Phillip Island Classic, January 2014

wilkey113 said:

ML,
Can you tell me any more info about that Domiracer in your photos?
Thanks
Jeff

Click to expand...

Sorry Jeff, I did not find the owner so no details on it. I think it had a low boy frame, Manx front end and other stuff and of course a TTI box.
Mick

Mick,
No problem, just figured it was worth asking. I'm most interested in the rocker spindle oil feed. Looks to have a very trick banjo fitting straight in to the ends of the spindles themselves.
Lots of other neat little features on that bike, so it's sure nice to see those photos. I definitely appreciate them.
Jeff

Wilkey113, how can you say that? Did you look at the rocker spindle feeds!?!, the trick alloy manifolds and those finned rocker covers and that TTI gear box bah!!! None of that is period.

Sorry, had to get that jab in there.

In all seriousness, I watched postings of a few of the race results live streaming thanks to acotrel's earlier post (tahnks) and they did post preliminaries and qualifying the Saturday and Sunday race days but pulled them. There was one 500 Dommi that was cleaning up and I wonder if this was the one shown above. It certainly looks the part. Really a good looker

I can certainly appreciate your jab, and I definitely deserve it, with all my soap box speech about originality. But, I never said anything about those oil feeds being of the period. Just that I was interested in them. My interest stems from the fact that the original Domiracer had a similar oil feed to the rocker spindles. The Domiracer arrangement wasn't a manifold like the ones on this bike, but they were fed directly into each rocker spindle with eccentric spindle and banjo arrangement.
So I was simply curious because you don't see that sort of fitting very often. Looks like somebody put some work into figuring the whole thing out.

Eccentric spindle. That's interesting. Was the eccentric for valve lash adjustment?

I am not that familiar with the early parallel twins but I assumed that all early parrallel twin Nortons (other than the Electra) received oil spindle feed at the top of the head that was distributed internally. Was the spindle feed unique to the Domiracer?

I'm not quite sure what the eccentric adjustment was meant to achieve.
Here's some photos of what I'm referring to. In the black and white photo of the Dominator motor, in the Manx chassis, you can see the oil line feeding directly into the rocker spindle ends. The other 2 photos, show the side of the head, and the spindles themselves. It looks as if the spindle threaded into the head, and then sort of a jam nut and banjo fitting.
I don't know much about it, other than what I can deduce from the photos.

http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... d3f994.jpg

http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... d0e812.jpg

http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... 6ef166.jpg

Dances with Shrapnel said:

Eccentric spindle. That's interesting. Was the eccentric for valve lash adjustment?

I am not that familiar with the early parallel twins but I assumed that all early parrallel twin Nortons (other than the Electra) received oil spindle feed at the top of the head that was distributed internally. Was the spindle feed unique to the Domiracer?

Click to expand...

You surmise correctly (I think). Oil feed to the rocker arms on the big twins was to the top of the heads until the Commando, which moved it to the sides. AFIK only the works Domiracer, originally a 500 and later taken to 650, had the eccentric spindles for rocker arm adjustment and oil feed directly to the ends of the spindles. The later version also had needle rollers for the cam and direct oil feed to the end of the camshaft. The Domiracer was built as a prototype for a new production racer, but that never happened.

I recall seeing more recent conversions to eccentric spindles on at least two privately owned twins race bikes, but don't recall if they also included direct oil feed to the spindle ends. I think they were both Canadian bikes, but can't recall the details.

Ken

Hi

The Dommi racer I had came with different rocker spindles, plain or scrolled depending on pressure fed or not. I remember the ends were plugged & a smaller hole drilled (mathematical reduction of the flow) Difficult bike to get going well, unless you had lots of spares The fellow that won the Vintage club championship a good few times revved it to 9 I seem to remember. A 6 speed box would have helped.
I definitely am not a good enough rider to get anywhere near the best out of a 500 twin. The bigger engines are just so much nicer to ride.
Read Johnm account of how to get one going.

Chris

OK, here's some genuine period info on the Doug Hele factory prepared Domiracer that Tom Phillis took to 3rd place in the '61 TT.
(and allegedly, this low boy is intact and hiding in Western Australia)

Interesting in the third photo to see the adjustable tie back from the steering head to the frame tube. (not just the engine head). This is a common mod on modern replicas. It does mean the tank has to be modified underneath..

The head steady affects the handling on a featherbed frame.

Well it is obviious that you all had fun... Saturday night, I got to chat with some of the guys and see a bunch of pictures and vidoes... awesome..! I had no idea there were like 38 bikes shipped from the States.. what an effort..!!

Entries are open for this year's Classic TT / Manx Grand Prix... FYI...

Ron

purloined from some benevolant individual HERE : https://plus.google.com/photos/10872558 ... banner=pwa