? I think i could also use dial indicator to see it accurately(or am i trying to be to accurate here).
Of course i think any uneven-ness you can see with your eye is too much of it? If there is alot of it, could it cause those issues in gear changing?

When i assembled the clutch i did try to check it was good, but did not check it while it was rotating all the time. I need to ask someone to give me help there.(The way i did it was pulling lever in and releasing it while eyeballing it, then rotated little bit and did the same thing to see if it was lifting same mount every position, so the clutch was always stationary when i was pulling clutch in and out, not that accurate method.) So i need to check it the way you mentioned.

I arrange a wire pointer to nearly touch the outside edge of the pressure plate when the clutch lever is squeezed.

Then when you rotate the pressure plate with the kickstart, you should see any wobble.

Hello,

Does anyone have any experience with the Bob Newbys belt drives? They look pretty damn good imo, got interested to that one, maybe gonna order it upcoming winter, just wanted to ask if someone has something to say about it.