More Time than Money

As the title of the post states, I've got more time than money. So when it comes to things like rebuilding wheels, I opt to do the work myself, rather than sending them off. Admittedly, it's a lot of work, and the type of work is boring and labor intensive. Front and rear wheels get disassembled, cleaned and then polished. I think we all know the drill by now, and I'm not talking about the aluminum hubs, or the brake plates, so I'll leave that for another post altogether. But the spokes and rims need to be rebuilt and since the weather is terrible, it was time to sit inside and and give them the attention that they need. 40 spokes per wheel and of course all the spoke nipples that go with them. The wheels came apart fairly easy, and seem as if they've never been apart. None of the spokes where bent, none of the threads were messed up and nobody had chewed up the spoke nipples using improper tools.

Once everything was take apart, I grouped all the spokes into sets of ten, based on their position on the hub, then started to clean them. Basically, without getting too long winded, it's 80 spokes and 80 spoke nipples that all need to be cleaned and then polished. The photo below, basically shows the current state of progress. And this photo probably doesn't do justice in showing how heavily oxidized and dirty they all are, nor does it show how nice they look once cleaned and polished. I'm not quite half way there, but I'm pacing myself and doing about 1 set per day. All in all, each set takes about an hour, so once they're complete, it'll be about 8 hours total labor, and then perhaps another hour or so for the spoke nipples.

Lots of guys complain about the $100 price tag per wheel to have someone like Buchanan's drill, lace and true your wheel. But in all honesty, I think that's quite a fair price considering the quality of work they do. And if you're the type of guy that doesn't want to do the work, or simply don't have time, then that's what it's going to cost. I've had plenty of wheels built by Buchanan's in the past, and I've always been happy with the work. In this case, I didn't need to have a rim drilled, so cleaning and re-lacing is just a simple matter of doing the actual work. In the end, I'll save almost $300, between the cost of lacing each wheel and shipping to and from.

Another point is that in the past, I had built wheels from just a hub, so I had to buy spokes and rims. But for these wheels, I have those bits, so it didn't make sense to replace something that could simply be restored. The rims are another story and they'll need to be either re-chromed or replaced.

It's slow work, but in the end, it's satisfying. They'll be on the bike for a long time to come, and anytime I can save and restore these old bits, it surely beats replacing them.

Special - Kennedy / Lyster Norton

Back when the term "cafe racer" was considered derogatory by those it meant to classify, the bikes that these guys built were referred to as "Specials". And while the vast majority of these Specials were home built machines, a few of them were also being built by cottage industry pioneers. Of those, the most famous would of course be Paul Dunstall and John Tickle. But there were other smaller firms turning out rather incredible machines as well. The following photo is quite famous, but very little is known about the bike that's pictured.

Motor and gearbox are form a Norton Dominator. I'm quite sure that it's a 650ss, and this bike is fabled to have all the period hop up parts. It's some sort of collaboration between Ian Kennedy and Colin Lyster. Ian Kennedy was well known in the day for his cast aluminum top yokes, and you can clearly see in the photo, that the motor is adorned with his valve covers. Of which, I've only ever seen 1 other set. Colin Lyster is well known for the twin disc brake set up featured on this bike. The rest of the machine is really a mystery to me. Frame and swingarm are completely custom, body work is very typical of the period, but surely made to suit this bike. The front end looks to be Ceriani GP, and the rear hub is from a standard Dominator. The Amal concentric carbs indicate that this would have been the late 1960's, but I'm unsure as to the exact year.

The bottom line is that this is a damn cool bike and I'd love to learn more about it. Based on the fact that the rider in the photo is tightening the steering damper, he's surely about to head off on a spirited ride.

Kick Start Only, No Flip Flops...

Many years ago, and good friend and I shared a garage space. We kept our bikes there, road together, wrenched together and often times left random notes to each other about some miscellaneous task or reminder.

At the time, I had a bike that I was selling, and posted it on Craigslist. Likely due to the $800 asking price, random people kept showing up interested in buying it. We all know the Craigslist process of dealing with people that show up, and that uncomfortable feeling of letting some perfect stranger test ride your bike. I've never been one to care much, figuring that if I'm selling it, someone is going to want to test it out. And in this case, it's $800, so what the Hell could it even matter.

Well, one guy shows up this afternoon with his buddy to have a look at the bike. He's in shorts and flip flops, and just has that nervous look where you simply know that this guy has never ridden anything before. But I'm up for a laugh, so I told him he could have a go at it. Watching this guy try and kick start the bike in flip flops was easily one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Of course there's an art to kick starting any bike, and each one has it's own personality. Even a season rider could have trouble starting another man's bike. So here's this guy, with no real clue how to get the feel for kick starting it, and over and over again, he's giving it everything he's got. His flip flops kept getting folded over and caught up on the kick starter. Sheer comedy, and it took everything I had, not to start laughing. Eventually he got it to fire and off he went on his awkward test ride. Surely in pain, and now having to shift with the bare top of his foot. I'm not quite sure what he was thinking.

After all was settled, he and his friend left, and I jokingly told my garage mate of the story. We laughed and that was sort of the end of it. A couple days go by, and I find a note in the garage that my buddy left. It simply read "Kick Start Only, No Flip Flops..."

Out of sheer humor, I revised the Craigslist add to include that statement. Purely for my own amusement. I wish I would have kept that note. I'm sure it got thrown in the trash, but the memory of it lives on, and every once in a while, one of us will randomly text that to the other. Definitely good for a laugh.

The guy with the flip flops came back a week or so later and bought the bike. He had shoes on. I wonder what happened to him.

Norton Domiracer

The Norton Domiracer is a rare motorcycle, of which, very few were ever made. At first glance, it would appear to be a fairly standard Dominator motor with some performance parts added for racing. But, in reality, it's a very different motor altogether. This particular bike being very unique in that the Domiracer was mainly known to be mounted in the newly developed Lowboy frame. It was supposed to be the evolutionary racing machine to replace the Manx Norton. Intended to be a less expensive machine to manufacture, while the parallel twin Dominator had been in development / production for roughly 12 years. So as a foundation, it was surely far enough along to be highly tuned as a race bike. Strangely though, the Dominator was a pushrod motor versus the DOHC Manx. A somewhat step backwards for the highly tuned Manx Norton.

I came across this photo thru a good friend, and strangely, I had simply never seen it before. It's a 1962 full spec Manx Norton chassis, with a genuine Domiracer motor. Opinions seem to vary as to how many real Domiracer motors were ever made. Some quote the number to simply be 1 example, but I've heard that up to 5 may have originally existed. You can see all the standard Manx features for 1962, including the 4 leading shoe front brake, conical rear hub, dropped top yoke, exposed spring front suspension, Smiths ATRC tachometer, central oil tank and Works petrol tank.

You can also very clearly see the eccentric rocker spindles in the photo, with oil banjos that go directly into the spindle, to lubricate the valve gear. Also noticeable is the Lucas 3MTT magneto, and right & left handed Amal GP carbs, with the 2" inlet tract. The oil tank hangs from brackets in the frame, and instead of having an oil tank table mounted to the engine plates, it had an angled bracket affixed to the cross tube, with a simple foam pad, and rubber bands that held the tank back against the bracket. And while this machine certainly resembles the production Dominator of the era, I can see only a few features which were shared with the production line. Insignificant things such as the timing cover and valve covers look to be standard, while other things such as the engine brackets are clearly different.

As an update to this original post, I wanted to show the other side of this bike. I stumbled across this photo, and I think it helps t complete the story to see the other side of the bike.

In this photo, you can see some other interesting features, such as the camshaft breather coming out of the side of the crankcase rather than the rear. This was a feature that was later added as standard to all Atlas machines. Also can be seen, is a Manx primary chain oiler, special bracket around the top tube of the frame to hold the large Amal round remote float and also an interesting cut out to the brake plate on the rear wheel.

It's not too often that I come across such photos and have never seen them before, so I'll admit that I've looked fondly at the photos, and tried to imagine what happened to the bike. Certainly, I have no idea, but hopefully it's sitting safely tucked away somewhere, and might see the light of day again soon.

UPDATE:

I wanted to make a revision to what I wrote above. I was corrected by a good friend that knows more about the Domiracer than I do. I mis-spoke about the camshaft breather being like the one used on the Atlas. The banjo fitting in this motor, is actually a high pressure oil feed that lubricates the needle roller bearings in the camshaft. I think it's important to call out this information and correct. My apologies if anyone was misled.

If anyone has information that corrects anything that I post here, please leave a comment or email me. I'm always open minded to make corrections and ensure that the information being shared online is accurate and correct. Thank you to Benjamin for the correcting my error.

Shrine

Every garage has at least one...
It's always just some random shelf or cabinet that's stacked with random bits. Giblets, I call them. It's almost never anything too serious, but somehow it's one of the most intriguing fixtures, and always draws my attention. It's like it's some sort of shrine, or parts graveyard. Piled high with discarded, unused and often broken parts. Little things that people collect and acquire along the way. If you've been involved with motorcycles for any length of time, you'll amass a collection as well. I don't think any of it is intentional, each item just seems to end up there because there's no other place for it. We can't throw anything away either. Even broken bits of motorcycle garbage, are kept and become this strange form of garage art.

Somehow I've ended up with two or three shelves that look like this. On top of the parts bin above the work bench, a storage cabinet in the garage and even a wall shelf in the house. I've seen them with signs marked "Gifts to the God's of Speed", but mostly it's insignificant items or collectibles. It makes me feel good though. To sort of surround yourself with these things, evoking the memory of some point in time. I guess the main thing would be to not let it get out of control.

Getting there...

Although there's still a long way to go, progress continues on the drum brake front end for the Norton Atlas. This original vented hub will be mated to the John Tickle brake plate which has already been restored and waiting ever so patiently for it's day in the sun.

The hub was featured in a previous "On The Bench" post, and has certainly come a long way since then. Bearings removed, fully degreased, scrubbed and then it's face polished. New bearings will be on order soon, and then mated to a Borrani rim with new spokes. The whole set up will then be sent west to have the drum skimmed and new brake pads installed and cut to size.

There's a lot of little bits that go into the front end set up being changed. An NOS set of fork lowers go along with the kit, and the forks will be treated to a full rebuild. Then there's the change of the clip ons and levers, as well as a custom brake cable. I'll be swapping the brake light switch back to the original, which operates off the rear brake pedal. Some fine tuning to match it with the rear sets, and of course running new wires.

All in all, it doesn't sound like much, but when you add up each and every little thing that goes into it, the list gets long and the cost climbs quickly. Like anyone, my progress is often limited to my bank account, rather than by my motivation to turn a wrench. But winter has more or less set in, so riding time is basically non existent.

The rear brake will get new pads as well, and fully cleaned and rebuilt. If running just drum brakes, I figure I better make sure they're in top shape, and it's been several years and many miles since some of these things have had their service. And while they all still function as they should, it's good routine maintenance.

Once all the pieces are here, I'm guessing the whole thing can be done in an afternoon. Take that time frame, and double it twice, and that's usually about how it goes. Either way, time is sort of on my side, and come Spring time it'll definitely all be ready.