What’s New? – New Products November 2011

A11M/285 Norton International and SOHC Manx: Petrol Tap With Sump - in Stainless Steel

Finally, after a long period of manufacture and testing I am pleased to be able to offer a faithful reproduction of the distinctive Norton 'large bowl' petrol tap, as fitted to both Norton International and pre-featherbed Manx's - but with the big advantage that these items are manufactured in stainless steel, and therefore will never need re-chroming.
As always with the Norton parts I manufacture, I have endeavoured to ensure they look identical to the original and in this case, the main body and taper tap design is faithfully copied from an original item (unlike many of the copies I have seen in the past).
Inside the bowl, the design is also identical, with the same thread and a copper gauze, retained by a circlip. I have also ensured that the top mating face includes the special circular ridges, which may look like rough machining – but were actually put in intentionally, so they would bite into the red fibre washer, used to seal the tap to the petrol tank. I use a modern retaining circlip, as the original thin wire type was prone to rusting and then breaking.
By the way – I think the reason for the wide bodied bowl, was because this allowed a greater surface area for the fuel to pass through the gauze, therefore, for racing there was less chance of fuel starvation. Obviously, my taps have the same large bore ‘through’ hole as the original.

A main feature of this particular reproduction is that the body is CNC machined and then polished afterwards, the result being that it looks almost indistinguishable from an original chromed item – if I say so myself, the quality of these items is extremely good, with no visible machining marks.
This high quality of machining has meant it has been possible to polish the item to look like chrome, so as well as looking good known they will never need re-chroming.
This is an important factor as one of the biggest problems with the original taps, which were made from brass then chromed, is that over the years the chrome will rub away – or a past owner did not have a spanner big enough for the large Hex spanner face, and therefore used a chisel to remove the tap! I have tried to have original taps re-chromed in the past but have found this is rarely successful, because unless you can find a chromer prepared to seal off the taper tap area, you are likely to find the taper of the tap will leak on re-assembly

As a point of detail around the taper tap itself, we were originally concerned with manufacturing this tap in stainless steel, as we had heard rumours that stainless on stainless can seize. Well, first of all it is worth pointing out that brass lever taps will often seize anyway, particularly if not being used regularly – it is an inevitable consequence of this taper design.
However, we experimented with different designs – including manufacturing two examples of the tapered pin with grooves to take special fuel resistant (and very expensive!) miniature ‘O’ rings, but in the end we found it was unnecessary. I did tests back to back, and found that because of the high quality of machining tolerance achievable with modern CNC machines, we were able to achieve leak free results using the original taper design and stainless steel. Taps were left holding fuel for a period of days (up to two weeks), and then checked for leaks and turned on and off. No leaks were found and the tap itself – which is always stiff because of the design, showed no signs of seizing.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that, as part of the production process, the tapered pin is individually fitted to the tap body, and its taper is ground in, using fine grinding paste, before the final fuel hole is drilled through the taper pin. This is probably overkill – but is an extra insurance against leaking.
Finally, each tap is assembled using a fine smear of Rocol molybdenum grease, which is a very good inhibitor against seizing for stainless steel.
The one concession to modern design I have built into these taps, is the use of a stainless steel nyloc nut, instead of the original nut and split pin design. This is virtually invisible, as the tap is normally rotated so the nut is not showing, and avoids the need to drill the thread for a split pin – which often break off on originals.

Overall, I am very pleased at how these taps have turned out . . . I have reserved two for my own current Inter build, so if you are looking for a petrol tap to finish your build – or just want to replace tired originals, it might be worth reminding a loved one that Xmas is coming soon!

Price : £79.00 each (price includes the large A11M/852 red fibre washer)

A3/69 - Exhaust Lifter Volute Spring

Now here is something I bet you have not seen on sale anywhere for a while! It has taken me a long time but I have finally tracked down a source of volute springs of the type originally used on Nortons to hold the exhaust valve lifter cable in tension correctly. This particular spring is of the correct length as the orignal, but of a fractionally lighter gauge - but of such minimal difference it should not be noticeable. These springs were also used on pushrod and sidevalve engines, although with a different exhaust lifter mechanism

Incidentally, watch out for future updates. Due to requests from numerous customers I am having a batch of the eccentric hardened pins made, as fitted to SOHC cambox's with the exhaust valve lifter boss on the cambox backplate casting. I am also having the castings made for the lever that fitted onto the eccentric pin. Expect availability of both in the next 3 months.

Spring Price : £2.10 each

A11/802-2 and A11/802-5 Oversize Shaft Cambox Rocker Pads

A common problem with the SOHC cambox rocker arm, is that over the years the rockerpad (that sits over the cam lobe) can come loose in the rocker arm, and then will very quickly open up and damage the rocker arm hole - with the result that when you fit a new (standard shaft size) rockerpad it will just drop in. Loctiting the new rockerpad in may solve the issue for a very short time but is almost certainly not going to work longterm and may cause serious damage to the cambox if the pad does come loose.

To overcome this issue, when I recently had a new batch of standard rocker pads made, I also had some made with an oversize ground shaft diameter. I can offer two sizes: +0.002" (2 thou) and +0.005" (5 thou). These are both the same price as standard rockerpads and are identical other than the shaft diameter.
Now all you have to do is decide which size you need, as you normally only get one chance when you are pressing them in! - email me if you think you want to discuss before purchasing

Price : £14.00 each - All sizes

Smaller Engine Parts

A couple of small items this month - Circlips of the same size as fitted to Norton pistons, if like me you sometimes buy 'New Old Stock' pistons at autojumbles, but the circlips are missing (but please convince yourself they are suitable to fit . . . I take no responsibility etc etc)

And also a new washer - Copper 1/4" BSP washers. These can be used as an alternative on the timing case sump filter bolt, oil breather unions etc, as an alternative to either the modern 'O' ring washer or red fibre washer of similar size that I also sell

A2/164: Piston Circlip Price : £2.20 Pack of 4
E5264-C:Copper Washer Price : £1.20 Pack of 3

B11/432 - WM2 20" Chromed Rear Rim for Norton International

I have just received a small batch of 20" WM2 chromed rims - as would have originally been fitted to Rigid and Gardengate Norton International rear wheels. These rims are of good quality English manufacture, from my normal rim supplier and have the correct spoke alignment for both rigid and plunger cotton reel style rear hubs.
Now all you have to do is find a supplier of 20" rear tyres!

Price : £105.00 each

A2/487 - Norton Primary Chaincase : Inspection Cover in Stainless Steel

Very nice reprduction of the small inspection cover fitted to Norton pressed steel primary chaincase. As always, item dimensions reproduce the original, but these are made in polished stainless steel rather than the original chromed items - very pretty!

Price : £4.50 each

A2/500 and A2/198- Imperial Size Grease Nipples to Fit Nortons - All Models

A2/500 Small Grease Nipple - Price : £1.10 each or £6.00 for a pack of 6
A2/198 Angled Grease Nipple - Price : £1.60 each or £9.00 for a pack of 6

Girl001 - Girling Shock Absorber - Top Cover Collets - Stainless Steel

This is an unusual thing for me to stock but as the opporutnity was there, and they are very nicely made, I thought it worth getting a few of these in.
These are the top collets used on Girling shock absorbers to hold the top spring and spring cover, as used on DOHC Manx Nortons, and other swinging arm and Featherbed Norton singles and twins.
A set consists of 4 collets, to fit 2 shock absorbers.

Price : £8.50 for a set of 4 collets

Cheesehead Screw Sets - Stainless Steel

Aghhh! Here I have to confess to a cock-up! I advertised these in a Newsletter some months ago as being back in stock, but realised recently I had not updated the actual online catalog to reflect this - so they are still showing as out of stock! My apologies for this if you are still waiting for these to come back in stock - but I have now changed the catalog so they can be ordered.
I have included the original Newslettter update below to remind people