Nah, not stone age! The stone age ones are the original copper/asbestos ones like the one on my Comet primary. I used it so the "VINCENT" lines up horizontal. Just vanity on my part. It doesn't leak either.
ET: Engine (Twin) Inspection Caps
- Thread starter moto8500
- Start date
Definitely an up grade Chankly, bronze age?
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Allright, boys, I try to pick my wording carefully, that is why I wrote with less than perfect faces you´d be challenged to seal with fibre washers as they are not soft enough to tolerate scratches or non-parallel joints. In these cases - as with most well used Vincent parts today -you better think twice about some o-ring seals to replace fibre washers. Dowty had good reason for their bonded rubberized washers for use in hydraulics and all - no ? I made my own combo of slim o-ring inside a small alu ring on valve spring covers .
Your experiences with fibre seals on oil line joints for rocker bearings ?? My guess not so great ?? There must be hundreds of mangled chromed ring joints on rocker bearing locking bolts from efforts to stop oil leaks there.
How about drain bolts and their fibre washers ? On racers they do the wire locking ceremony certainly, for a reason. Fibre washers are basically unsafe as the torque you did first on assembly will be lost from fibre creeping under load. I´d think on decent cars you will no longer find fibre seals on drain bolts but some sort of o-ring or rubber seal on them but the bolt seats on its shoulder on the oil sump or engine case, a hard stop and safe.
just saying - your choice certainly
Vic
Dowty bonded washers
Your experiences with fibre seals on oil line joints for rocker bearings ?? My guess not so great ?? There must be hundreds of mangled chromed ring joints on rocker bearing locking bolts from efforts to stop oil leaks there.
How about drain bolts and their fibre washers ? On racers they do the wire locking ceremony certainly, for a reason. Fibre washers are basically unsafe as the torque you did first on assembly will be lost from fibre creeping under load. I´d think on decent cars you will no longer find fibre seals on drain bolts but some sort of o-ring or rubber seal on them but the bolt seats on its shoulder on the oil sump or engine case, a hard stop and safe.
just saying - your choice certainly
Vic
Dowty bonded washers
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It's quite a miserable experience when one of the aluminium/ rubber types cracks at the outer ring when you are 1200 miles from home.
The seal that decided to unseal was the one that sits right under the oil tank and can only be changed by dropping the engine.
It was an oil bath type bike and rider all the way home.
I had already experienced one of the valve adjuster inspection cap Al/rubber seals doing the same, so everything got changed back to Spares Co. type fibre rings.
They work fine, might need a bit of intial tweaking to get them dry, then that's it for a long while.
Glen
The seal that decided to unseal was the one that sits right under the oil tank and can only be changed by dropping the engine.
It was an oil bath type bike and rider all the way home.
I had already experienced one of the valve adjuster inspection cap Al/rubber seals doing the same, so everything got changed back to Spares Co. type fibre rings.
They work fine, might need a bit of intial tweaking to get them dry, then that's it for a long while.
Glen
Modern bikes snd cars use a single use metal crush washer for the oil sump plug. No leaks. No rubber. No O rings. Etc.
Funny as a mechanic on Cars , Self employed, I never liked the metal crush Sump washer,
Always gave a new washer a twist of PTFE Tape, Never had a problem after that.
Vic is right, But after many years , Only had about 3 caps loose off,
So for me, Not worth a big change,
Bit like under the Barrel, The more paper gasket, The more the nuts will lose tension ?,
But these are OLD Bikes, It's a wonder they are still going !.
Always gave a new washer a twist of PTFE Tape, Never had a problem after that.
Vic is right, But after many years , Only had about 3 caps loose off,
So for me, Not worth a big change,
Bit like under the Barrel, The more paper gasket, The more the nuts will lose tension ?,
But these are OLD Bikes, It's a wonder they are still going !.
I have an engine from September 1950 where this problem was solved by the factory polishing off the obsolete HRD marking to smoothly streamline the caps and save owners problems with rotational alignment.
If you want to align your caps.........just trim them in the lathe.