Poor parts and worse poor attitude.

Bought and fitted a new set of fork gators back end of 16 , job done. Bought a Dave Taylor head steady about the same time, fitted it and ran the bike. Checked and the top clamp fully tightened was loose phoned the supplier and was told the problem was my frame was metric just take it off and hone it to fit. In the last month or so my gators were starting to look a bit ragged and last week they were disintegrating before my eyes again spoke to the supplier and was told that they send them all over the world and have never had a problem. But after speaking to a raft of owners recently the condition of the parts and the attitude of the company concerned is pretty much par for the course.

On the bright side I'll slap on new fork internals when I fit my new gators and a new head steady to "boot". Purchased from a supplier who does give a shit about those who spend their cash with him. By the way my frame is a 1969, and the reason I bought the fork gators was I didn't see the early type on the AN site.

I have bought a fair bit of gear from RGM and their service is always good but please don't start taking the piss cos your busy and can't give a toss about shoddy parts and poor attitude . I can't find my paperwork but will contact visa ans sent the goods back when all is in order.

I have had the occasional issue with AN but they seem to be of the opinion if the customer is not happy they will refund or exchange and they can look up their records as to when you made the purchase with no song and dance.

Rant over.

Rubber parts that deteriorate before your eyes are the new standard. :evil:

Fork seal dust boots purchased for my vintage '73 Yamaha street bike lasted 2 years before they fell to pieces.
All low cost (to produce) garbage.

Are you about done ranting???
My turn now.
The Dave Taylor frame clamp is like that. YOU have to modify it. Wrong. It should be ready to go out of the box. I had to mill mine too. No big deal though.
As a hobby I build VW engines for racing. There isn't one thing that doesn't need to be modified.
So many parts and things you buy just need to be fixed before it can be used.
The attitude of "We have never had a problem before" is so lame.
Maybe it's true in some cases but when you hear it a bunch of times you just gotta scratch your head.
It could also be that no one reports it and just figures it out and does the modification them selves.

On our Hortons I had great luck with the parts I get. What we do to our bikes are upgrades.
What Madass, Comnoz, CNW and many others have done for us is like a dying trade.
You gotta be thankful for the people who make our lives so much easier by producing quality parts.
I'm done.

FWIW,
I've bought quite a bit from AN and have enjoyed a very high quality rate. On the rare occasion that quality has not been perfect, they have been 'quibble free' in dealing with it.
I've also bought a bit from Comnoz and a LOT from Matt and never had to finesse anything from these guys before use.

Quality gaiters like these at Andover Norton, been available for ages.

https://andover-norton.co.uk/en/shop-de ... r-1968-70-

FWIW, I've also bought a lot of stuff from RGM, and have never had anything other then wonderful service from them. Fast , helpful replies to my questions, the only time I had a problem was with some lightweight tappet adjusters where the thread was very tight in the rockers. Measured the thread OD and it was within spec, but bloody tight. Sent them back, and they replaced them with a set of mushroom head adjusters and checked the thread - perfect fit. Did not even ask for the difference in price between the 2 types either.

No one is perfect, and RGM do seem to have lower prices than most suppliers, but I tend to use them because they have a huge range of standard stuff and special parts, and there's a considerable saving in postage when combining orders.

AN are also very good, but generally only have standard stuff.

The issue with rubber parts is that they deteriorate with time.
I rebuilt an 850 2 years ago and the 'new' fork scrapers went knackered within 6 months :evil:
In aerospace, there is a firm 'X years after cure date', after which the stuff gets binned whether it's been used or not; a big issue for older aircraft operations (see 'Nimrod Inquiry').
Unfortunately there's no way of knowing how long our rubber stuff has been sitting on their shelves prior to us buying it, and for fork gaiters it's a serious pain in the **** to swap them

I had the same issue with the DT headsteady - they should fit shims between the clamping faces before the boring op when being manufactured, and it's typically 'old school' British that we're expected to finish the job ourselves.
A-N replace the alternator leads on the stators they sell because the as-manufactured stators use leads which aren't fit for purpose. Maybe our other leading UK suppliers could learn from their example.

As for the 'metric frame' argument, I've had two Italian made 'F' prefix frames and they've both had imperial top brace tubes...

concours said:

Rubber parts that deteriorate before your eyes are the new standard. :evil:

Fork seal dust boots purchased for my vintage '73 Yamaha street bike lasted 2 years before they fell to pieces.
All low cost (to produce) garbage.

Click to expand...

Ditto,,,last set of foot peg rubbers lasted less than 2 months before they split, same with the kickstart and shifter rubbers. :evil:
I also had a similar issue with the Taylor head steady. My bike is a 71 so not sure if my frame is "metric" or not, but I did have to dress the joining faces to get a tight fit. I also had to replace the heim joint link after approx. 8000 miles as both ends were totally sacked.

"I've had two Italian made 'F' prefix frames and they've both had imperial top brace tubes..."

Since when does "F" have anything to do with identifying a Verlichi/metric frame ? NONE!
I can spot/detect a metric frame from the characteristics I have Identified. F is NOT one of them.

B+bogus wrote: "The issue with rubber parts is that they deteriorate with time..........
Unfortunately there's no way of knowing how long our rubber stuff has been sitting on their shelves prior to us buying it....."

The problem is bigger than the passage of time. The material the parts are made from has changed. At swap meets I would buy old rubber bellows that go from the airbox to the carbs. 45 years old, and usually in perfect shape. Now the new ones fall apart in no time. Same with gaiters. Same with kick start rubbers. Seems like the old stuff had more rubber in it, where now it is more like cheap plastic.

Stephen Hill

So true about old rubber. I've got my original isolastic boots stashed away for when I restore my bike again. They're in perfect condition. The replacements went south in mere months.

Stephen Hill said:

B+bogus wrote: "The issue with rubber parts is that they deteriorate with time..........
Unfortunately there's no way of knowing how long our rubber stuff has been sitting on their shelves prior to us buying it....."

The problem is bigger than the passage of time. The material the parts are made from has changed. At swap meets I would buy old rubber bellows that go from the airbox to the carbs. 45 years old, and usually in perfect shape. Now the new ones fall apart in no time. Same with gaiters. Same with kick start rubbers. Seems like the old stuff had more rubber in it, where now it is more like cheap plastic.

Stephen Hill

Click to expand...

Azackly.

I had a problem with an RGM product recently and they replaced it immediately. Great service from my perspective.

Rubber parts are very variable, its the additives that protect against UV light that are being missed out by certain makers, so they survive on the shelf but fail within 12 months on a bike. Finally got all my bikes on long lasting gaiters after 2 bad purchases, but still not 100% sure how to ensure I can do same in future, AN ones post 71 are definitely good but Wassells and Emgo are definitely not.

In the 80's I rebuilt my commando top to bottom. I spent a few thousand dollars with waldridge motors including new iso's, tires, superblends, new harness, a boyer, rotor/stator, gaskets, seals, barnett clutch plates, etc, etc.... I also got new pistons which came with those shitty wire circlips. (are they from RGM?, I don't remember) Anyway, I figured that the wire circlips are probably ok if both the manufacturer and waldridge didn't have a problem selling them, so I installed them even though I wondered why they weren't the cut steel type circlips. Less than 2 weeks after my completed rebuild, one circlip popped out at 60mph with a "POP" and a puff of blue smoke.

During the subsequent top end teardown, I showed the circlips to my mechanic friend and he thought they were total crap, and said that he wouldn't have used them. I was a bit pissed off because I had to rebuild the top end all over again just 2 weeks after finishing the bike.

Now I know better than to use those crappy circlips, but I often wonder if any distributors of those pistons automatically know they are more prone to failure and tell customers NOT to use those shitty wire circlips. Maybe they don't fail more than 10% of the time, but they are totally inferior to the cut steel type of circlip. Knowing what I know, I wouldn't pass them on to a customer if I was a parts distributor.

I didn't feel waldridge was to blame, but I find it hard to stomach that the manufacturer includes these shitty circlips with their new pistons. Certainly the existance of accessnorton helps get the word out on issues with certain parts that are of questionable quality... It just sucks that a bunch of people have to get burned to get the word out on crappy parts...

I don't think I would say all wire circlips are no good. Just about every high performance or high rpm engine uses wire circlips since they are lighter and less prone to come out due to g-forces than a conventional c-clip. You hardly ever see a modern engine with the old Norton style clip.

Of course there may be bad examples of either style. Wire circlips are more likely to be damaged by poor installation.

By the way the piston and pin are both cut differently depending on the style of clip that is to be used. They are not interchangeable.

A piston made for a wire circlip will have a radius in the bottom of the groove and a bevel on the end of the pin that tends to push the circlip into the groove if there is side thrust.

A piston made for a flat c-clip will have a square cut groove and a flat end on the wrist pin. The end of the pin must be polished so it does not wear into the clip with side thrust. Jim

Comnoz, these are good observations, the other thing to remember is that flat piston circlips are often not symmetrical and have a slight chamfer which goes to the gudgeon pin side with the sharp edge against the circlip groove facing outward.

dave M said:

Comnoz, these are good observations, the other thing to remember is that flat piston circlips are often not symmetrical and have a slight chamfer which goes to the gudgeon pin side with the sharp edge against the circlip groove facing outward.

Click to expand...

The stamping out of circlips (and washers) causes one side to have smooth corners and the surface to be "radiused" whereas the other side is flat with sharp corners, so for this reason as you say it's important to have the "flat" side outside when the sharp edge will resist side loads more. This is (especially important when using a stamped circlip where a wire clip was previously used, because as Jim correctly points out the circlip grooves are a different shape.

Regarding replacement parts, I am currently in "discussion" with RGM over a replacement standard disc which I am sure is not machined true. I believe other folks are too.

There are a lot of substandard rubber parts available unfortunately. I know this sounds odd, always look for products which have a "shine" such as the AN gaiters, as they appear to have more "plastic" content.


Cheers,

cliffa

JSM lighweight pistons use wire circlips and as Comnoz says, they have a radiused clip groove. Just change them every time you pull the circlip. That is why JSM sells the wire clips as a consumable item!

So, perhaps wire circlips are not the substandard part I imagine them to be, and my circlip incident was a function of not seating the circlip properly during assembly. I did replace them with the cut steel circlips and reused the same pistons, so the wrong circlips have remained in place for more than 20 years without incident. Maybe I'm getting lucky there.

Jim, I saved all 4 of those wire circlips to remind me of this incident and how a very small mistake can screw up a lot of good work... I supose that's still true...

From a physics point of view, I would argue that the weight of the return wire on the ends of the wire circlips can act as a bob-weight to compress the circlip as it changes direction if the circlip is aligned horizontally, where as the cut steel type have less mass at their tips and also seem to be harder to compress... which seems to me would make them harder to dislodge.

*I'm certainly not trying to argue with the likes of Jim Comstock and Jim Smith who both would say the wire circlips work fine. There's been more than a few people who have had their wire circlips pop out, and you both could say they were seated impropperly in every case. There's no way to dispute that except by each person saying that they thought they seated the circlip properly. As the cases of this add up, it seems that there are 2 scenarios. Either people fuck up while seating this particular circlip, or this particular circlip has a greater propensity to fail than the other options.

...Sorry to hijack the thread slightly, I was under the impression that the wire circlips were a known difficiency, and am seeking a clarification... thanks