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Rocker oil feed pipe

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Hi. A few months ago I bought a rocker feed pipe top section from Norvil for my Dommie 99 project. The pipe is advertised as being for Dominators.  The pipe is copper and has a brass tee-piece with a copper tube and banjo fitting at each end (photo below). The problem I’ve discovered is that the arms of the ‘T’ are too short to get the banjos to fit onto the banjo bolts in the cylinder head - the head steady blocks the routing. I’m thinking of de-soldering the banjos and replacing the small sections of pipe. Does that sound possible? If so, should both of the short pipes be the same length or would it be safe to lengthen just one of them. If it’s ok to do just one, I could cut off some of the excess pipe from the long pipe that goes into the base of the tee-piece and use that off cut to make a longer ‘arm’. If it’s not wise to have one arm longer than the other, I’ll have to source some copper pipe - is it easy to find that small diameter pipe?

Thanks

Regards

Tony

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Tony,

RGM make a ready made rocker feed in braided stainless. I have these on my 650 and Dommie racer. I can photo the one on the Dommie racer if you wish, as the tank is off.

Your copper feed does not look like it's made for a Dommie, I have seen better.

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Never liked the copper tubes. With time copper gets hard and brittle. And breaks. So Neil's advice is good.

How I know. The 99 started to broadside on a curvy road. Oily rear tyre. Stopped at a small rural petrol station and bought a piece of rubber fuel line and two jubilee clips. When petrol stations had other things than fast food and chips.

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Send it back to Norvil as not fit for purpose ( good luck with that) and obtain the RGM item.

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My copper tubes branch at the T piece. Then go out sideways and finally turn forwards for about 2 inches to the banjos. Rather like a twin branch candlestick. Looks like Norvil procured the correct key setting out dimensions but entirely the wrong shape.

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I had a short one once that was like yours. I ended up mounting it the other way round and then extending the flexible part from the feed tube in front of the oil tank between the carbs and over the top and then connect to the rocker feed from the front. Untidy but it worked.  Have you pointed out to Les (the undeceased)  that it's too short on one-side ?   Cheers, howard  

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Mount it on the workshop  wall as a reminder that  " experts can make silly mistakes" and do.Probably cheaper than trying to get a re-fund.

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Attached are two photos from my model 77 and model 7

The first photo is a new feed pipe from ANIL and the second is an original pipe.

You can see that the new item has significantly shorter feed pipes to the head than the original item.

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Thanks everyone. I contacted Norvil by email this morning and the response was very impressive - a replacement is in the post already. I just hope it isn’t the same as my current one!

Regards

Tony

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The originals, back to at least 1955 on my first Dommie, were tinned copper - so they had a silver/galv appearance.  They were designed to be hand-bendable.  Never found them to crack.  Tony's are obviously the wrong length.  Good that he's getting a replacement!  Surprise eh?

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Tony,

Looks like you got sent an oil feed pipe for a Norton Lightweight. If you still have it and know a Lightweight owner, make their day. As stated above the assembly regularly fails as the copper age hardens and the solder joint fractures.

Peter

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Hi. I received the replacement rocker oil pipe from Norvil today and it’s much better. It fits very well and after bending the arms to line up the banjos with the holes in the head, there’s a good amount of clearance from the head steady. As the copper pipes are supposed to be a silver finish (tinned?)  I gave the pipes a quick spray of aluminium silver paint and the  assembly now looks great.

The photo below shows the original short version and the new one with longer ‘arms’.

Thanks to everyone for your input.

Regards

Tony

 

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I hope that the pipes are silver soldered, as soft solder will fail with vibration. Silver soldering also anneals the copper pipe and prevents work-hardening. I'm sure you all know this.

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I very much doubt if Norton wasted money on silver solder. If the pipes are inserted into the joints and soft soldered, the solder is really only a sealant and under very little stress, just like when used for copper central heating connections. The pipes might be annealed anyway.  I'm not taking a penknife to mine to find out how hard it is though.

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Different attachment points, I know,  but Norton used flex material for the Commando..

Isolastic engine mountings may have been a consideration?

Apart from my 99 for originality, all my F/bed twins use the RGM braided stainless set up. 

 


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