Oil in frame Mk III Norton

hi

L.A.B. said:

The Triumph service interval for dropping the plate and cleaning the strainer (and plate) is 1500 miles.
There's no service requirement to clean the inside of what is basically a section of the parallel-sided vertical spine tube as crud drops onto the plate or gauze although it's large enough to get a rag inside to wipe the lowest few inches of the tube. There is also a drain plug inside the filter.




As far as the OIF Triumphs are concerned, the lowest point in the system is the plate. The oil feed spigot can be seen in the previous picture.

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All,
I remember as an 18 year old picking up my partner’s brand new gold and brown breadbox 1978 T140V from Tom Burns Motorcycles in Elizabeth St Sydney and riding it home through appalling traffic. It worried me subjecting a new engine to so much crawling and idling in summer heat. She traded a beautiful 500/4 complete with 4 into 1 pipes and bikini fairing that was all the rage then.
on getting it home I decided to drop the oil. I was shocked to find a considerable quantity of sand in the gauze strainer.
A finger inserted into the down tube reservoir revealed grit everywhere. Of course I washed it out and refilled with clean oil. Being a teenager I had no power or authority and my complaints were ignored by their service department.
I presume the sand was casting sand from improperly cleaned out cases at manufacture. It was very white and even in grain size. What an unforgivable lack of quality control!
But there is good news, the bike survives to this day. It has not done huge mileage but has been very reliable and the cases have never been split. It has early Boyer ignition and a late mate of mine replaced the valves with some superior ones and gave it a head job. It starts first kick and is really quite a quick bike (for an old Bonnie).
Oh by the way, the girlfriend stuck around too.
regards
Alan

I'll add to this, a buddy sent me these photos of this OIF Norton that was developed at Kosman Specialties in San Francisco in the 70s. I showed the project to my dad and he says he does not recall it there so there is a chance it is probably post 1972. I'll reach out for a few more specific OIF photos. Also, those brake lines are quite terrifying to look at now.

maaseyracer said:

I'll add to this

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That's a lot of hose! Two coolers and a huge filter might be a clue as to an oil-in-Commando frame's effectiveness. Then again, it looks like a racer, so there might be more asked of it than a road bike. Still, it's a lot of connections to worry about on the OP's bike.

Very interesting bike, but as a movie line says (paraphrasing) "you're making your point the hard way".

All that plumbing, all those potential leak connections, and multiple sediment puddle locations, don't sound like any sort of improvement over the stock setup.

As has already been mentioned, "freeing up space" isn't an issue if that space is left empty. My guess is that the overall weight of the oiling system is certainly not lighter than the stock setup.

Back to my first comment, the bike IS interesting. I wonder how well it performs?

Wow. That's a blast from the past. Ceriani forks, Airheart calipers and rear master cylinder, triangular Dunlop race tires, early Kosman (?) brake disks, modified Dunstall (maybe) rear sets, funky oil coolers. What's not to like, at least for that period?

Ken

hybridracer said:

Nice bike but to keep it that way you must support properly all the flexible hoses, including the brake pipes, (before you ride it) and the wire braid will not be good to the paint.​

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Also you can get a hold of some 20 mm rubber and cut two holes frame size and hose size with about a 10mm gap between, and shape it to suit and cable tie etc and I think the original name for the rubberized steel/aluminum P clips are called Adel clips , aviation style . Cheers .

lcrken said:

Wow. That's a blast from the past. Ceriani forks, Airheart calipers and rear master cylinder, triangular Dunlop race tires, early Kosman (?) brake disks, modified Dunstall (maybe) rear sets, funky oil coolers. What's not to like, at least for that period?

Ken

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and an interesting variation on head steady with rubber bobbins on the head!

lcrken said:

Wow. That's a blast from the past. Ceriani forks, Airheart calipers and rear master cylinder, triangular Dunlop race tires, early Kosman (?) brake disks, modified Dunstall (maybe) rear sets, funky oil coolers. What's not to like, at least for that period?

Ken

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Those are indeed Kosman brakes. The whole chassis and OIF conversion was supposedly done there as well.

I converted my 920 BEARs race bike in NZ in the 80's to oil in frame. It held almost exactly 2 litres. No oil cooler was necessary because of the surface area of the heat-sink effect of the "oil tank"

johnfitzw said:

I converted my 920 BEARs race bike in NZ in the 80's to oil in frame. It held almost exactly 2 litres. No oil cooler was necessary because of the surface area of the heay sink effect of the "oil tank"

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And that's how you get the long intake tract you need.

jseng1 said:

And that's how you get the long intake tract you need.

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Yep..