Dominator rebuild

Starting a rebuild of the old faithfull Norton 600 (circa 1960) so any
pearls of wisdom would be appreciated ! Do's & don'ts ?

 

It would be worth your while joining a forum like,

http://www.britbike.com/ubb/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/category/1.html

HTH

 

Do buy a cheap 35mm compact camera with reasonable lens, or, as Morgan are
doing an SLR for £50 one of them.

Do photograph each stage of dismantling.

Do get lots of large ice cream tubs or tupperware tubs.

Do get a cheap parts washer, a gallon of paraffin and some cheap
paintbrushes.

Do clean the bike before you start and clean each and every component as it
comes off the bike.

Do label everything.

Do store components in the aforementioned tubs.

Do sketch out the wiring if it is non-standard, ie, generator or ignition
upgrades over the years.

Do make a note of things like how many turns a carb jet screw took to seat
fully.

Do work in as clean an environment as possible.

Do stock up on things like lithium grease, copper grease, moly grease,
hylomar blue, hylomar red and STP engine assembly grease [1], threadlock,
Duck oil and that stuff whose name I forget, but is excellent for freeing
off stuck fasteners.

Do make certain you have A/F, Whitworth and Metric sockets, open end and
ring spanners.

Do use a torque wrench during reassembly and retorque to the values given in
the manual.

Do buy latex or poly gloves to keep the crud off the skin and get some
decent hand cleaner.

Don't take short cuts or adopt a that'll do attitude.

Don't assemble dirty components.

Don't skimp.

Take your time and enjoy doing it.

HTH

 

You have had some good tips from other posters - my goal with Brits is to
keep them oil tight so here are a couple of my tip:

Before starting to re-assemble make sure all burrs are removed from mating
faces, then get a countersink tool and lightly countersink the all bolt and
stud holes where they mate to another surface.

Secondly - primary chain cases tend to leak when they have oil in them so
skip the oil! Sounds drastic but a little bit of chain saw oil on the chain
is every bit as good as a couple of pints of 20/50 and as long as you re
lube every 200 miles you should have no problems.

Two other things also spring to mind, Roadholder fork leg castings are very
fragile so don't drop them! Also check for rust around the bottom of the
rear frame tubes behind/below the gearbox - they can rust from the inside
out and are always over looked.

 

Actually, I'd rather recommend a digital camera - a decent compact
doesn't cost that much and the OP can take as many pictures as his
harddisk holds for pretty much zero cost.

Very sound advice, that.

 

Theres nothing like having a 5x7 photo to compare with and a copy in the box
of bits it refers to.

Digital does have cost advantages, especially in terms of number of
photographs taken. The ability to enlarge on demand is something else I
hadn't considered until now.

I thought that when first given to me.

 

Thus spake Moon Badger () unto the assembled multitudes:

Excuse me, but why not print your digital images from your computer? You
can print it at almost any size you like. Either that or rig up a TV in
your workshop and connect your digicamera to the telly for instant
slide-show capability. It's really hard to think of *any* advantages film
offers over digital photography now, but the advantages of digital over film
could create a list as long as your arm.

 

Higher res for colour transparencies. Still.

 

Especially from medium format.

 

Higher res for colour transparencies. Still.[/QUOTE]

Cool. So with my old SLR I could take really high-resolution
camera-shake, then?

 

Larger contrast range & density as well, especially negative film but
even transparencies.

 

Cool. So with my old SLR I could take really high-resolution
camera-shake, then?[/QUOTE]

If you're taking pictures of stuff that isn't moving, put the thing on a
decent tripod. A good trick is to use the timer: as soon as the shutter
release is pressed, the mirror flips up. Then there's a few seconds for the
vibrations from the mirror to die away before the shutter operates.

 

So *that's* what the mirror-holdy-open-thingy was for.

I did buy a rather cheap plasticy tripod for night shots, along with
a remote cable. It did help a bit.

Since I bought a fairly average digital camera a couple of years ago,
TBH I haven't used the SLR once. In fact, I'm not sure if it hasn't
still got the last film in it.

A former G/F has a Lubitel TLR larg(er) format camera: dirt cheap and
fiddly to use but oddly rewarding.

 

Thus spake The Older Gentleman () unto the assembled multitudes:

Yebbut only if you want to blow them right up or project them onto the side
of a building. Your everyday prints are just as good as those from film.

 

Thus spake Timo Geusch () unto the assembled multitudes:

<John Cleese in Life of Brian>
Right, so apart from higher res (still) from colour transperencies
(especially medium format), and larger contrast range & density as well,
especially negative film but even transparencies, *what* advantages if any
does film offer over digital...?
</John Cleese>

;-)

 

Infra-red film
Compressing the tonal range, Zone system and other stuff needing manual
exposure control and tricksy developing
Camera movements

Admittedly some of these are advantages of film cameras rather than film per
se, but that's what you get with film. Plus you get enormous flexibility in
format, especially in the larger sizes. Just in 120 sizes, you can have
6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, 6x12 and 6x17. A 6x9cm image has the same proportions
as a standard 35mm frame, but more than six times the area. If that's not
sharp enough, large format cameras start with quarter-plate (5x4in) and go
up to 14x11in and beyond. Of course, with any cut-film format, you go
through acres of film, but who can deny the temptation to cut loose with a
decent view camera?

http://www.jafaphotography.com/combo.htm

 

I've shot the same subject with 35mm and 6x6cm, and even printed at
approximately the same size, the difference in quality is stark.

 

Erm, when it comes to print quality, for magazines and suchlike, I'd say
not.

A decent digi will produce reasonable, even good, magazine quality
images, up to a certain size. A good digi SLR will produce good to
excellent quality ditto, bigger. You want really good, you want colour
transparency film.

 

Thus spake The Older Gentleman () unto the assembled multitudes:

I accept that colour transparency takes a lot of beating at the moment, but
I've had a Nikon D70 digital SLR since July last year and I'm delighted
with the results. I'm not talking about being Patrick Lichfield (who
incidentally said in an interview shortly before his death that he had been
using digital cameras *exclusively* for years...but then he did have the
dosh for the very best), but for sheer ease of use, economy of resources
and acceptability of results for 'everyday' photography I won't be going
back to film.

 

same here - I ended up flogging all my SLR stuff on eBay rather than leave
it gathering dust.