Norton Nemesis V8 rebuild – Episode 6

In this video I take a look at the oil pump (I didn’t film the whole process as I was excited to proceed and completely forgot) , pan strainer and starter clutch sorting out a few problems and rectifying faults as I find them.

Note: All parts will be thoroughly cleaned before final assembly so any debris seen under macro cinimatography in this video will be cleaned off later.

The Norton Nemeses is a pre production prototype that was made in the late 90’s with claims of a 200+mph top speed from its 1500cc fuel injected V8 engine.
As far as I’m aware, this is the only bike that has survived but if any of you know of other bikes please leave a comment. This bike is owned by the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham UK has been on display as a non running exhibit for many years.

I have already worked on the bike last year getting the engine to run after a few rudimentary checks, new oil and batteries for series 12 of Henry Cole’s “The Motorbike Show” where Henry rode it for a few miles up to around 50 mph, but it wasn’t running very well and was leaking a lot of oil and coolant.

Episodes of “The Motorbike show” can be seen on itvx player on line and some shorter edits are available on Henrys YouTube channel.

Over the coming months I will be stripping the bike to sort out a few issues with the V8 engine and hopefully make it run and ride how it was intended 25 years ago.

welcome to episode 6 of the nor Nemesis 1500 C V8 rebuild in this episode I’m going be looking at a few issues inside the engine the first thing I noticed when I took apart the O pump was the pressure release Val seemed very marginal for its size here it is on the right compared with the GSXR 751 on the left and when I stripped it down internal spring was very weak I used a piece of WI to poke up the plunger and have a look at the relief holes inside and these are very small bearing in mind they need to flow a lot of oil when it’s prop pressurizing I’ll just put this one back together for now then we can compare sizes with the GSXR750 pressure release valve that I bought and here you can see they’re much larger holes and there’s four of them compared with the one that was fitted to the engine which is quite small so what I’m going to do is fit the g6r 750 oil pressure release Val to the northern Nemesis pump while welding on a new manifold here it has to poke to the left you can’t poke up it’s too long compared with the standard one that looks much better so now we can start assembling the pump by first tightening up the new pressure release valve with my spanner I put a drop of assembly oil on the on the bearings ready for inserting the new shaft I’ve just machined a new cir Groove in the shaft to hold on the gear CU previously it was just resting on the back of the clutch wheel to hold it in place which is not ideal the oil pumps A two stage pump one half is larger which pumps all around the engine to lubricate the bearings and the other side is slight smaller pumps all through the oil cooler the oil cooler stage the pump was just pumping oil around the sump it wasn’t actually going through an oil cooler but I will be fitting one when I measured up the tra coidal rotors from out of the pump they were slightly worn but to my surprise my st100 spare pump I took it apart and the rotors are identical and as they were virtually unworn I fitted them into Nemesis pump and they fitted just perfect so I was really pleased with that with the new rotors fitted I can now put on the outside cover first putting a bit of oil on the rotor to make sure it’s nicely lubricated for it first initial turns the oil also helps to create a greater suction on the pump when it’s first trying to draw oil up from the sunm pan it’s a bit of a Regal to fit once it’s on I can put in the three screws first checking is still rotates nice and smooth which it does the three screws Loosely tightened I check it still rotates and it does so now I can tighten them up in sequence until they’re tight the last check it still rotates and it rotates lovely so I’m really pleased with that so now I can start sending the or cooler pump which fits on the other side this is same size it’s slightly thinner with the last three screws tightened I do a final check that it rotates and it does so that’s really good so that’s your pump basically assembled now so now we can have a quick look at that drive gear that been rubbing on the back of the clutch I put it in my lathe and give it a rub up with abet and made it really smooth and shiny just to make it look nicer and here it is all shiny ready to go back on the engine so now we can look at the water pump what I did with the water pump I’m actually taking off the two-stage mechanical water pump fitting a electric water pump which will be controlled by the ECU to come on when needed Drive mechanism wasn’t that great and it connects to the back of the or pum which puts more load on the or pum drive gear as well which isn’t ideal and look at this loose fit so this is all going to be got got rid of now the slot in the drive shaft looks like it’s been hammering backwards and forwards for quite a while and this is the water pump it’s a large two- stage water pump because this engine’s actually been configured to call as two separate engines with a front bank and the rear Bank of cylinders having its own individual water pump which I think is less than ideal I’ll be converting this to run one single water pump through a single radiator to call the engine uniformly so the water pump is destined for my box AP parts to be stored for the future but not used to prevent oil leaking out the engine I turn up a bung which will hold in place an adjustable screw that rests on the back of a cover plate this is adjusted by turning the screw with a spanner until it just hits the ruler and then locking up with the lock nut and when I put the new cover that I’ve just made it’ll hold it all in place nicely prevent any o leakage fine I’ll check that it’s in line and it is so good here’s the cover plate I just made this is held in place with four screws and rests on the engine casing like that so I put on a bit of gasket sealer first I use Permatex Ultra gray it’s very good for this sort of application with the cover plate resting in place I pick up the four screws and secure and tightly me there we go that looks just perfect so I just wipe off the excess SE sealant that’s used out I also made an aluminium bung to block up the redundant outlet Port from the old mechanical water pump also prevent any debris going in there during use so now we can start assembling the oil pump into the bottom casing I check that the three O-rings are nicely seated in their grooves on the bottom of the or pump before I lower the or pump carefully into the bottom crank case of the engine it sits nicely on two race Dows to hold it in the correct position and is secured in place by three Allen screws two on the top and one from up from underneath I’ll grip the Allen key with my mle group so I can get a bit of purchase on it tightening them up cuz they’re buried quite deep down inside the crank case and here you can see the new pressure release valve tucked in nicely on its side the oil pump drive shaft passes through the crane cases so I first fit a harden steel shim this is followed by a specially made brass spacer then last thing before I can fit the gear I put in the drive peg this pushes nicely through the hole the oil pump drive gear now slides on nicely and engages with the peg it’s a bit stiff but it goes on in the end and then I can fit the circlip the ccps are very tight fit and I have to push it on with an allen key that’s better now the gear is held in place nicely with the cirp it can’t move in and out and hit the back of the clutch I check with a straight edge that the new pressure release Val sits below the crank case joint CU I don’t want it found in the upper crank case when I fit it on I look outside and the pigeon is hiding behind the bush peering out really strange this is the feed from the oil pump to the oil cooler that’s been blanked off so it just returns straight back to the crank cases through this large hole so I’m going to fit the pressure regulator it was originally on the oil pump I’m going to fit that in the hole that feeds the oil cooler so this can be reduced pressure anyway so I can put a slightly stronger spring in to make it work better refit that and that should do the job just perfect with the O pressure release valve reassembled I screw it into the crank cases and it fits just nice so that was a result I’ll leave this cooler bypass in place for now just in case I run the engine out of the bike when it’s fitted back in the bike we’re definitely going to fit an oil cooler that’ll help no end so now I’m looking at the oil suction filter that lives inside the sump this looks to be partly brazed and gas welded from sheet steel it’s not very flat in places I check it with my Ru and it’s completely bent so I need to straighten that out a little bit first then lap the surface flat so it makes a good seal before I start doing anything I’m going to remove the three screws and take off the bottom cover and the actual gors ins theide it seems quite clean inside and there’s no evidence of metallic particles which is a good sign so I give this a quick wipe down with a piece of cloth this part is definitely bent it’s been bent where it doesn’t quite fit properly it’s been tapped around the edges so I’m going to put on my visce and tap that all back straight so then I can trim it to sides to fit nicely so I gently go around with a hammer flattening out the edge so it’s nice and smooth and flat that’s a lot better now it’s all flat when I offer up the bottom piece it now doesn’t fit at all so I’ve got to trim it to size to make it fit properly I’m using my straight cut tin snips for triming the metal because it’s very thin myque sheet steel so it cuts nicely with the tin snips the trick is to keep your eye on the edge and to make sure you move the tin snips around as while you’re going along straight and you get a nice even cut and the little strip of metal you remove it be parallel there we go that should do just nicely let’s try it again now and see if there’s any better that’s a lot better but it’s still sticking up a little bit at the top so I’m going to trim that off now and hopefully it’ll be done there we go that fits just perfect now it slips down inside nicely and the three holes line up just perfect so I’m really pleased with that it’s a lot better the next thing I need to do is straighten out the FL surface and to do this I grip it in my visce and gently hit it with a hammer to knock it straight it doesn’t take very much just a few Taps then I can rub it on some abet cloth on the back of the vice to make it all smooth and flat there we go that’s looking better already that’s much better you never get it 100% but you can get it pretty close now I use my abet cloth to go around and Di all the sharp edges and bears off when I use the tin snips to make it all nice and smooth to the touch I give the parts a wipe down with a piece of cloth and then I can start assembling the bottom plate with the gwes the bottom plate needs to be orientated so the arrow points forward so I make sure I get it line correctly and I insert the three bolts that’s it that’s all back together now it looks a lot better so now I can make a new gasket from some flexoid paper I’m using the8 thick mm flexoid paper this has more gear to allow for any irregularities in that flange so now I place it over the flange and rub around my thumb to make an impression to cut out with my Swiss army knife pressing down hard over the holes to make sure they make a good impression and you here you can see the nice shape ready for cutting out so first of all I punch the three holes while it’s in one piece if you leave this to later on it can sometimes split the gasket paper so it’s best to do it first with the three holes punch I then punch the center hole I offer it up to the FL just to make sure it still lines up nicely and it does just perfect so now I cut out the outside shape with the knife scissors these little scissors work so good and so easy to use I really like using them that’s it that’s the gasket cut out one last check to make sure it still fits and it does so that’s now ready when I want to put the oil filter back onto the engine at a later stage I just notice a little bit overhanging here just trim that off make it nice and neat there we go I’m just going to try fit the sump now just to make sure it clears the pressure release valve cuz that wasn’t fit when I took the engine apart and it does clear it really nicely so that’s just great so now I’m going to insert the center part of the oil filter screw in the center do that up nice and tight and trial fit the oil filter it’s really good when you’re doing sub your trial everything together to make sure it fits nicely and when you do the main build later on it’s all going to go Tick Tock and work perfect I bought a brand new oil filter ready for the build so I take it out of the box carefully and try it onto the thread and it screws down just nice makes a nice seal with the engine so I’m really pleased with that so now I’m going to try the something back on to make sure it all clears nicely which it does I put the oil filter back in its box for safekeeping and now I just return the gears back into the gearbox casing lining up the little pegs making sure it all drops down nicely onto selectors I have to make sure I remove this L shaft to fit the clutch when I get the new gear back from the gear Cutters hopefully this will be here in the next couple of weeks and I can tral fit the alternator and make sure that works and then I can build the bottom end of the engine cu the bottom crank case and the intermediate crank case can be bolted together tight before I fit the actual engine on top later on that’ll be that be then be a one complete subassembly finished the next thing that needs some attention is the starter clutch it has a really poor surface finish and a damaged roll pin jammed in where there should be a darl so the first thing I need to do is use a screwdriver and tap this Roll pen out some of the fragments fall straight off but one of the bits is stuck in tight it takes a fair bit of tapping to get out but it comes out eventually and here’s the three bits on the table so I put those in Charlie W’s whiskey glass cuz he’s not drinking at the moment the crankshafts also little tiny bit damage where the roll pin was banged in I think it’s bur up quite a sharp bur so I gently file that away with a file then I’m going to use some grinding paste to lap the taper back into the St clutch cuz it all seemed a little bit loose a very gently grip the crankshot in my viice wrapped up in some cloth so I can rotate backwards and forwards with a starter clutch to grind it in it’s a bit like grinding in valves so I use my old fashioned 1950s grinding paste which is the best in the world to use using my screwdriver to put some on the taper a little bit at a time smear it all the way around you don’t need too much just a little bit then I pick up the clutch body put it onto the crankshaft engage it with the roller bearing and rotate backwards and forwards this takes quite a while probably about 5 or 10 minutes for going backwards and forwards until it makes a nice smooth gray finish on the taper knowing that you got a good fit this is really important because the taper is what makes the drive to the start to clutch the crankshaft and it’s got to turn over a big V8 engine and there we go you can see the nice gray finish that’s a good cut so now I put the starter clutch in my lathe going to give it a rub with some AB 120 abraser paper to produce a nice shiny finish doesn’t really matter really it had a rough finish but to me if it looks right it’s going to work proper I run the spindle quite fast and you can get a nice shiny finish with the abet cloth using your finger to make sure it goes in all the little looks and cl around this periphery and across the surface M can getting Sparks at one point after about 5 minutes of doing this I’ve got a lovely smooth surface give it a quick blast off in my airline to remove any of the grd and particles and a quick wipe the cloth and that’s another component ready to go back on the engine now when I do my final assembly all nice and shiny and smooth the last thing I need to do is trial fit it back on the crankshaft and see if the 5 mm hard and steel Dow fits in nicely where the roll pin was before so I offer it back up to the crankshaft line up the little Groove and the slot and the pin pushes just in nicely with my thumb and it’s nice and tight so that’s really good so that’s it done well thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed it and I’ll see you all soon in the next video