Roadholder 370 - October 2018

8 phil's special project Phil Hannam The engine side of this project has hit a brick wall due to issues with the manufacture of a new timing cover. I intend to deploy the motors in my possession that are believed to be 'Moore prototype engine(s)'. A book by Jim Reynolds explained that after WWII, Norton were keen to produce a Parallel Twin to cash in on the fashion created by Triumph's pre-war Speed Twin. Edgar Franks drew up a design similar to the Sunbeam S7/8 with fore-and-aft cylinders but it was rejected and the design team were charged with coming up with something more conventional. The consequent design came from the pen of Jack Moore. It featured twin camshafts and through-bolts passing from the cylinder head directly into the crankcase. The overhead valve gear was housed in alloy rocker boxes with tappet adjustment via removeable side plates secured by one single knurled screw*. The cycle parts were standard factory items. * An oil leak in the making I reckon! T he photo below shows most of the jigsaw pieces for my special project. You will note a mix of newly painted and a few yet to be restored items. Missing chunks include the engine, special engine plates and primary transmission. The choice of gearbox still has to be decided. Dolls head or lay-down? The most hazardous part of this fun was assembling and mounting the rear suspension units. Definitely a suicide mission if not approached with care. I had to manufacture a spring compressor using 10mm threaded rod and various sized washers. Much to my surprise, it actually worked very well and I had both units in place inside 30 minutes. I then could go on to assemble the fork legs and then mount them in the yokes. I still had the two wheels to sort out and needed to do that asap. The original bike took three whole days to disassemble and many parts seemed to have moved themselves into a black hole. Missing parts include new cables, controls and tinware nuts.