Hitchcocks Forum

The only time you know when your oil spindle has failed is when your engine becomes noisy it or seizes up. This morning I fitted a sight glass into the rocker feed oil pipe. I had been thinking about it for a while but could not find anything small enough to fit, then a moment of inspiration I thought of a fuel filter that I saw on evilbay. Got it this morning and with a little modifying using two threaded brass adapters I turned up on my lathe a bit of soldering and hey presto. Now at a glance I can see that the oil is circulating and it only took a couple of hours to make and fit it to the bike, it looks pretty neat too I think. May start mass producing them along with the engine/frame support bars I designed and make. Copy and paste the link to see it on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0QGZ6_w ... e=youtu.be

Looks really professional job.
I think you should have a quite a few takers with this.

Thats really great, can you make me one. please please pretty please.

That's pretty brilliant! I actually had the same thought (nothing more than that) about 2hrs before I saw your post. Occurred to me while reading about oil pump failures due to kickback and carb blow offs. I have a regular blow off(don't go there) and I just rode home thinking my engine doesn't sound the same as it did yesterday. Might just go and feel me feed pipes for warmth. Good work

Well done Johnny, I have one of those purchased from Fleabay... and was planning the same, but as I don't have a lathe.. was thinking on next visit to Chennai, find a back street workshop and get it made... I bet you'll get lots of request. Have you tested the heatproofness / strength of sight glass !!

Glass is toughened and about 5mm thick, all seals are petrol proof so it should be more than adequate for the job, I don,t think that the oil will get hot enough to cause any problems as with the oil pressure but only time will tell.

Nice one JOHNNY !! -------- looks like a sight glass on a GWR displacement lubricator. ----------- http://www.gwsr.com/footplate/LocoContr ... --------It clearly demonstrates a) The VOLUME of oil flowing into the sump and --b) The intermittent nature of the flow from the scavange pump.

Nice one Johnny. I like the look of that, but share Hemant's concern over the durability of the glass. My bike has a 625 engine which, when run-in, will be treated to a good thrash on a regular basis. It should be good for 5500 rpm without overtaxing it, but the vibration might be more than the sight glass could take. Maybe it could be mounted with rubber oil hose either side? In which case, it would still need unions making up. I would just need to cut the rigid pipes and insert the sight glass with rubber hose either side. So, put me down for one, subject to me being able to mount it flexibly. I like adding-on bits to make the engine work better, and also look cool! (sad!!!) I'm looking at also fitting an oil cooler into the rocker feed pipe........Allan.

Hi another Alan, yes I make an oil cooler that fits the same way in the rocker oil pipe, I had put the link to see it on here a while ago, I made a few of them. I don,t think the vibration will be a problem as this was mentioned about the oil cooler but I have not heard of one failing as yet. If you do not need the filter ends modified just fit a rubber pipe over and connect to the cut rocker feed. I cut them off as I wanted to solder the ends on.

If you want to connect via rubber pipe. Ebaybay Item number: 360466604006