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Spanner -maintenace wall chart. for the workshop

Whenever I work on my bikes  I seem to spend a lot of time drifting back and forth looking for the "right"  spanner/socket.. May be something to do with age and memory as I used to be able to get the head off my Austin Healey  in 20 mins and knew the size of everything. I am now working on an an A3  size  wall  chart  (similar to the Lube charts that were popular)  to pinpoint the nut/bolt head sizes  of all the  fittings  that  I'm likely to  work on.   I may also colour code these to match a paint  mark on the  relevant spanner/socket.   Would this be a good  project  for the club to produce a chart for  each   type of Norton?.  I  would certainly have bought one.

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No John, my glasses are always where I last left them.  I just need a wall chart to list the best places to look  for them. !

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A chart would be useful IF your bike have all nuts and bolts original. Most bikes I have has been through a number of previous owners. Who has replaced a lot of lost or worn out fasteners. With whatever they found of similar size. Living in a metric country, I've found lots of metric bolts. And quite a number of UN ones. Plus the original mix of BSF, BSW, BSC, UNC, UNF and BA. My solution is to make a service sheet for every bike for the regular maintenance. As an example how it looks:

Primary chain adjustment.

Up/Down movement 21-23 mm.

Loosen upper gearbox nut, 7/16W socket.

Adjust with 3/16W open spanner.

Note. Gearbox MUST be pushed forward, otherwise it will creep rearwards, tightening primary chain.

Tighten adjuster front nut after rear nut.

Tighten gearbox nut.

Usually it’s not necessary to loosen or tighten lower gearbox stud

(19mm spanners)

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If the chart is paper based it would be a simple matter to  tipex out the  right sizes and put in the  bastard ones !!.   PS  , its a man thing to NOT read instructions ,   ---- untill is all gone pear shaped.

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Here are a couple of resources that may be useful.

Norton Commando Cylinder Base Tightening Sequence and Torque https://granttiller.com/norton-commando-cylinder-base-tightening-sequence-and-torque

Norton Commando Cylinder Head Tightening Order and Torque https://granttiller.com/norton-commando-cylinder-head-tightening-order-and-torque

Norton Commando Timing Cover Tightening Order and Screw Length https://granttiller.com/norton-commando-timing-cover-tightening-order-and-screw-length

I also use the excellent Old Britts NORTON COMMANDO TORQUE SETTINGS sheet http://www.oldbritts.com/n_torq.html

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Robert, a good suggestion! Tiller, thank you for posting your lists as I've printed off the oldbritts list, very useful. Thanks again.

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My mate is well known for his knowledge on a different marque of British motorcycle. Spanner sizes, nuts, bolts, anything original. Its all good until someone gets hold of some spurious hexagon stainless steel bar and makes fasteners from it. The best thing to do if you want a chart is keep it to your own bike. There are a lot of bikes coming back from the USA, i've had a couple and my experience is the Yanks use whats at hand to bodge things. As an example on my Hurricane, the middle exhaust port thread had gone. The repair that was done was drill 3 holes and fit grub screws to hold the exhaust stub in, not good. 

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I never stripped threads untill i got a torque wrench.  Some manuals (particularly Haynes and other aftermarket car ones)  contained  errors ,  other times  I missread the wrench or  relied on the possibility that the threads were  in good order, and they were not.   Doing it by feel only occasionally meant that  things were not as tight as they should be .   I do use torque wrenches  but am carefull  now to include a healthy amount of common sense. You should be guided by the thread size , the  medium  in which the thread is formed and the fragility of old and abused parts.

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Keep an eye open on this WebSite for the revised version of the Heavy Twins Compilation.  This contains a detailed list of torque settings for the non-Commando Big Twins. The list was compiled mainly by Dale Middlehurst with contributions from other respected and experienced Norton Owners.

Of interest.......as a rule, the post-war twins were generally assembled by hand. It was not until Commandos started to appear, on the scene, that Torque Wrenches began being used when assembling the engines and other big chunks.

The compilations are a fantastic body of work but it's a shame they are not available in PDF format or printable..

 

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Hi Kevin,

Watch this space, Mark (Editor) is working on getting all the Compendiums printed. They will be available in the NOC shop fairly soon. Probably one at a time rather than all at once.

Tony

 


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