W/NG - Dealing with leaks

 Long fast club runs tend to reveals failings in your bike, especially when 'given the beans' by other riders. You know who you are! The oil leaks that have plagued the W/NG really made themselves felt on the 87 mile run around Norfolk that the VMCC Blakeney Run entailed. It was clear that the oil was coming from the top end, but I wasn't sure if it was the decompressor, the rocker box gaskets or the cylinder head bolts.

Having spent some resealing the decompressor recently, I removed the rocker boxes to take a look revealing that the existing aluminium gaskets did not fit at all well:

 I resolved to make some new gaskets.

I made these from Flexitallic pink gasket sheet, which I think is rated to 350°C. I made the gasket a bit wider than the aluminium one, to make sure it covered the whole joint. I sealed it in place with Threebond 1215.

Preliminary testing suggests this has sorted most of the problem, but the decompressor is still weeping a bit. I'll have to add some more shims.

Charlie's Shed - Speedometer Cable

For some bizarre reason the speedometer cable on the W/NG broke the other day. It's been there for a couple of thousand miles, but wasn't particularly well lubricated so perhaps that was the reason. I'd not considered repairing a speedo cable before, but there wasn't a replacement available commercially and I needed it for the VMCC run to Blakeney the following weekend, so I decided to attempt a repair.

The first attempt was to use the wonderous TIG set to weld a short length of 4 mm round bar to the end. I filed it square and it looked fine:

I made a little collar out of a bit of 8 mm aluminium round bar and used Araldite to hold it in place:

It lasted 27 miles before it broke in the same place.

Looking at the brand new cable in the Huntmaster, I found that the square drive end of the cable was made in aluminium and crimped to the cable end. I made up a similar fitting in the lathe:

Glued in place, with JB Weld this time, I fitted it to the bike.

I'd also bought a cheap Garmin GPS cycle speedometer, thinking that I'd need one if I ever used the Model A on a club run, which I certainly will do at some point. I'm currently testing the new cable against the Garmin, which reveals that the Chronometric on the W/NG reads about 5% high.