Series B extensive overhaul

[Vincent Brake]

Hi Guys, n Dolls,

just start up an thread about my series B from 48 rebuild,
suposedly to be on the road next spring...... (i do not say the year)
its already totally apart, and paint chemically striped off.
casings cleaned by wetblast, welded where neccesary.
I am going to incluide some goodies to make it drivable throughout. With the looks as original as i can, where i see that everybody does have an opinion. All OK.

An Alton, MKI Megacycle cams, A Pazon surefire ignition.V3 clutch with strong springs, intermidiate gear box, CP Pistons set at 8: 1, Keep the old carbs, (altough I like Mikuni's) new strong seat to put luggage rack on, the odd LED's, Stainless or Cad bolts, (dull, glas blast) Cheesehead screws, My own 2x2LS brakes front and single one rear.(left), 520 O ring chain, small Litihum battery in old case. very small LED Indicator lights (kellermann)(for the highway) both 19" wheels, in the brampton an spring over (koni)damper unit, and rear a Dave Molloy damper mid-ships.

 

[Vincent Brake]

Grinding in cam wheels, with Diamond paste
and Casings now rebored the main bearings (to take oversise), and cylinder surface perpendicular to it. After some minor welding and wetblast cleaning.

 

[bmetcalf]

What made Grinding in cam wheels, with Diamond paste needed?

For the case machining, what did you use as your datum? Was a main bearing bore good enough?

 

[Vincent Brake]

the wheels are machined and then hardend or nitreded, this makes use of an other heat treatment, causing the odd 0,1 or so distortion, i do not like.
Datum point is the main bearing + the main gearbox axle in the cover. but leveelled first on the clutch joint, re-ajusted on the straightness of the two mainbearings. (takes about 2-3H to set a casing up on the machine)

 

[vibrac]

with that level of precision on the gears I expect you must be seating the spindles into the timing cover

 

[Monkeypants]

My Alton with Podtronics worked very well for four years and twenty thousand miles until I put a small Li battery on the battery case. Ended up frying the Podtronics and the Alton. I believe the problem stems from a too small battery combined with operating at a too low voltage.
The Li battery size that was recommended by the dealer was a 9ah lead acid equivalent to replace a 7 ah lead acid. The 7 ah lead acid is less capacity than I would like, but it was all that would fit in the case and did the job well for years and years. So going to this 9 ah Li battery seemed a good thing.
Later I learned that in reality the 9 ah Li battery only holds 3 ah of actual storage. On top of that this 3 ah is only available if the charging system takes the battery to 14.5 volts fully charged. My Alton with Pod cut out at around 13.4, perfect for a 12 volt lead acid, but only one third charged for an Li battery, which is considered fully discharged at 12.8 volts. The

 

[Monkeypants]

result was that I was attempting to use a battery with only 1 ah of actual storage capacity, whereas I thought I had the advertised 9 ah.
At one ah the regulator switches from charging the battery to dumping current about every two seconds. About 1200 miles from home , it got weary of all the switching a burned out, which in turn damaged the Alton.
So if you want to use an Li battery, it is important to know about the actual storage capacity vs the advertised pb/eq number, as well as the fact that they operate in a higher voltage range than we are accustomed to or that most vintage motorcycle charging systems work at.
If I use a Lithium battery on a bike again, it will be oversized beyond the mfr's reco and likely only used dead loss with voltage monitoring and charging via the proper lithium Iron charger. I believe Trevor does this with two Shorai batteries . This is perhaps the best use of the technology unti charging systems with higher voltage are available