Not for the squeamish....

[Black Flash]

Hello Tom,
Looks like you have done a great job. If you treat the bike as it was treated the last 60 years you should have piece of mind for the next decades. Also with the modern oil forming less sludge and a working oilfilter you can tick a box and never need to look back.
That is if you don't use alloy idler.
Congratulations
Bernd

 

[tatty500]

Oh dear come chaps cheer up!

Tom,


At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to teach grandmothers to suck eggs.....if that is a crack in the return pipe the tank will drain any oil above that level via the rocker feeds into the crankcases. Looks like it is higher than the shelf so maybe keep the oil level just covering the shelf.

And....later on, don't look in the tank and decide to fill it after its been standing a long time... it makes an awful mess when the crankcases empty after starting up.

Regards

Tatty

 

[Simon Dinsdale]

Tom
Out of curiosity, what endoscope did you buy? If it reaches right down the back of the oil tank, it could be used for looking inside cylinders through the plug hole and looking inside primary chaincases. Could be useful.

 

[Tom Walker]

Hello Tom,
Looks like you have done a great job. If you treat the bike as it was treated the last 60 years you should have piece of mind for the next decades. Also with the modern oil forming less sludge and a working oilfilter you can tick a box and never need to look back.
That is if you don't use alloy idler.
Congratulations
Bernd

Thanks Bernd.
It will be easier in the long run to clean it little and often. Even once every two years would be better than nothing.
But it is not a great piece of design is it?
Tom.

 

[Tom Walker]

Tom,


At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to teach grandmothers to suck eggs.....if that is a crack in the return pipe the tank will drain any oil above that level via the rocker feeds into the crankcases. Looks like it is higher than the shelf so maybe keep the oil level just covering the shelf.

And....later on, don't look in the tank and decide to fill it after its been standing a long time... it makes an awful mess when the crankcases empty after starting up.

Regards

Tatty

Dont worry about that Tatty I need all the advice I can get!
You are dead right, I need to see if I can diagnose whether that really is a crack.
Mind you, I ve no idea how to fix it, because I think it is right round the corner from the filler.
Cheers Tom.

 

[Tom Walker]

Tom
Out of curiosity, what endoscope did you buy? If it reaches right down the back of the oil tank, it could be used for looking inside cylinders through the plug hole and looking inside primary chaincases. Could be useful.

Vin998,

It is my brothers, but he bought it recently on Amazon.

There are many out there, some costing a few quid, but he did his research, and went for this one. I think it was just over £100. The head is very small, 5mm?, and illuminated by tiny LEDs which are actually implanted round the lens. The cable is stiff /flexible if you know what I mean, so can be formed into a shape with quite a tight radius, and holds the shape. The cable is 3 metres long.
It takes stills and video, and you can see the quality. Has a good hand set with colour screen. Buttons for rotate image, zoom, and illumination control and other things. The focus is quite narrow, prob 1" to 3".
I found the LED illumination (which has 3 intensity settings and also "off") has a drawback in that if the object is at all reflective it "dazzles" the lens. So to take half decent shots in the tank, I used my 5W inspection bulb on a cable, which did a good job. The quality in the Vincent bore was disappointing, I was trying to see if the bores are in good shape, but could nt see well enough. But I didnt have much time, so maybe that is a bad test. My inspection bulb wont go in a 14mm plug hole, I need to rig up a gauge ligth or something.
Otherwise it seems a good thing. Oh and it has rechargeable batteries (off USB, cable included) and comes with a 8GB micro sd card.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01JLTTKB0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

cheers Tom.

 

[Vince Farrell]

Cyborg
do you need the housing? I cant really see it does much. That low hole gives me the heebies.

I have an early 'B' UFM with no housing at all and also heard of others, maybe it was added on later tanks to protect the mesh filter? With some of the methods used to clean out the crud, if the part was left in situ it would need it! Most of the sludge it tanks has probably been sat in there from 'the old days' and just got harder causing no harm. Introducing modern oil with detergent is the game changer, softens it up and starts to flow through the system. A spotless tank using oil containing additive's should be fine for many years.

Vince Farrell

 

[vibrac]

I would steer clear of modern oils they are too slippery and not suited to seventy year old engines I do think you are over thinking the oil situation just consider for the moment Tony Rose 100,000 miles without a strip down Filtrate oil (non detergent) frequent changes and a delicate hand for the first 15 miles from cold and sensible rev ranges that was his formula. BMW and Triumph Twins are just two other engines from 1950-60 with horror stories about detergent oils

 

[timetraveller]

I'm not sure that Filtrate was 'non detergent' I had a long talk to Ted Hampshire when he was their rep and he told me that the development went something like this. They wanted to make a viscostatic oil. To do this they introduced a 'varnish' which is non lubricating. To get round that they had to introduced graphite but to keep it in suspension they needed to make it with some detergent characteristics. Certainly putting Filtrate in to a Vin was sure to lead to increase oil leaks. Whether that was because the oil was thinner or because is was cleaning up inside surface is anyone guess now.

 

[Vince Farrell]

I would steer clear of modern oils they are too slippery and not suited to seventy year old engines I do think you are over thinking the oil situation just consider for the moment Tony Rose 100,000 miles without a strip down Filtrate oil (non detergent) frequent changes and a delicate hand for the first 15 miles from cold and sensible rev ranges that was his formula. BMW and Triumph Twins are just two other engines from 1950-60 with horror stories about detergent oils

I'm not talking synthetic, just 'cooking' 20/50 type stuff. Duckhams was a favourite of many Vincent owners years ago and that contained additive's. I suspect that just about all multi grades available in the UK have them in.

Vince Farrell