Thought you might like to see some pictures of a drip feed oil regulator for my 1920 2 3/4 hp model I have just finished refurbishing.
I purchased it off ebay. I also bought the main parts of a second one at the same time . . . as it came up first and I was worried I would not get the second. They were not cheap - but I did get them and sometimes that is more important!
They arrived very quickly and were in good straight nick - but as I suspected, the oil adjuster knob had definitely seen better days . . . and on stripping it down I was not surprised to find it had been shortened at some time in its life . . . I have seen quite a few like this. Not sure why someone had done this - they must have realised it is highly likely it would not work for its original purpose - not surprisingly even fully tightened down, I could easily blow air through the system!
Anyway, I knew this when I bought it off e-bay . . . I was not really worried - as I manufacture a very similar oil regulator, as used on early Manx Norton oil tanks for controlling oil to the primary and rear chains. I had recognised that these looked to have come from the same original manufacturer, and although a few years apart in design - the dials looked pretty much identical.
This turned out to be the case, and having put one of my dials in, which was about 5 mm longer(!) I found that this one seated, although did not seal. Again, luckily we had already made up a specially ground tool for putting the correct steep taper for these dials and after a careful recut - it seated perfectly. We also lasercut the original dial faces separately and the needle for showing where correct adjustment sits - and once fitted these look pretty good. I did have to machine off the special indents that the later dials have underneath - as they use a plunger 'clicker' underneath to hold the dial in place, while this earlier version had a small spring lever acting against the dial knurl. Luckily, although needing some serious de-rusting, this original spring lever was fitted to the regulator as purchased.
The reason for paying a lot for this regulator (as there were a few offered that week by the same seller) is that this one was pretty much complete and included the very hard to find screw on cap - albeit in quite rough nick. I did not realise until I unscrewed it that this item was actually an aluminium item, not nickel plated steel - bugger, that was not going to be easy to hold in my lathe chuck as is, it would too easily crush.
Therefore I ended up putting an alloy plug in the chuck and then screwcutting the correct thread on it so I could then screw on the alloy cap and very carefully re-machine all the faces. I could only take about 20 thou off the outer diameter as it was quite thin, but this was just about enough to get rid of all the scratch's and knocks. Last job before carefully polishing on my buffing wheel was to carefully re-knurl. Lots of light oil on it while I was doing this, but it came out really nice.
Likewise careful degreasing and light scrubbing of the alloy regulator body with a 3M pad before buffing bought it back to almost new condition - including managing to maintain the nice crisp patent numbers. I was even able to remove the gum from the inside and reveal what I would like to think is the original ochre coloured paint - which looks nice.
The oil feed and return pipes were not too bad - slightly rusty and knocked about, but have cleaned up well and now ready for nickel plating. I did have to re-cut the tapers for oil pipe fitting but that was pretty easy. Final job before reassembly was to cut and punch new cork washers.
It took a full Sunday afternoon to refurbish but on trial fitting it to my tank late on the Sunday evening - it fitted perfectly and was pleasing to the eye . . . so pretty chuffed. Now . . . on to the next items - making up new wheel nuts to the original pattern!
more soon
Paul Norman
www.racingvincent.co.uk
