The Cam pinion Extractor. Making one.

Here is the timing side of the engine.

The Pinions on the cams and the crank need pulling off.
There is a LH thread nut on the Cams and a RH thread nut on the crankshaft.
One way of getting the nuts off is to put the idler wheel in and jam the pinion gears with a cloth. This gave me enough stick to undo the three nuts.

Now to pull the pinons off. On a 500cc Triumph they are a very tight fit onto a keyed shaft.

The cam pinion pullers costs around £40 and to be honest, they do not look too well made.

Each of the cams has a 20 tpi thread that is there for the sole purpose of extracting the pinion. The crankshaft pinion thread is a bit rough.

As I recently inherited a Myford lathe (A ML7 with a manual gear box), it occurred to me that making the tool would be a nice exercise. I have never done anything like this before but one of the technicians at work is a good source of advice on engineering matters.

This post is aimed to give a complete beginner confidence that screw cutting on a lathe is fairly straightforward. If I can do it, so can you.

The thread profile is probably BSF but because the threads are only two or three turns long, the thread angle is unlikely to be much of an issue.

To make one of these on a thread cutting lathe, you need an internal thread cutter, an external thread tool, some stock to make the thing out of and some ordinary lathe tools. A thread chaser is good but not essential.

On a Myford lathe, the lead screw is eight threads per inch and you want 8 turns of the lead screw (1 inch travel of the lathe tool) to translate to 20 turns of the chuck.

The chuck usually has a 25 or 20 tooth gear on the end and so if you put 20 teeth on the chuck end and 50 tooth on the lead screw (with idlers of any size in between) then you have 20 turns on the chuck giving 20 x 20 = 400 teeth into the gear train. At the lead screw end you have a 50 tooth gear which in 400 teeth = 400/50 = 8 turns. In other words, the lead screw does one inch of travel carrying the tool post whilst the chuck holding the workpiece does 20 turns.

There are charts of gear settings on lathes out there and more modern lathes have gear boxes as does the Myford Super 7 which is the posher version of a Myford than mine.

An internal gear cutting tool looks like this (google images > http://www.minprom.gov.by/images/products/118209.jpg). This one is a carbide tipped one.

Having put a suitable piece of stock in the lathe, you rough it down to size and drill as big a hole as you can down the centre using a drill held in the tail stock.
You then need to cut more material away for the first inch or so until you reach sufficient depth to allow the crank shaft end in and allow the thread that you are going to cut, to engage with the crank shaft pinion.
The exhaust camshaft sticks out a bit as well but the most room is needed by the crankshaft end.

You have to cut a channel inside the tube in order to take the thread cutting tool when you reach the end of a thread cutting run.

The outer piece with thread cut.

To cut the thread,

1. Set the lathe going really slow. For a beginner this will reduce the chance of you running the tool into the bottom of the hole. 
2. Wind the tool in to where you cut an internal channel mentioned before. This is the inward end of the internal thread. Make a pencil mark on the saddle that will mark where you stop the saddle at the end of each run.
3. Set the lathe tool a bit to the right of the tube which is going to get the thread. 
4. To the right of the saddle there is an indicator numbered 1 to 4 on a myford. (and on most lathes) set the lathe away and when the indicator is spot on a number, engage the lead screw.
5. Watch the saddle and when the saddle reaches your pencil line, disengage the lead screw, the tool is now in the channel you cut earlier to take the thread cutter at the end of the travel.
6. Wind the tool inward to clear your thread and wind the saddle back out. 
7. Wind the tool back to an extra 5 or 10  thou' from where it was on the previous cut.
8. Engage the lead screw when the indicator is on a number and go again. The thread will now be a bit deeper. 

The thread depth for  BSF 20 tpi is only 30 or 40 thou' and you can double the change you make for each run because you are cutting both sides of a diameter.

Now, either you take very careful measurement or you will need to remove the work to check the thread against the pinon a few times to get the cut right. Putting the work back in the chuck is a bit of a chore to get right.

Whne you have the pinion thread done, you need an internal thread to take the central jacking rod which will pull the pinions off. I cut these to 20 tpi as well and this worked fine.

Jacking Screw that goes through the centre.

The final product is here.

Old LCD monitor = New lighting panel.

An LCD monitor with broken lines of pixels is pretty much junk as a monitor but taking one apart revealed an opportunity to make a cold light panel chucking out a good 100W equivalent of light. It took about half an hour.

WARNING
There is a possibility of serious electric shock with this little project if you are not careful. I should imagine that it pretty much negates any warranty as well. If you do not know what you are doing don't do it. (Thick rubber gloves and even Wellingtons throughout will help to prevent any possibility of electric shock.) 
An easy and very effective safety tool is to use a Earth leakage trip safety power socket. These are often supplied with electric lawn mowers or hedge trimmers.

Back to the project. The monitor in question was a 19 inch Ryoku job.

Picture courtesy of Google images

In case you don't know how these monitors work, the monitor is in layers with a cold cathode tube at the top and bottom.

These feed light into a perspex panel which has some rather natty sheets of plastic layered on. They vary from semi silvered layers to something that looks like a fresnel lens. Anyway, the net effect is to produce a homogeneous panel of light behind the actual LCD panels itself. 

The LCD panel uses a combination of polarising filters, colour filters and LCD cells to create pixels of varying colours by allowing the light through (or not). The LCD bit is all that is broken here.

Anyway, strip down the panel and inside you find (amongst other things) the black LCD panel which is the broken bit. 

There are also three circuit boards. The black LCD panel is attached to the largest of these. Disconnect all the wires and discard both the Black LCD panel and the circuit board it is attached to.

This panel circuit board and LCD are shown separately above. I have ripped off the ribbon cables attaching it to the monitor.
The other two boards are an i/o board which has the video sockets on it and the power supply / Cold Cathode supply board.

 

Here you can see the power wire from the 

PSU board to one of the Cold Cathodes.

Careful with the power supply, there are some high voltages around to supply the cold cathodes (as well as the mains of course).

At this stage, if you apply power and turn on, the panel lights up for about three seconds and discovering that no computer is attached, turns it off again. I nearly gave up at this point but careful examination of the boards revealed that one of the signal wires from i/o board to power supply board is labelled on/off. I pulled this off the plug at the i/o end and touched it to various pins on the i/o board. I found one pin that delivered the appropriate signal ( Vcc probably) that kept the panel on. I soldered the lead to this pin. This is illustrated below.

The PSU / Cold Cathode board showing the 
labelled signal lead from the i/o board. 

I disconnected the lead that was labelled on/off from the i/o board end. I then connected this to the pin on the i/o board that kept the lights on. I have attempted to illustrate this on the next picture.

At the end of the process you end up with a cold light panel.

Progress on T100R

The first thing needed to do this restoration is a kit for polishing the parts as they come off.
I have added a kit and a Dremel 4000 to my Amazon Wish list.

70-4016 Patent Plate http://www.grintriumph.com 
57-1417 Gear Indicator Plate http://www.tri-corengland.com
82-9360 Rear Foot rests  http://www.tri-corengland.com
82-9700 Tank badges http://www.tri-corengland.com


The engine is now out of the frame and on the bench.

Close up, the Aluminium is pretty ropey.

I have polished the clutch adjuster nut and partly polished the rotor cover.

The barrels were very tight indeed. As they are cast iron, you have to be very careful not to chip them, however I made a puller using the cylinder head bolts to provide an even pull across the whole thing.

The pistons were then jammed at the bottom of the barrels but by supporting the barrels and using the crankshaft end nut to move the pistons they gradually came out. The pistons rings are a bit rusty and I will have to consider a rebore after assessing the barrels' condition.

Finally for the day, I have started using 180 Grit to even off the surface of the primary chain case. The photo shows the 180 G stage. I have paper in grades from 180 up to 2000.

 

The Timing case was a bit of a problem. First I had to get the points out, the wires are melted and there is some rust. There is a special tool but a simple puller made from a pice of alloy and a screw of the same thread as the inner thread of the auto advice unit, pulled it of the cam shaft quite easily.

The original cross head screws holding the timing case on were in a bit if a state and one had no cross left at all. I bought a Sykes Pickavant  impact drive off ebay and this made easy work of all but one. One screw had to have the head drilled out and then the case was off. The stub of the drilled one came off easily with a pair of parallel pliers. (A rare and extremely useful tool). There are two oil seal in the timing case and bot of thos will be replaced. A pair of circlip pliers is necessary for the one on the crank shaft end whilst the one behind the auto advance unit just pushed out with a simple drift.

The case is polished and with the primary chain case. I need a new patent plate (available) and one of the three pins is stuck in the case. That presents a bit of an engineering problem to be dealt with later.

 

Timing case. 

Timing side of Engine

Piston

The piston rings on one piston were completely jammed and there is a certain amount of burning visible. The barrel has some ridging where the one piston was seized. On balance I think that a rebore and new pistons are in order.

I have found a shop that does rebores and will take all the stuff there tomorrow or at least fairly soon.

I had to take the cam end nuts of and the crankshaft end nut.

Method:
The cam end nuts are LH thread. The crankshaft one is RH.
Get a rag and catch it up in the timing pinion idler wheel whilst using a socket on the nut. This method shifted all three with only moderate force on socket. (Ratchet handle being knocked with hand).
All three nuts off. Now enquiring about the tool to remove pinions.

Other methods involve jamming crankshaft and  clutch hub by putting a piece of metal between the sprockets as the move in opposite directions or butting a bar between the clutch sprocket and the chain drive.

If the engine is still in frame, you can try locking up final drive.

T100R Number 2

Well I have now bought a second one. The condition mechanically is good, whereas cosmetically it is a bit rough. However, apart from the shockingly poor carb balancing and the whole thing running a bit rich, it is going very well.


Update 24th May.
Yesterday had a glorious day taking apart the front headlight and all the mountings in order to give everything a good polish. The frame is slightly rough and I need to make a decision about the quality of restoration I want to do on this one.

The Bits I need for my T100R

I have bought a T100R from e-bay. It was a shed find in Canada and currently has no registration number. The engine is seized and there are a number of parts missing. Here is a before and below is a copyright free picture of one that I would be aiming for in the long term.

photobucket.com

Engine and Frame Number match with numbers being PG 40533 T100R which makes it a November 1972 manufactured T100R.

Here is a photobucket entry of a really nicely done one.
Another one here.
Found this excellent site where someone did up a T100R in the states.

Shops I could use are
ebay
Tri Cor
http://www.britbits.co.uk/
Burton Bike Bits
Grint
TMS 

The Parts catalogue is probably pretty near this one  T100C 1971 or this one T100R 1973

Bits I need, I will stick part numbers on when I can

• Fork stanchions. 97-3904
• Tank Badges 82-9700 and 82-9701
• Side Panel. ebay 6-5-2010
• Rev Counter (Black face).
• Speedo. (I have a speedo to PX or repair).
• Seat Trim.
• Headlight bulb
• Rear light plastic lens.
• Silencers. (need to track down which type needed).
• Exhaust pipes. (did this model have a balance pipe?
• Side stand.
• Centre stand. (I have a bonnie one that will fit for now).
• Stainless steel Allen head screw set.
• Headlight mounting brackets.
• Battery.
• Bulbs.
• Chain.
• Wheels stainless steel spokes and rims.
• Brake shoes.
• Air Filters.
• All Cables.
• Centre of Tank Chrome Trim.
• Clutch Lever.
• Brake Lever.
• Choke Lever
• Handle Bars.
• Fuel Taps.
• Fuel Cap.
• Oil Pump. One in engine seems fine
• Colour Scheme paint cherry red and white.
• Passenger foot pegs.
• Front Mudguard. EBay 23rd May 2010 19.99 + 7 pp + 1 charity
• Grab Rail. (Goes behind seat).

Engine

I have not at this point taken the engine out but when I take it apart I will almost certainly need much of the following list.

• Stainless steel engine set.
• Valves (Probably from http://www.gsvalves.co.uk)
• Inlet (2 Needed)       GS Part No V265 Original Part No E6853 
• Exhaust (2 Needed) GS Part No V266 Original Part No E6854
• Springs.
• Pistons and rings.
• Primary Chain.
• Clutch Plates.
• Clutch Rubbers.
• Main Bearings (Both sides).
• Shells for big end.
• Little end pins.
• Valve Guides.
• Tappets.