Rocket Gold Flash

[muskrat]

Looking real nice Bill. 3 1/2 years, you got a lot more patience than me. That carrier looks better than pro ones.
Cheers

[alanp]

Bill, looking at your lovely black rocker box reminds me of a picture I saw last year in a classic bike mag of an A10 with black painted timing and primary covers. It had strong hints of the beautiful black casings on Vincents and looked absolutely stunning in contrast with bead blasted engine casings. No doubt the paint was not just a quick lick with an aerosol for durability. It would take a brave man to take the plunge in that direction but if you already have another bike in standard trim, you could take a walk on the dark side with this one! It was a possibility for my RGS rep. but decided I needed to go with the RGS standard.
Cheers
Alan

[MG]

Bill, great project, looking forward to see the bike once it is complete. Love the red on the tool box and oil tank.

[bsa-bill]

Thanks for the setting John, will get a 430 jet in give me a bit of a head start.
Hate to admit it Muskrat but it was on the go before I joined the forum, more like five years .
I have a spare rockerbox Alan, just in case it starts to annoy me, so far I still like it

[bsa-bill]

The issue of the engine being tight to turn over with the kick start got to me today, just had to investigate as I recalled some comment on the forum about someone having to relieve some alloy from the camshaft through after fitting a 357 cam.
Although little resistance could be felt turning it over with a socket on the drive end of the crank ( with a breaker bar ) the kickstart would still seem to go solid at a certain point, removing the primary chain resulted in the kickstart spinning the clutch effortlessly mmmm
Visualizing cams gauging channels in the camshaft trough I though it prudent to strip it down, remove the idler gear and see how the camshaft spun, although I can't think that I would have missed anything like that when I built it up, more mmmm
First thing was to remove the dynamo drive, a belt drive I installed, interesting it had been digging in to the inner and out timing cases, probably would have made a road for itself in time but also produce a lot of swarf that would do the belt no good at all.
So a little job for the dremmel tomorrow.
On the bright side the camshaft seems free to turn, I'm thinking the gearing from the kickstart to crank is fairly high, very small kickstart pinion to clutch wheel will make it tough to turn but it does still go almost solid, think I need to look at the kickstart itself, could be jamming somehow when extra load put on it.
Other issues this week - four throttle cable, not one correct, had to find the nearest and cut some outer off to get full throttle travel, shart air cable the same.
Also I have  Siamese  pipes to fit, but they are too tight , won't go in the Alloy head, tried an ordinary down pipe, it's the same, the head has been vapour blasted would this  reduce the size of the hole for the pipes in the head by roughing it up a bit?
I'm a bit wary of using a dremmel in there in case I end up with them slack, is it usual for Alloy heads to be difficult to fit pipes into???
Any comments welcome guys

[MG]

Bill, I also had problems fitting the new pipes to the head after chromeing. An air grinder with a flap wheel, a bit larger in diameter than the pipe itself, did the job.

Cheers

[bsa-bill]

Cheers MG, I have some flap wheels, didn't think of them at the time but they would be more gentle/controllable.
Probably now would be a good time to do it as the heads off

[chaterlea25]

Hi Bill
The usual problem with the alloy heads is that the pipes are loose!!!!
I'm having a guess here !! are the ends of the pipes out of round? probably from the bending process??
Try fitting the silencer end into the port for size??
I have used pipe expanders to get the pipe circular and tight in the head
do some measuring with a caliper and see if the pipes are circular and the right size
HTH
John O R

[bsa-bill]

The reason the engine was so tight to turn over appears to be down to the dynamo belt drive, the large pulley circumference had gouged out grooves  the inner and the outer timing case, also the inner edge of the pulley had marked the boss that forms the oil hole for the idler gear shaft in the inner cover case.
The latter probable due to the taper in the pulley being to large, the marks made by the outer edge of the pulley are harder to explain as with the pulley replaced the edge is some way off the webs in the cases.
Anyway I've tidied up the cases, the pulley taper is shot, perhaps it was like this when I fitted it and I failed to notice.
To be fair to SRM I should point out that I bought this belt drive second hand but supposedly unused, it did look as if it had never been on but there you go , buyer beware, the trouble with a project like this that has taken so long (5 years or more, mainly due to work)  that it can be a long time between purchase of parts and fitting them.
On the plus side I can now turn the engine over with the kickstart by hand ( plugs out of course ) 

[bsa-bill]

Fired it up today, sounds sweet and seems to run pretty even, pretty stiff to kick over and spits back a bit, will play with points gap sometime
A few issues to remedy
Siamese pipes don't fit as well as would like, both pipes were off round and needed a bit of rubber hammer work, the short pipe seems a fair bit slack where it slide into the main pipe and the finned collar on the short pipe sits at an angle to the head.
I may have to grind some metal off the back of one side and the front of the other to get it to sit right, and I'll need to make up a bracket to fasten the main pipe to the down tube or somewhere, any body done this?
The Siamese pipes run into a Goldie type silencer, does sound good.
Jobs still to do - gear lever to fit, I seem to have lost the pinch bolt??? - pilot light ( not required I think ) - speedo light to find and fit, it's not an original and just has a hole (without threaded bit), possibly a rubber grommet of some type needed or pilot light from a headlamp lens might snap in there.

If time allows tomorrow I'll sort out some pics

[flashblack]

Hi Bill, good to hear it runs!  I had the same problems as you with the exhaust pipe fit, i had to remove a bit of metal from the inside of the cooling ring but it still doesn`t fit quite right 
Here`s a pic of the bracket i made up from some stainless bar- just one 90 degree bend, and one ninety degree twist.
   regards Rich

[bsa-bill]

Hi Rich - My bracket much the same as yours but I didn't need the twist, tab must be welded on at different angle.
I dug out an old finned cooling collar today and it looks like they have a more convex inside so might have fitted better but they are also as black as coal.
Anyway I got the bracket made and fixed , the gear lever on and pillion footrests also found a lucas pilot light with sort of rubber grommet fixing so I reckon it will fit into my speedo.
All went well today until I went to start the bike and have it road tested, despite running so well yesterday it refused to run today, I might have flooded it first time and it did start a few times on full throttle no choke but closing the throttle any amount stopped it.
Only thing I've done is fill up the tank.
there is a spark at the plug but not a great fat one, checked the timing seems ok hasn't moved anyway and it ran yesterday.
Gave up around six, it is still stiff ti kick over and maybe I'm not getting enough of a swing

[bsa-bill]

Was not too impressed with the spark from my maggie ( as stated previous) seems to be a bit fine and def not blue, I plan tomorrow to compare with the spark from my Flash.
Maggie should still be in warranty so might need to send it back or perhaps look at Thorspark, has anybody got one of these installed ?
Other scenarios to explain non running might include sticking valve like Andy's recent problem

My Flash after being rebuilt fired up after about the third kick and never looked back, this is new territory for me

[a101960]

Siamese pipes don't fit as well as would like, both pipes were off round and needed a bit of rubber hammer work, the short pipe seems a fair bit slack where it slide into the main pipe and the finned collar on the short pipe sits at an angle to the head.

I had the same problems as you with the exhaust pipe fit, i had to remove a bit of metal from the inside of the cooling ring but it still doesn`t fit quite right 

Might I ask who supplied your exhaust pipes?

I had those very same problems with a Siamese exhaust system that I bought from a widely advertised supplier. I junked it, I just could not live with it. The boss of the company did not want to know when I complained about the rotten fit. Arrogant is the word that springs to mind. The Siamese system that I got from Cake Street Classics had none of those problems it fitted perfectly. The bends were correct and the rings are flush with the head. Absolutely no filing or relieving was required.  Incidentally (and I am not being a rivet counter honest!) the down pipe should be attached to the frame direct. There should be no intermediate connection piece/pieces. The proper method of attachment is by a welded on strip that is bent at a right angle in order to line up with the frame mounting point. This also ensures that the pipes are correctly aligned.

John

[bsa-bill]

John I think I bought them off a dealer on the dreaded Ebay and would but could  do a bit of digging to find the supplier as most of the parts I bought were pre purchased over a longish period of time.
I believe buying stuff so far ahead was a mistake while it's tempting to go for items if the price is right any warranty can be nigh over by the time you get them fitted.
I will say the chroming on the pipes is first class, I ground a bit off the mouth to get it round and reduced and didn't go through the copper, on the other had I had about three inches to cut off the other end to get the Goldie silencer far enough on, I think both items came from the same source and the silencer is also nicely chromed and looks quality, as do the pipes apart from the fit, makes me wonder if they are for another twin.
There's no way the bracket would fit, too short and straight, once more has me wondering if they are for the right bike?
However with the finished job is solid and secure just the finned ring to sort out.

As an aside I saw my MOT chap today to collect a battery for my Flash and asked about the speedo light, it seems it does not figure in the test at all nor does the speedo ???