Oil passage from the pump to the filter chamber
- Thread starter johnmead
- Start date
The terrible fact that no one dares address is the fact that the Vincent was not a particularly well made machine. (if it don't fit go over to the bin Harry and find one that slips in) To be fair, the methods were on par with everyone else in England at the
time. Hands full of over and undersize crank gears when one size should do..... boxes of over and undersize rollers to make up a rod fit. (The list does go on you know)
Gee, what if the Vin was constructed in Germany...... I dunno. Anyway, my job was to bring everything into accurate order. Boy, am I going to make people mad.
time. Hands full of over and undersize crank gears when one size should do..... boxes of over and undersize rollers to make up a rod fit. (The list does go on you know)
Gee, what if the Vin was constructed in Germany...... I dunno. Anyway, my job was to bring everything into accurate order. Boy, am I going to make people mad.
Hi there Rip , well i think your comment is largely true, but i guess the same must be said for most other British/ European makes. Surely arfter the war there must have been an abundance of extremely skilled workers, but their downfall would have no doubt been the endless struggle with worn out machinery. I have spent many years rebuilding and restoring old machinery including cars, bikes, aircraft, etc....while the Brits and europeans seemed to make everything small and compact, whereas the Americans made stuff big and heavy, almost over engineered, well we here in Australia followed the lines of the Americans....big and relatively simple, vs the european machinery compact and complicated. And although the Vincent is not a complicated machine by modern standards, it is very much "Hand built" with many such items that big production manufacturers ( Triumph, Norton, BSA ) For example, would not have tolerated....these things we see as refinements, would have been simplified to speed up production. There are many things on a Vincent, i can see as not so much poor design, but more that if they had more time to develope and iron out problems along the way.....Like why didn't they use much bigger cams and followers, and work out how to keep them drowned in oil. This alone would have saved cam / follower failures....why didn't they work out how to lock the rocker bush into the tunnels as we have done now.....why did most early British cars ( and Spitfires ) for that mater, overheat badly here in Australia, when they were fine back home. Some designs work well and some don't...But....whether it's a Morris Minor, a Spitfire, A Vincent, or a 65 "K" code GT Mustang.....Love 'em or hate 'em....they're all beautiful designs....and we are the lucky ones ( Mad / Insane) enough to own / work on them. At least we have an enthuesiastic group of people in little pockets around the world to refine and keep them on the road, not hidden away in Museums....lets keep it that way.........Greg.
Surely the problem is that, instead of throwing these machines away and buying the latest model, we expect them to survive for decades longer than their design life. I am sure that the manufacturer would have preferred to sell every buyer a new machine after a couple of years in the way that current vehicle producers do. They would have no responsibility to subsequent buyers of used machines.
This may be a misquote but didn’t Mr Rudge say something along the lines of “If we had known they would last so long, we’d have used cheaper materials”.
This may be a misquote but didn’t Mr Rudge say something along the lines of “If we had known they would last so long, we’d have used cheaper materials”.
In the same way we don't see "Champion" sparkplug testing machines anymore......They soon figured " If you can't test them, then you may as well replace them all" There was some logic in there somewhere. Look at a lot of American made cars, say through the 50's and 60's as an example....every year Chev, Ford, Dodge, etc came out with a new model, etc...I don't think the British ever did that, well not to the same extent..If you want proof, look at the "Mini" built from 1959 to..........
The bikes lasted so long due to dedication, skill, love, and clever work-arounds of the owners who knew there was nothing that looked as "bad" as a Vincent. The problem of the factory not doing a lot
of obvious further development was of course money....they just could not afford to. Building flywheels from a much stronger steel that would hold a main-shaft cost money...... and so it went like that.
I believe Phil Vincent said he expected a ten year life span for the machine. Despite it all there ain't nothing like a Vincent.
of obvious further development was of course money....they just could not afford to. Building flywheels from a much stronger steel that would hold a main-shaft cost money...... and so it went like that.
I believe Phil Vincent said he expected a ten year life span for the machine. Despite it all there ain't nothing like a Vincent.
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