GregT

1 hour ago, SOHC said:

I could use a brass bolt and screw it in, they sell silicon bronze bolts but they are super hard.

Yes, that will work. I'd guess that a brass bolt might be whitworth thread but it doesn't matter. As long as it's big enough to get a good 8mm thread inside it.  I'd drill and tap the bolt in a lathe. Screw it into the tapped hole and cut it off flush.

Suzuki GSXR cam cover screws go into a tapped hole in the top of cam bearing blocks. Easily stripped 7mm fine thread. I tap the stripped hole 10mm, drill and tap a piece of 10mm threaded steel rod 7mm, screw it in and cut it off flush. Never strip again.

Best fix is old school. Tap it 12mm and make up a brass insert 12 on the OD, 8mm on the inner.  Put a drop of Loctite on it when the bush goes in.

Seems to be plenty on line. If you want local, try a craft supply shop for leather strip.

As you're in Auckland I'd give Ken MacIntosh a ring. A large proportion of Manx Norton engine castings are Magnesium so he'd know who's got chromate in the area. I've seen bits come out of Auto Restorations here in ChCh which have been chromate treated so it's available.

Some years back I was trying to do a restoration on castings which had been done with a greenish chromate. Much investigation revealed it was an obsolete NATO treatment. Black/brown seem to be all that's available.

Nothing wrong with them. I've seen a National 250 production race won on tyres pulled out of the rubbish bin in the pits.

Remembered a problem which cropped up with mine. Unless yours has been modded or is a CF2, you'll have drum brakes all round.  I found that even well balanced fronts showed signs of being out of balance. Narrowed the problem down to the drums. The worst one had the OD 5mm off center from the drum inner. Very poor castings. Used a mates big lathe to machine the od concentric and never had a problem again.

I was told the accepted fix was to go to a place which could balance wheels in place on the vehicle. in the 80's there was one place in ChCh. No idea if any still do it.

Mine was short w/b.  I'm not sure a PC diff is what you'd want now. From memory it was about 3.5:1 which really did limit me to 13in wheels. 14's or 15's are a much better size now - 15's in particular as there are a lot of Jap vans on that size. See what it's got in it now, get it running well and make the decision on diff ratios based on what you've got in front of you.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of it. Sooner or later I'm going to have to go electric for short range runs. How many wheels is still undecided.

#308 in the top pic is an oddball. Jawa top end on a BSA ?  And is that Inia holding up the fence ?

Try South Island bearings in Sydenham. They seem to specialise in old style/hard to find stuff.

Vin plate on mine was stamped Waterloo diesels. That company doesn't exist now. Possibly went out of business mid/late 90's

Have you found the compliance plate yet ?  Curious if it's another one of Waterloo Diesels jobs.

2 hours ago, VitesseEFI said:

Dunno about quakes. I do know that QC can be an issue. Previous company went through a fairly short phase of source CI pump casing parts from a Turkish foundry. Sizeable voids stuffed with car body filler and painted over don’t hold pressure very long!

Interesting. The cam blanks I was told have a very low reject rate. Maybe a specialist foundry.

5 hours ago, VitesseEFI said:

Quite a lot of modern Euro stuff has camshafts lobes that are either shrunk fit or have a hollow shaft hydro-formed under them. The lobes occasionally move - bad things happen. Destruction. General mayhem. Shrapnel….

Some time back, talking to my local camshaft regrinder - who has a contract with Cosworth USA for "import" cams - I was told that 90% of the cast iron blanks come from Turkey. I'm wondering if the fairly recent quakes there have affected the supply to the point where manufacturers are now using alternatives to CI.

I bought mine as a 2l petrol converted to a camper. Ripped out the bunks etc but kept the lining and the PC Cresta diff. After one extremely expensive trip to Teretonga where we had a headwind all the way and had blown our fuel budget by Gore it got the LD28 conversion. An outfit in Waterloo Rd ChCh did it. They were doing one LD conversion a week at that time. When I went to pick it up I was met by a mate from speedway who'd already driven it and raved about how quick it was compared to the others they'd done. Told them what the diff was.

It would cruise at 115k with two bikes on board. Never did find out absolute top whack as over 120k it was still accelerating - but very slowly. Went to most NZ race circuits in the following 5 years Puke to Teretonga. Had to keep it on 13in rims as 14's would have geared it too tall. Bit hard on rear tyres - rolled one off the rim running fast and empty once.  Rust killed it ultimately. Far as i know it's now a mobile shed on a farm around Waddington.

The wife loved it. She dragged off a Porsche once. Nail it hard and the left front got very light.

From my experience I'd look hard at a taller diff than standard. But also fit bigger rims. They've got enough torque to pull something taller.

Sprint car and midget full width axles simply have a shrunk on flange for the final drive. It'd be easy enough to scotch key your setup if you wanted belt and braces.

Exhaust box....An empty tube - say 4inOD 1.6mm wall. Across the back of the car. Your two sides discharging into it straight in 90deg to CL.  Discharge pipes from each end. 1 1/2in OD. Length inside box to be perf tube same 1 1/2in OD. Close/blank off  the inner ends of this and make them overlap with a figure 8 support in the center of the box.  90 deg bends outside the main tube for the discharge pipes to point them out the back.

This will work - and not be too noisy.

Yeah. Looks like it may be the bolt on the end of the crank which fails. That's judging by the pics as i can't open the parts fische. In my experience those are usually a dry loctite coated HT bolt which is often put in on the line using a pneumatic tool. Very easy to overtorque I'd think.

I once had a GS1000 in the shop which had never been opened from new. I finished up using a 2ft long bar with another 3ft piece of tube over that to get the alternator retaining bolt on the crank end undone. 12mm fine thread and way overtightened.

I'd doubt if there's any offset on the bores. Very rare on flat engines.

13 hours ago, tortron said:

I have gn125d and an125d all up and down. It's not thaaaaaaat bad

ChCh to Timaru is now trucks,trucks,trucks. And not wide.

Talk to WWS about respoking in a heavier gauge spoke. If you're going to do more of this riding.

If it's straight down SH1 it's a good way to get killed on 125's.

There's an old trick for endurance races/runs where you wire each pair of spokes together where they cross. If you do break one it's not going to get caught up in anything and do damage.

Changing the cams direction of rotation is only the start - and probably the easiest bit. Plus it's probably one of the ones affected by the recall.    Honda haven't come up with a fix for the bolt breaking yet. The head gets stuck in the gearbox and locks everything up solid - which can and often does break the cases.

You need an NPD in the area. 100 octane at the pump through the SI and i hear now some in the NI.

But conversely, methanol and E100 ethanol is quite hard to get down here now. I've been supposed to write a remit allowing E100 in the bike classes that allow methanol because if you can't get one you should be able to get the other. Should really get round to it.

Edit - Looks like Otara is as far north as they go. Email them and tell them there's a demand in the far north.

You appear to have dodged a bullet. 2018 and later goldwing engines have developed a fault and there's a recall.  Two faults actually. Late fuel pump rotor disintegrates/swells up and seizes. And a LH thread torque to yeild bolt in the gearbox breaks and locks everything solid. Late 6 speed and semi auto boxes. Info on the goldwing forum.