Longstroke camshaft

[vinver]

Well, today's mail brought treasure in the form of a 67-695 cam and bits of Longstroke engine off e-bay. Was described as Plunger A7/A10 parts and I was the lone bidder. Postage nearly matched bid price, and while worn, the cam is not bad, suitable for a core to send to Newman.
 
Will update as I go along to see what Newman can do for me.

[Craig]

Morning

Yes Newman cams did rework my spare cam shaft.

BSA A7 Cam Grind and Heat Treat @ GBP45
BSA A7 Cam Followers Grind H/Treat @GBP17.50 each = GBP70.00

Service was great and work looks good. I have not had chance to fit it to bike yet (gathering the necessary for complete bottom end rebuild) so don;t know about fit and performance yet.

Craig

[vinver]

My e-bay find has more wear than expected, and may be too far worn for Newman to regrind (accordning to specs on their website) . May have to plunge for a new one.   

[Swarfcut]

I ended up with most of a Longstoke motor a couple of years ago with an eBay job lot purchase. The camshaft was missing, and about 18months ago thought I'd struck lucky with what looked like an unworn and unused camshaft, once more on eBay.

  Put it in the cases and it locked solid. Put it in the lathe and it was clearly bowed. Thanks to the eBay money back guarantee, got a full refund, so I had one to be used as a possible pattern for Newmans.

 This has all changed with the advent of the Hepolite/Wassell A7 Camshaft. This looks like a marketing 100% screw up. Ordering an A7 cam will get you this up to now rare item, rather than the more widely required 67 334. Reckon there will be more than a few gathering dust....I'm waiting for the fire sale, the demand can't be high and at present price levels I'm out of the market.  Oddly enough new old stock followers seem to be available from time to time, and you can see why the design is flawed, simply highly loaded, poorly lubricated.

 Swarfy.

 Additional. May have posted this story before, but revisited on new member Stuie's Longstroke prompt.

[Tomcat]

 This has all changed with the advent of the Hepolite/Wassell A7 Camshaft. This looks like a marketing 100% screw up. Ordering an A7 cam will get you this up to now rare item, rather than the more widely required 67 334. Reckon there will be more than a few gathering dust....I'm waiting for the fire sale, the demand can't be high and at present price levels I'm out of the market.

Thanks for this info Swarfy, everyday is a school day! I would imagine demand for these camshafts will be low, but every Longstroke restorer needs a new camshaft. For anyone that is interested, Feked have them for 150 pounds.

[Swarfcut]

 Yup, precious metal indeed, supported by that ever reliable brand. Newman's would be my choice, just down the road in leafy Orpington, Kent.

 Swarfy.

[Happyhenry]

I'm at a bit of a crossroad while rebuilding a long stroke engine to put into a rigid frame that I've obtained.

I have a really badly worn camshaft, on which the original profile can still be seen due to the off-centre wear of the followers, a set of NOS followers and a new Hepolite/Wassell camshaft.

I'm wary of the hardness of the Hepolite/Wassell camshaft and very wary of the NOS BSA followers, so I'm going to send all three (old, new and NOS) to Newman with a view to ending up with the best wearing set that I can reasonably obtain, be it either a new Newman camshaft or a hardness-checked/corrected Hepolite/Wassell, with re-hardened NOS followers to match the camshaft.

The way that I look at it, given all of the time and effort that I'm expending on a complete, from scratch and a pile of bits, bike build makes it worth spending a little more on the weakest part of the entire engine.

Plus I've probably got enough parts to build a spare bottom end of even a complete engine using what's left.

[chaterlea25]

Hi All,
I just saw these NOS long stroke followers on ebay,

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BSA-A7-Rigid-Frame-Cam-Followers-Genuine-Parts-Never-Been-Used/274599946677?hash=item3fef6ea9b5:g:y~QAAOSwf3BeNJ5P

John

[Happyhenry]

Hi All,
I just saw these NOS long stroke followers on ebay,

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BSA-A7-Rigid-Frame-Cam-Followers-Genuine-Parts-Never-Been-Used/274599946677?hash=item3fef6ea9b5:g:y~QAAOSwf3BeNJ5P

John

Yep John,
They crop up surprisingly frequently - there must be a reason why BSA made so many, and the parts stockists held so many through the 1950s and 1960s.
They must be discovered every now and again like hoards of Saxon coin. The finders release them into the market in small batches; soon after one set sells another mysteriously appears.
Supply and demand dictates price, and there is definitely a finite supply...but nobody knows how big it is...
H

[Happyhenry]

Yup, precious metal indeed, supported by that ever reliable brand. Newman's would be my choice, just down the road in leafy Orpington, Kent.

 Swarfy.

Well, there's a turn up for the books!

I sent my worn out camshaft, my new Hepolite/Wassells camshaft and my NOS followers to Ken Newman for assessment and advice.

It turns out that my new Hepolite/Wassells camshaft was actually made by Newman's for Wassells! It is one of theirs.

Apparently, they used to be sourced from Taiwan, but are now made by Newman's and they are standard lift camshafts. My old camshaft is a high-lift one and Newman's can and do make these too - in fact I've ordered one.

Ken Newman thought that the NOS followers would be fine as they would have been made/hardened using high carbon content, which is now found to be carcinogenic and is banned. That might explain why the followers have eaten into the old camshaft more that the camshaft has worn the followers?

[RDfella]

Carbon is now carcinogenic????  Life could not exist without carbon. Have the environment do-gooders completely lost their marbles?

[trevinoz]

I didn't know that there was such a thing as a high lift camshaft for the long stroke engine.
I certainly have never seen one.

[Happyhenry]

Carbon is now carcinogenic????  Life could not exist without carbon. Have the environment do-gooders completely lost their marbles?

Yes, I always understood us to be carbon-based life forms.

I may have misunderstood the explanation that Ken Newman was giving me, which could have been carburizing which involves cyanide. Whatever the hardening process was used isn't allowed/used now because it was bad.

 

[Happyhenry]

I didn't know that there was such a thing as a high lift camshaft for the long stroke engine.
I certainly have never seen one.

Neither had I. I'm just repeating what the camshaft manufacturer told me over the telephone when he had the camshaft that he had made for Hepolite in one hand and the worn camshaft that I had sent him in his other hand.
He said that the batch that he had made for Hepolite were 'standard lift' cams and that the worn one that I had sent him (on which you can still see the original profile because only part of the lobes are worn) is a 'high lift' camshaft.
He said that he was making one for somebody else with his last blank, but would make another small batch of blanks and make one for me too. We'll see when he compares my worn one with the one that he's currently making.
I never got to the bottom of why Wassells / Hepolite commissioned him to make a batch of long stroke camshafts in the first place, but that doesn't really matter to us, since they have done - hooray!

[Swarfcut]

    Two Camshafts are listed.  67 690 is an early profile, used up to Engine XA7 600.  After this the design was revised, split big end conrods, conventional crankshaft, minor detail changes to crankcase and timing covers. Camshaft 67 695 is fitted from now, 1948 model year.

 Looks like my estimation of Hepolite quality was misjudged in this case, or maybe Wa**e** executives are seeing sense at last. Mystery as to why a batch was commissioned, the demand must be low, but having said that it's chickens and eggs.....Can't get a runner, no camshaft, says the restorer. No demand, no call for this old part says the supplier. By good luck or ill looks like a good few more Longstokes may ride again.

 Thanks to Julian for posting the parts books in the Forum Literature Section.  Longstroke Owners can spend many happy hours looking at the pictures, and seeing which later parts can be used on these early bikes.

 Swarfy.