Saturday 21 April 2018

Another lathe job

I made a trip out the other day, with a mate on an MT350, to look at the Dome Trainer at RAF Langham. Great run out, lovely weather and all that, some shots from me but most taken and tweaked by John Harris. Find John at https://www.facebook.com/JohnHarrisPhotographyandTours/.




Back home I found the clamp screw from my float bowl had disappeared - mainly because I had changed the cap for a better one, with a tickler of the correct length to reach the float (!) and hadn't screwed the clamp up at all...

So, unable to find one on eBay and too mean to buy one from Amal (they are over a tenner!), I checked the thread and found it to be 1/4" BSF. Rooting about in the 1/4" screw box, I found an Ariel clutch centre screw which has the correct thread AND the reduced hex head, or something like it, that the real Amal screw has. Adding a small sleeve out of a bit of round bar yielded something that will do the job:


Here it is in place, with the new float chamber lid:


It will do the job until I can find a real one at a reasonable price.

1 comment:

  1. Your post prompted me to look at the Amal float chamber tops on BSA, Velocette and VB plus 3 in the spares box. The intent is that the locking bolt deforms the top couple of threads. All six of my tops have deformed threads - and all tops nicely screw onto the float chamber bodies. Even after tightening the locking bolt in most cases the top is not really locked into position. I put one of the spares into the vice and really reefed down on the locking bolt - yes it locked the top - but I would be scared to put so much tension into the bolt - the Mazak threads are 'spft'. A much better plan is to use the locking bolt as an anchor for a neat lockwire. The bolt is nicely recessed in preparation.
    Regards, Chris in Tokyo

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