Forum

[Chris Tindal]

Do any Redditch Bullet owners have the timing side oil seal conversion? I assume this is to prevent oil seeping past the bronze bush and into the crankcase, thus reducing wetsumping. Mine has the recess machined and seal fitted, but when taking the old seal out I see that the machining actually goes right through into the recess for the exhaust cam. This means about 5 mm of the oilseal edge is protruding through and is just clear of the cam by about 2mm. This seems pointless, as oil will simply seep behind the seal and then past the bronze bush. It wasn't wetsumping and I've had no problems (apart from a cracked bearing housing, but I think they are unrelated) but it doesn't look good having such thin walls of alloy. The casing is currently having the bearing housing crack welded and re machined, so is it worth welding and machining the oil seal recess back up to standard while its in bits or is it ok to leave it?

[Mark M]

Hitchcocks do warn that machining this housing for a modern neoprene oil seal may undercut the cam recess so this is a known issue. Obviously whoever did it didn't measure very well! I'd leave it as it is if you're not wet sumping, you could just add a bit of JB weld or Araldite to back fill the hole? I looked at doing this mod on my Bighead engine and decided against it after a measure up. That's another project I must get on with! (Ebay Bullet is back on the bench though...)

REgards, Mark

[Adrian]

Since you're taking the trouble to get the original cases reclaimed, it would be a shame not to get the missing chunk re-instated as well the nice new bronze bush fitted and reamed to suit. Those of us building replica-ish projects and resorting to later Indian crankcases don't face this issue, but then we lose out on the proper pressure release valve for the rocker feed as a trade-off.



A.

[Chris Tindal]

Thanks for your input Mark and Adrian. Not sure if it's OK on 350's or early 500's but there isn't anything like enough meat on late 500 cases. If anyone's thinking of doing it check first!