On The Bench - Norton Featherbed Oil Tank

Another swap meet find was this Norton Featherbed oil tank, which will become a spare for my Atlas. Often these discard oil tanks are in need of some serious repair. Generally that repair would be a broken mounting tab on the top of the tank. Once bolted to the oil tank platform, the top tab needs to be properly spaced with either a rubber washer, alloy spacer or some washers. But often times, guys will simply wrench the tab tight straight to the frame mount, and therefore causing stress on the tab and at some point, the weld will fail. Another thing I often see is tanks that have been dented, likely from the bike falling over or being involved in some sort of wreck. You have to ask yourself why these parts are for sale and have been discarded. Luckily, a swap meet setting is the perfect place to inspect something in person and judge condition with your own eyes.

This tank is in great shape, minus the failing paint job. So it'll be stripped of it's paint and properly repainted in black.

The cap and all fittings were intact, and in excellent shape. Initially, they were covered in grease and dirt, so it's always difficult to know just how well they'll clean up. But after a thorough cleaning and polishing, they proved to all be in excellent condition.

One interesting thing to note is that this particular oil tank is a later model version with the added feature of having the froth tower. Inlet on the front accepts the crankcase breather return, and outlet to the rear vents to the atmosphere. But it also had the early model low pressure oil feed banjo. Early Dominators had a 3 start (low pressure) oil pump, and oil was fed to the rocket arms via the banjo fitting in the return fitting on the tank. This type of top feed oiling employed scrolled rocker spindles to allow for enough oil to pass through. Later model Dominators and the Atlas employed the 6 start (double speed) oil pump, which fed oil to the rocker spindles straight out of a banjo fitting in the timing cover. This double speed pump used plain rocker spindles since the pressure was increased and no longer required the scrolled rocker spindles. In this instance, the return fitting in the tank, would have a straight thru design since it wouldn't need a banjo fitting. Please note that depending on the year of the machine, these details could be swapped. It's not a hard fast rule that all years and all models were set up the same. But this is a good guide in determining what oil system is in place.

Why is any of this important? Good question, and the answer is because anyone fitting these parts will need to first determine what oil pump they'll be using, as many parts in the system are not interchangeable. Case in point, if you're using the low pressure pump, and you fit the plain spindles, you won't be feeding enough oil to the rocker arms. And conversely, if you fit the high pressure pump and scrolled spindles, you'll be pushing too much oil through the top feed. And then there's the issue of where you fit the feed banjo; either on the timing cover or at the oil tank. Lots of details to keep in mind when building an old Norton. There have been horror stories of oil feed lines and incorrect matching of parts being used, and engine seizure being caused within minutes of running a newly built motor.