Meteor steering.

[roy the mechanic]

Road tested the meteor after some work. The steering dose not inspire confidence, feels like maybe the head bearings are too tight. I adjusted them to give just a touch of slack, pumped up the front tyre to30 lbs, it still feels like the front tyre is resting on a ball,impossible to ride in a straight line. I have noted that the handlebar mounts graze the top of the fuel tank. Before I blindly pull the front-end to bits, any suggestions will be gratefully received.

 

[Simon Dinsdale]

Roy
Post a photo of the handlebars and their mounts. There was two types of handlebar mounts and the most common one fit vertically and use the typical "Vincent straights" type handlebars which mount in front of the steering damper.
The earlier type the handlebar mounts point backwards and the handlebars should be more of a shape used by other manufacturers (not straight) and these mount behind the steering damper and bend forward. Get the wrong bars on the wrong mountings can alter the geometry to the rider.

The change was sometime in late 1935 I believe.

Simon

 

[A_HRD]

Roy,
Are you able to post a photo of your forks/handlebars from the side and front so we can see if there's anything amiss visually?
Also, what type of steering-head bearings did you use? The cup-on-cup original type, modified post-war ones or taper rollers?
Peter B

 

[roy the mechanic]

Thanks guys, photos this evening when my boy gets home. Head bearings unknown, I'm just the idiot trying to sort-out the agravation from the previous builder. From the look,he would have been better to mess with bricks+such. Oiling bothers sorted by rebuilding the oil pump and fitting a restrictor to the top end fixed the inevitable leaks.

 

[ossie]

Roy does the comet have that peg in the underside to locate the damper assembly and is it loose in the frame hole as it should be people sometimes thread it to fix it tight ,it should be loose that can causes serious slow speed problems.

 

[roy the mechanic]

Pictures as requested:

 

[Simon Dinsdale]

They look the correct handlebar mountings for the handlebars fitted so that is not the problem.
Simon

 

[greg brillus]

Sounds like something wrong with the head bearings.........Possibly someone has installed one too many balls in the upper or lower race, easily done. I had a touring Shadow recently for some major work, upon a road test I found it was extremely dangerous to ride at low speed, felt like the front end wanted to either under or over steer on slow corners.........Turned out to be the lower head race was in crooked by 2mm from side to side, I removed the race de-burred the broach marks, reinstalled the race correctly.........steering returned to perfect......Good luck with it Roy........Cheers.......... Greg.

 

[John Reynolds]

Have you checked the length of the top links? For solo use they should be 3 3/8 inches; sidecar ones are 3 inches.

 

[A_HRD]

Ossie, Re: #5. We're talking Series A here so the fixed damper-plate is fixed tightly on the Bramptons.

Roy, I'm with Greg on this one - something must be amiss with steering head bearings? Or, you could get some penetrating oil into the fork-spindles; if any are locked-up they can do weird things to the steering...

You'll probably find that the bolts on the handlebar raiser clamps hit the tank on full lock. Put the bolts in from the front and use a thin nut (no washer) at the rear. And/Or a thinner tank rubber. This can help.

Lots more tips and info/photos in "Back to 'A'" (Chp 4 - Forks) - only £29-50 from the VOCSC.

Peter B