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I was looking for help, myself, and found this web sight. I can offer you a lot of practical advice as I have had and run British bikes since the early 70's, most of which is Norton related. I was editor of Triple Echo, the magazine for the BSA Rocket-3/Tri.-Trident owners' club for over ten years, as well as being an active member of the BSA club and Norton Oweners' Club. As editor, I had to write articles and do the research in order to have a club mag and answer question. We had two great tech advisors as well as guys in the other two clubs helping out. I scrounged up a complete set of factory service bulletins (tech sheets) for all Triumphs and BSA's, from about 1956 to the very end, which became our club library. If it can go wrong, I can probably find a reference to it, somewhere, and at the worst, refer you to someone who can.
As to the problems in your posting: I have had both personal experience on both, as well as having a copies of Norton News in hand that address them. I was on a camping trip, with a friend, and getting ready to set up camp...I was on my Commando and my friend was on my Trident. As we approached the camp site in the dark, there was a big bang and my motor died. Running without battery I had to wait until my friend came back for me to shine light on my problem. I thought I'd blown her up. Light revealed that the exhaust lock ring had loosened and eventually fallen loose, blowing the pipe out of the head. There are several fixes, all of which work to some extent, one of which I consider to be the only way to go. 1). They had chromed lock washers which will work. They have two tabs sticking off of each side of the ring, which goes over the pipe and behind the screw in lock/heat ring. You bend the tabs into the head fins on one end and into the lock ring fins on the other. The problem with these is that you can never get them to fit snugg. they may stop the ring from unscrewing, but they will always be loose and vibrating around. As my bike was specially finished with a heat/decorative coating, wiggling/vibrating lock washers was less than the best.
2).The official story from Brian Slark, Norton tech advisor...and his word is absolute law, trust me...is that if the heat/lock ring is sufficiently tightened, like any other torqued thread, it can't come loose. If this is not so, why are there so many guys with stripped threads and shops offering to weld up and rethread exhaust ports? The answer is simple...not everyone has the proper tool and, even with it, not everyone gets it all tight enough. Brian says to even use a pipe to extend the wrench, if you have to. The official factory tool is short and designed to be used with some kind of extension. Some, like the one I have, are sufficiently long for the job. Brian says that if the threads are in good shape it is impossible to strip them. When the rings are loose, the vibration quickly tears the aluminum head to hell. No wonder the threads strip. You should use Never Sieze, or equivalent heat proof paste/goop, on the threads and a new insulating gasket/washer (mine were asbestos filled copper) and fully tighten the rings. The only problem here is that it can be scary to crank on them hard enough, without worrying that you will screw them up. I came up with a failsafe and easy way to do it...on my wedding day, after my car broke down, the Norton was our only transportation. After the wedding, the cause of the oil dribble was discovered to be looening engine mounting bolts as well as casse bolts. The oil was leacked out from between the cases. I tried to do it again, on bolt at a time, with lock-tight, but it was clear that it wouldn't work any better this time. Having just written an article on safety wiring, I took each nut and bolt out of the mounts, one at a time, put them in a vice and drilled the heads for safety wire. In a couple of hours everything was fixed and we went to our dinne in style. The third solution 3). Brian's advice for wrenching the rings tight is good, but we found that personal interpretations of "tight enough" is variaabale. Inevitably, some will still come loose, as well as there being a few guys with threads that need a bit of work-not bad enough to fix, but not good enough to really tighten down on. I found that safety wiring is easy, it works, looks really cool, as well as being a perfect backup for properly tightened rings. I used a drill of less than 1/16" and .032 safety wire. I drilled a hole in a head fin on each side and holes in a fin on each lock ring...after it was fully tightened. You don't need special safety wire pliers (spinners) to do the job. In fact, I learned from an couple of official U.S.Air Force tech sheets that I got from jet mechanic buddy. He learned it in the Air Force and was taught it from the basic posture...twisting the wires, for the most part, by hand and then finishing them off with something like duk billed pliers. The two pairs given to me were "liberated" by a couple of friends from the navy (jets) and the army (choppers). They retailed for about $65 20 years ago, but J.C.Whitney sells clones for unde $20. Yet, in all honesty, unless you are good with spinners, you can do better looking, cleaner work with your hands and pliers. It's so easy to do...and looks so cool...that it's just not worth it, for me, to take a chance of a dangerous breakdown while on a trip, or at high speed.
A problem a lot of guys have had (including me) is getting bad advice from guys who don't have a clue. Not having the right tool...which I didn't know existed...I asked the professinal mechanic, from whom I'd bought the bike, how to get the rings tight. He was as idiot and simply knew nothing. As he didn't really know, he recommended using a wood block and hammer to whack the rings tight. If my simple "down pipes" (baffles, no mufflers) had blown out at speed, I could have been killed...as the pipe swung down, hinged to the bottom engine mounts it could have vaulted me skywards if it had hit the highway. Fortunately I was virtually stopped. There is only one way to tighten the rings...you must use a proper tool, either factory or aftermarket. If you do not need to carry a tool kit, I recommend the full sized type. Should you need to have a portaable version, the factory shorty type is just as good, provided you can put some kind of extension on it. As this requires carrying a tube, I recommend the full sized tool, left at home and safety wire to back it up.
If you have access to some metal working tools (such as a band saw) and are not too wealthy, you can make your own. The Norton Tech Digest should have a pattern. Mine is steel and cut from about 1/4" thick stock. I on't see any reason why you couldn't use 1/4" plate aluminum. It's easier to work/cut and easier to get. The local scrap yard, here, sells aluminum for 85 cents/pound and has at lest 100 square yards of 1/4" plate just lying around, with probably more than one piece almost the exact size you need. Of course, if you have a decent job, you should support your local dealer. The guys in the business of selling Norton stuff need all the help they can get. If you are strapped and cannot find a tool or patter, let me know and I can trace mine out on paper for you.
As to the kicker hitting the exhaust: there are two possibilities. 1). The obvious...you have an after market exhaust, maybe a 2 into 1, like I have been using. I had to take a little hammer and indent the muffler for the kicker to pass...and even them, it still rubbed. Now, I got the exhaust off of a bike I bought for a spare. On that bike the kicker cleared...barely! The kicker arms are, like everything human, subject to a little varieation, but they can be bent...heavy rider, wrecks, etc. You could try straightening the kicker arm a bit, but be careful to make sure it's a warpage, rather than being loose. Not pretty, but you could take the kicker off and mount it between two non chrome-scrathing bases, such as appropriately sized wood blocks, then beat the bastard with a big hammer. You have to careful to not change the shape beyond the stock radius, otherwise the kicker pedal will not be parallel with the ground, nor follow the arc of its stroke.
Kicker pedals are another problem and, just as with the exhaust heat/lock rings, they are often the result of insufficient tightening. If the kicker arm is properly tightened, it should not come loose. Unfortunately, so many riders tighten some things to excess, and so many other too little.
The official story on kicker pedals is that they need to be kept sufficiently tight. Unfortunately, the message doesn't always get around in the right way. My suggestion is to solve this by Archemedian logic...Archemedes was probably the greatest scientist in history. The Archemedian technique: figure it out by measurement and logic, The ultimate evolution of this logic is the Brian Slark technique, which I teach in my classes...I camae up with the idea so I can call it what I want. Brian, in trying to talk me though understanding the engine mounts, by phone, told me (as he always does) to simply take it off of the bike, put it on your work bench and do everything you can to figure it out. On the bench, the part is isolated and much easier to comprehend. Applying both the logics of Archemedes and Brian, my suggestion is to observe the kicker pedal while on the bike. If the arm is bent, it will not be parallel with the ground at the top of the stroke. It is important to be sure that the splines on the kicker are clean and undamaged. You should use never-sieze (or equivalent)on the bolt threads, and make sure the bolt is properly tight...but no more.
I hope that I have shed some light on your problems. If I can answer any questions, feel free to contact me.
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