classic motorcycle forum

 
    The only reason the bike would not charge is if there is a break in a circuit or a bad component. If you do a bit of research you will find instructions to check the alternator condition and output, the rectifier condition, and the condition of the wiring and it's connections. There is no magic-wand to fix a motorcycle, it is just a matter of educating yourself and putting in the time to check what needs to be checked./quote]
 
   Seems to be an echo in here, or maybe it is too dark to read....

  What brand of bikes were you restoring for 25 years that had such a great parts availability that you never had a problem until now? I want to get one of those motorcycles!
 
   Because if you were working on British bikes for 25 years you would have found out about poor pattern parts 25 years ago......
 
    There is a lot more bad parts and information out there than good stuff, so anybody that is new to a specific British marque is going to have problems unless they are lucky or they are smart and spend a few years doing nothing but research before they take action.
 
     Nice bike the t140 with it's 5-speed and disk brake, a good looker too. Also there is probably more parts for them laying around than for any other brit twin. I live in a pretty small town and there are dozens of them here in every condition.
 
   

   I am guessing your bike is the original 6V system? I am a fan of Lucas electrics, but they did have both good and bad ideas. One of the bad ideas was the 6-volt system charged by an alternator with no real regulation, it just switched between a low and high charging rate via the headlight switch and it charged lower at low rpms and higher at high rpms. It usually boiled the acid in the battery out all over your chrome and paint.
 
    The only reason the bike would not charge is if there is a break in a circuit or a bad component. If you do a bit of research you will find instructions to check the alternator condition and output, the rectifier condition, and the condition of the wiring and it's connections. There is no magic-wand to fix a motorcycle, it is just a matter of educating yourself and putting in the time to check what needs to be checked.
 
     I put thousands of miles on a Norton with a 6v lucas alternator system and it worked, but not as well as the later 12v systems that use a zener diode to keep the voltage closer to where it needs to be. Lucas used to sell an over-the-counter kit to convert from 6 to 12 volts, but with a bit of education it is a pretty easy conversion for anyone to do.
 
      The 6v alternator can be made to put out 12v by tying two of it's output wires together, then you just need to add a zener diode on a heat-sink in the charging circuit to bleed high voltage to ground. I was able to rewire my 62' 6V Norton this way and keep all the original switches and hide the heat sink and zener so nobody knows it has been converted from the outside of the machine, they would have to look in the battery compartment or have me tell them were to look for the zener to see that it is now a 12V bike.

Putting bigger gears in the oil pump and spinning it faster gives more VOLUME, not pressure. ?

 
  My point is "R", is that you are not here to help anyone or contribute useful information to the thread, you are here simply to be the center of attention. Your posts are rife with errors, contradictions and lacking logic and common sense.
 
  For instance you state:
 
   

It was the scavenge-fed oil supply to the head that was somewhat lacking, the oiling being somewhat intermittent.
This showed up as sometimes rapid wear of cams and cam followers, due to little oil coming down the pushrod tunnels.
And also of rockers and valve guides. It wasn't until the pressure fed oiling to the head for 1964 (was it ?) that this was corrected.
And the real reason for the bigger oil capacity oil pump, since pressure oiling the head would otherwise have taken pressure/volume away from the big ends...

      It was 1966 when Norton switched to plain rocker spindles. They started using the bigger "S" pump in 1961 and did so for five years with the scavenge feed to the head with no problems, so no it was NOT the reason for the bigger capacity oil pump.
 
    Also, since the pressure to the big-ends was not from the scavenge side of the pump how could it take pressure away from them?
 
     If you state that the big problem with early Dominators was lack of oiling to the top, then you contradict yourself by stating that it is silly to worry about putting a cartridge filter in the scavenge return to the oil tank. Since you are such an expert on hydraulics then you know there is a pressure drop across a cartridge style filter, and that would decrease the amount of oil to the top end of the early Dominators, which was always my point. If however as I previously suggested someone makes up for the pressure drop across a cartridge filter by installing some of the same upgrades to the rest of the oiling system that Norton did, then they do not have to worry. They would certainly have to worry if they take your advice to just install parts without thinking though.
 
    Telling people to change their oil more often or that having a washable mesh filter being just as good as a cartridge filter is silly.  A cartridge filter will remove much smaller particles than washable/reusable  mesh filters. The point of upgrading the earlier oil systems to where they can use a cartridge filter is that it offers much better longevity of the crankshaft journals, and also it has been proven to protect the crankshaft journals in the event of an engine component failure that dumps metal particles into the oiling system.
 
     Having dismantled and looked at the crankshafts of many Norton twins, both early Dominators and late Commandos that had cartridge filters over their service life, I know this first hand.
 
     All this information has previously been put up in this thread, but you either did not read it, or your reading comprehension is very low.
 
      I am in this thread to offer good and helpful information about Norton Dominators, you are here doing the exact opposite just so you can flex your ego.
 
     
 
     
 
     

     I never said late parts would not work on early bikes, I just said that when I, or any good and careful mechanics change out oil system parts they should check to make sure they are working, pretty simple and basic mechanical advice.
 
    If you don't feel the need to make sure your bike is getting oil after you do work on it's oiling system that is your business, but I would not pay you to work on anything I own.

Putting bigger gears in the oil pump and spinning it faster gives more VOLUME, not pressure. ?

 
     So you are saying that when engine rpm increases along with the rpm of the oil pump, you never saw the oil pressure on an engine go up too?
 

   

A statement, and questioning your comments.

 
     Yes, lots of shops have and will sell lots of parts for your bike. If you want you can accept what they sell on blind faith, but a good mechanic does not take things for granted, which is why if you read back a bit you will see I said just that:
 

   

     Whenever you swap or mix parts from different years it is your responsibility to do the checking on the final installation to make sure everything is getting lubed. Just because someone else has got a parts combination working, does not mean that the parts you bolt on will do the same thing. Something as simple as the size of the oil return hole in the oil tank, or the amount of wear in your oil pump could give completely different results, and with many of our parts being half a century old no one can guarantee what your parts will do for you. 

        For another example, I recently acquired a 1961 Norton that I know the history of back to 1969 so far.
         After a previous owner acquired it that year he had some standard work done on the engine such as machining with new pistons and bearings to fit.
         According to the paperwork the odometer racked up over 20 thousand miles before it was torn down for inspection again. It has the standard Dominator pump but someone had put the fast gears in at some point.
 
          The engine looks good inside except for the usual wear one would expect in an engine with only wire mesh as an oil filter. The rod journals are worn down between a half and one thousandths below their last regrind and the shell bearings look like they took a lot of abuse, scored and imbedded with metal particles.
 
          Looking at a number of 850 Commando cranks that had been run a similar mileage, I am sure that this Model 99 would have been in much better shape if it had spent the last 40+ years running with a oiling system strong enough to move it's oil through a spin-on cartridge filter as the 850 engines had.
 
            Unless the oil total oil system, oil passage size, pump size and pump speed, is upgraded to the post-65' spec, I would wonder if it would be overwhelmed trying to push through a cartridge filter. If I try the spin-on filter with lesser parts in the future  I will certainly report to the Norton public how it works.
 
            Right now what we know is that there is not much you can do to make the oiling on early Dominators worse, and that once they got the Norton twin up to a spec that would run a spin on filter, the life of the wearing engine parts, especially the rod journals and bearings, have a much longer and easier life.