PART THE THIRD
The cylinder head returned with a thread repair to the headsteady stud and two broken rocker plate studs removed. New valve guides had been fitted and the seats re-cut. Thanks for all that, Alistair! After thorough cleaning, the oilways to the rockers were checked by running wire through the drillings. Oil pumped into each banjo bolt hole quickly appeared at all rocker shaft oil holes, so all was ready to re-assemble. RGM's rocker spindle locking-plate eliminated the previous looseness of the spindles.
Then it dawned on me that I couldn't fit the valves with the rockers in place… so out they came again, to be reassembled once the valves were lapped into the new seats and the springs reinstalled.
While polishing the conrods, I was musing about their various dings and notches, aware that they weren't a matching pair. Mindful of the dubious reputation of old Dominator rods, I decided to investigate replacements. One option was new rods from Thunder Engineering. A chat with Steve Campbell (and £353.94 later), I had bought some beautiful, shiny, billet alloy Lightning rods. On arrival, they looked more like a work of art than engineering, and much too pretty to hide in a grubby old motorcycle. Steve assured me that the rods should fit without any work being required to barrels and crankcases – although it was up to me to make sure that was the case. As it turned out, quite a lot of work was required…
