Well ,It makes me think!

Ok, 40 plus years ago.{my how time fly's!
you get your brand new Commando, Boy was that a day :!: Gleaming in the dealers work shop, i must admit i have never bought a New Commando...but a few Honda's ..soapy water ! wash your gob out Bould!!
Anyway to the point. Did you wonder how precise this bike was...Like did you Hell! Couldn't wait to get it on the road.
So my little posting here is a stark reminder of the old days..machine tooling.
I have just rejected over 400 precice parts....Most Commando parts would have been gleened from suppliers on the "Books" old buildings full of Herbert pre war lathes. capstons , Wards etc..rattling away ..sprewing out parts.
Now move on 40 years ...the firm i use as a Mori 10 station £175k auto CNC...You may have missed that...One Hundred and seventy five thousand English Pounds!
But they the operators managed to turn out of true....wait for it... .5 point five of a mm! in english money.....20 thou!
The "guy" with over 30 years experiance had not checked the collets where clean!
So what tollerance did the old boys work to ? if today with modern "state of the art" machines can be so far out ..or correctly the operator.
Couple of months ago a friend "in need" wanted me to line bore the;bronze plain timing side main bearing [bsa A10] ....I had turned a mandrill to bolt to the miller...case sat on the rolled outer drive side main...i clocked up the plain bush...it was 18 thou out!

Makes me think...what went through the Door back then..when i read the posts regarding tappets "off set" to the valve tops..well makes me smile! I bet the cranks where miles out! Did some one say they wern't ground as an assembly? bolting together random halves?

The basic designs were forgiving. They worked despite poor tolerances but they worked better when they were correct. Blueprinting paid higher returns back then. Nowadays engineers can be less forgiving in their designs and the end product is less tolerant too.

The honda works etc used the best machines..with highly trained operators...pity the alloy.plating and steel was poorly finnished. Just look at the castings, very precise die castings. :mrgreen:

15 FEB, 2014

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Honda Australia has voluntarily recalled its CB500 models to check for oil leaks.

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he recall notice says that due to “an incorrect procedure during manufacture” of the rocker arm shaft sealing bolt, it may come loose causing oil to leak from the CB500’s engine. “If the oil leak is undetected or unrepaired, loss of engine oil could cause engine failure or seizure,”

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http://motorbikewriter.com/honda-recalls-cb500-motorcycles-oil-leak/

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:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :mrgreen: :wink: :twisted:

this one seems to be a reversal of roles . http://www.motorcycleclassics.com/tech- ... z35g3rCEA0 8)

ok Point taken..a oil seal leaking..not quite the engine exploading is it? or the transmission tearing is' self apart..is it?

probly Italian , but astounding :roll: for 1950 that they ALL GO at the same time ? ? . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9p4NGNH114

Modern CNC machines are capable of precise tolerances. Some can machine sub-micron. Operator error is always a factor in the equation. That's why there are inspection procedures. 40 years ago in the Norton factory, the operator was the control. The machines were not up to today's standards and some were worn out. Add in operator error and the variance was all over the map. Again on critical components I'm sure there was some level of quality control, but what was acceptable likely was allowed to vary more than we would accept today.

Not sure how a mistake on a modern machine equates...unless of course the parts got out of the shop...then I would say the basics of QC were not followed and that is just poor methods and management...IMO.

On the move when Pa Norton bought out with resentment of original crew the new crew could not get them to machine true till eventually they were told WW!! bomb distorted the lathe so needed big wood beam lever to compensate. The was a bit before the Combat Bomb. Then later last years of Commando resentment of management caused sabotage during cycle assembly. Bristish poeple always kept stressed and poor so had to operate things gently over long time to survive so could get away with rod shell replacement by leather belt piece or bolt in a holed piston and carry on till cars were cheaper and the fragile things got left or scrapped where ever, till now.

Then later last years of Commando resentment of management caused sabotage during cycle assembly.

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Hobot, I have a pretty large collection of all the books about Norton and do not recall reading anything about Norton management actually sabotaging assembly because they were resentful of their own Commandos....or you could be saying that the assembly line workers purposely put together poor Commandos because they were resentful of what, Commandos?

very curious to read where you got this information from

please provide your source, thanks in advance

I believe even back then the tolerances or finish was based on what would return exceptable life span plain and simple.
Time is money and that dictates unit cost and ultimately viability unless a under specification part is unreliable or fails in service.

Here is the brand new DR650 transmission care of MRCycle in the USA, I am about to go out and final assemble it and press second drive gear on.
The factory parts have a nice finish on the shafts and the gears are good also (under magnification) but be assured the finish on the gear teeth is nowhere near as good as those on the Nova Racing third gear set (third in from the left) but they cost three times each what the others cost.

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c345/ ... 650New.jpg

As far as the Brit bike side of things that is one reason I enjoy reading anything FrankDamp posts being he was there.

Someone's memory slipping if having read Norton history but didn't immediately know its was the assembler's dropping bolts in cases & other 'oversights' to have their resentment of management show up at point of delivery and customers to handle. Management and owners had their own style of sabotage without handling any equipment or just letting it wear out to the end. Norton power plants carried on after motorcycles into hi end air drone engines and private air craft with modern level tolerances.

Now it is mentioned when I stripped the crankshaft on the 850, the locking tabs on the retainer plates had not been folded onto the nuts, those scoundrels.
I will save some pence as they are immaculate and reusable.

john robert bould said:

Ok, 40 plus years ago.{my how time fly's!
So my little posting here is a stark reminder of the old days..machine tooling.
I have just rejected over 400 precice parts....Most Commando parts would have been gleened from suppliers on the "Books" old buildings full of Herbert pre war lathes. capstons , Wards etc..rattling away ..sprewing out parts.
Now move on 40 years ...the firm i use as a Mori 10 station £175k auto CNC...You may have missed that...One Hundred and seventy five thousand English Pounds!
But they the operators managed to turn out of true....wait for it... .5 point five of a mm! in english money.....20 thou!

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Yes John exactly. I began cutting metal 1971 as apprentice in the Aust. Army at 15 years old. the modern replaceable insert had yet to be developed to what it is today. Those old herbet 7B's etc did not have the speed to run modern carbides either. I was taught to sharpen tool steel properly, no facets very early on. Comsteel R4 ( your EN26 ) was turned with toolsteel. This is very slow going. However close tolerances were very achievable. Most of the carbide tooling was of the brazed variety, milling cutters and all. The finishes of modern CNC was not easily achievable, if at all.. Those brazed parting blades held at an angle could be troublesome. I can remember by 1975 in a production shop making cane harvesters, insertable tip tooling was very much in use everywhere. Again, 9C Herbets and Ward 10's took good advantage of indexable tooling because of their size. . between 69 to 74 seemed to be a fast development. ISCAR was also around then with their revoultionary replaceable insert parting blade.
So, to sum up, yes, the speeds and finishes were not there . But the accuracy was. It depends of course on the condition of an individual machine tool. Especially a production one. However the accuracy of the jigs and fixtures coming off say a Swiss jig borer in 1968, ( the Comm's first year), was certainly up to scratch. The tolerances easily achieved could be as low as a tenth or 2, ir really necessary.. Therefore if the tooling was up to scratch, the factory's production of sub standard but still functional components can only be attributable to either bad machine tools, or operator error , or even both.
Be really good to hear from someone who worked in the machine shop doing Commando stuff. Mr Damp perhaps. Norton Engineering Quality. this could go on a bit.
PS. an old textbook I have shows as example a photo of an AMC box being machined on a Ward 10. the fixture is fully adjustable and counterweighted. so the shells were turned on a turret. I will have to dig this old photo up now.
As for the Mori Seiki, I am not surprised at all. those machines can do anything, including offset turning I suppose. The error must be attributable to the programmer or operator. Those machines do exactly what they are told, all day..
Best wishes Bradley

Someone's memory slipping if having read Norton history but didn't immediately know its was the assembler's dropping bolts in cases & other 'oversights' to have their resentment of management show up at point of delivery and customers to handle. Management and owners had their own style of sabotage without handling any equipment or just letting it wear out to the end.

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I asked you for your sources, what book, what magazine, etc

I did not ask you for your own speculation

in addition, my memory is not "slipping" and yes I have read a lot of Norton history and nowhere did I read of assembler's dropping bolting into cases in order to show their resentment towards managment nor have I read of Norton factory management intentionally sabotaging their own Nortons that they were selling

again Hobot, and unlike you I am in insulting you or your memory as you have mine, I just want to know that you have actual credible sources for this "information" and I would not like to think that you just simply made it up, so can you answer me without insults?

Time is the enemy of good machining. In your own workshop you will spend hours doing something an in a production machine shop where time is money they won't.

I work in engineering an some of new CNC machinery in our factory cost £1.5 million !!!! EACH !!(an we have 5 up to now) It's made to order and the spec we asked for but it does not do a better job than the 70 year old heavy engineering machines it replaced just because it operates faster in order to make a return on the investment cost. Where as old machine worked slower an needed constant attention by skilled workers that took pride in what they where doing.

Spot on Dennis, poor management! What made matters worst was they asked if i could except the parts that where wrong..suggesting i could "blend in" the items with emery cloth! So they appeared OK...remember the old saying...Fu*k the size,look at the shine!" The machine they have should maintaine .002 mm all day...it's when they run out of Bananas ,and the operator throws a paddy! :lol:

dennisgb said:

Modern CNC machines are capable of precise tolerances. Some can machine sub-micron. Operator error is always a factor in the equation. That's why there are inspection procedures. 40 years ago in the Norton factory, the operator was the control. The machines were not up to today's standards and some were worn out. Add in operator error and the variance was all over the map. Again on critical components I'm sure there was some level of quality control, but what was acceptable likely was allowed to vary more than we would accept today.

Not sure how a mistake on a modern machine equates...unless of course the parts got out of the shop...then I would say the basics of QC were not followed and that is just poor methods and management...IMO.

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Talkin Norton mis-aligment...who as noticed the un-even wear on cam surfaces..as though the follower is Canted over in relation to the cam? getting the cam bearings in the case true to the cylinder ..now thats not easy...no wonder back in the old days there was RUNNING IN OIL! was that very fine grinding paste? I remember something about adding Brasso to the oil...failing that 2000 miles very gental....... Imagin the sales man suggesting that.."right son, 2000 miles below 3000 rpm"
Two days latter the "son" is bouncing the valves! Running in ment being left way behind your mates..did it happen. I rebuilt a BSA A7 for a mate..i think he did about 20 miles..before His mate came past..than voooom! for some un-known reason it started smoking :roll: :lol:

I started my engineering apprenticeship in 1975 and the same tolerances that were used then are widely in use now so shaft and bore tolerances have hardly changed but what has changed is the ability to check positional tolerancing and what was previously checked with a vernier height gauge or slip gauges and a DTI is now checked by a CNC inspection machine or a Faro arm.

Any company manufacturing parts on a megabucks CNC machining centre is wasting their time if they don't have the equivalent equipment to inspect the finished components. Walk into a lot of small sub-contract machine shops and you'll find that they look on spending £0.25m on inspection equipment as a waste when that money could go on another machining centre that actually produces something. Another problem is that a lot of inspection work is carried out by the operators checking and signing off their own work rather than a dedicated inspection department who wouldn't be tempted to let something go because it's only 0.0005" out of tolerance. Cost cutting on labour doesn't always work

As for sabotaging engines; the guys would have been much more likely to sabotage the machines as they walked out of the door on strike than the engines and I've never known someone take their anger out on the person buying the finished goods rather than the company.

Andy , started my apprenticeship in 1965, then the company had inspectors, you didint get paid untill they signed off the [your] work sheet..the inspectors where GOD, no one wanted to rub them up the wrong way.
As you say the operators today check there own work..and let the products go if slightly over the tolerance..."it il be alright" well so it goes. The firm that just balls up my parts have a inspection room..with a CNC measurer..but its not used much.
I had some Norton fork top bushs..EBay ...the top flanged bush was three thou tapered..started on but went tight. Really surprised the guys in India dont have CNC inspection :lol: What pissed me off the tw*t who retails them said i didit know what i was talking about..he had been selling them for years..when i asked if he had ever measured one..no reply...its OK sticking stuff in jiffy Bags..making parts is a new ball park.

Andy_B said:

I started my engineering apprenticeship in 1975 and the same tolerances that were used then are widely in use now so shaft and bore tolerances have hardly changed but what has changed is the ability to check positional tolerancing and what was previously checked with a vernier height gauge or slip gauges and a DTI is now checked by a CNC inspection machine or a Faro arm.

Any company manufacturing parts on a megabucks CNC machining centre is wasting their time if they don't have the equivalent equipment to inspect the finished components. Walk into a lot of small sub-contract machine shops and you'll find that they look on spending £0.25m on inspection equipment as a waste when that money could go on another machining centre that actually produces something. Another problem is that a lot of inspection work is carried out by the operators checking and signing off their own work rather than a dedicated inspection department who wouldn't be tempted to let something go because it's only 0.0005" out of tolerance. Cost cutting on labour doesn't always work

As for sabotaging engines; the guys would have been much more likely to sabotage the machines as they walked out of the door on strike than the engines and I've never known someone take their anger out on the person buying the finished goods rather than the company.

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john robert bould said:

Spot on Dennis, poor management! What made matters worst was they asked if i could except the parts that where wrong..suggesting i could "blend in" the items with emery cloth! So they appeared OK...remember the old saying...Fu*k the size,look at the shine!" The machine they have should maintaine .002 mm all day...it's when they run out of Bananas ,and the operator throws a paddy! :lol:

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Most machines can hold better than .002". In the manufacture of injection molds we figure .0002" as the standard. It surprises me that they would ask you to accept a bad part. Yes they lose money on remaking it but it was their error. I would be looking for a different shop.