All makes sense to me. Not that you should find comfort in that.... I’ve been told I’m a little weird too.Peter, in real life the o-ring rubber hydraulics are just an extra, the fit of the two part rocker bearing is less than one thou play, just a nice push fit. So that fit is just like the factory hoped to achieve with production parts fitted in new engines. I certainly have rocker feed bolts with front diameter going into countersunks in the bearings to position the lot . The o-ring effect just presses any play out to the top of the tunnel, so no fretting should happen.
Definitely I did not want to weaken the rockers in the center part for clearance for feed bolt nuts, not my liking really.
Maybe a misconception: Rubberlike material may appear too soft for purpose but rubber only has soft properties when there is space for deformation. Once all space is taken up by rubber then it behaves like iron, no more give. I could have used bathroom silicone and filled up the o-ring grooves to the top and let it completely cure. After that the grub screws would do the hydraulics even better to lock all up . There is no way to go or disappear for silicone or NBR rubber so I cannot see a problem with this idea but only time can tell. Most likely I will not see any problems in my lifetime in this matter and unlikely after myself there will be somebody in need to care for old engines due to wear. Sorry for being a bit negative , but any optimist is merely somebody with uncomplete information .
Vic
Cyborg, no I'm trying like hell to avoid that! But we'll see. I've been pulled away from the bike for the moment so haven't yet been able to pop off the head and have a look at the cylinder/piston directly. Also I'm trying to do all that I can myself, and I've never done open heart surgery on a crankcase. Taking it apart would be easy, but putting it back together... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Mr. Manxman.... back to your Comet....are you going to just bite the bullet and split the cases? You’re already 1/2 way through the “may as well” curse. Nothing like a clean big end bearing.
..... and why Manxman? Do you happen to own one?