Norton Nemesis (Norton’s Nemesis?)

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

I’ve been watching, with a mixture of admiration and horror, Allen Millyard’s YouTube series on his restoration of the Norton Nemesis bike engine. Perhaps the factory cleaner threw a load of out-of-spec. spare parts together to make a display piece to fool investors. I know it’s a prototype, but if this was supposed to represent the pinnacle of British motorcycle engineering, it’s no wonder the industry is moribund. However, its designer did suggest (in a separate video) that he saw it as a vanity purchase to be made by wealthy people who didn’t intend to ride it.

The latest episode shows the wet liners being fitted. They are sealed at their lower end by O rings and sealant (is the use of both a good idea?), but, at the top, a bronze ring, squashed between liner and cylinder head seems to be the only sealing element. That may be OK for cylinder sealing, although a gas-filled ring might be better, but what about as a coolant seal? Is the bronze ring supposed to do that too? What is normal practice? Any ideas?

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

The wet liners that we fitted were always with an O ring at the bottom with hylomar as well and the top of the liner the inside edge had a stand up which was called a flame ring, which after the head and gasket where fitted protected the head gasket from burning when combustion took place and it seemed to work ok. The biggest problems we had was oxygen cavitation at the top of the line on the coolant side where the liner got so hot that the coolant boiled and caused the cavitation to such a degree that liners had to be changed as a row of pinholes occured around the top half an inch of liner. We never did have any that leaked into the crankcase so that type of sealing seems to be pretty standard.

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

My puzzlement is because the Norton engine doesn’t have a head gasket, just bronze rings, sitting on steps at the top of each liner, which stand a couple of thou proud of the deck. There’s no gasket. As far as I can see, each bronze ring is an easy fit in the block’s bore (Millyard machined them to be), and there’s going to be coolant underneath it. Is it supposed to compress and squash out sideways to seal block to ring to liner, as well as sealing liner to head? I think something’s missing…

Regarding the pinhole corrosion problem – wouldn’t there be a water treatment chemical suitable for that?

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Another boondoggle to convince shareholders that something was being done to stave off the impending doom. As long is it looked good on paper and on the display stand at the annual general shareholders meeting, that was all that mattered.

Harley Davidson did the same several times back in the 70s. Most notoriously after the Honda 750 Four came out, Harley had a “prototype” four-cylinder bike on display for shareholders, looking like a wobbly old Sportster frame with single leading shoe drum brake with an MV Agusta-style DOHC transverse four engine in it. Only thing was, the engine was a wooden mock-up!

They did make a series of prototypes of a modern V-Four OHC engine in a more cruiser style bike that actually ran but it never seemed to go any further. Kept the shareholders happy for one more year I suppose.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

The Rolls -Royce C Series engines were wet liner.

At the lower end, they were sealed with two O rings, often with Wellseal applied. Ar the top, the seal was metal to metal, again with Wellseal applied.

Cylinder liner protrusion was carefully controlled  so that the liner provided a flame ring, to protect bthe head gasket.

The Bristol BVW engine sealed the liner at the lower end with two O rings. The block was drilled between the rings so that a leak would indicate, by oil or coolant, which ring was leaking.

Gardners used small O rings to seal coolant passages between block and head.

Other manufacturers , as a result of development, went into production with gaskets that were locally thickened with integral rings, or silicone rubber rings, to seal oil or coolant passages.

Quite a few engines, particularly air cooled ones, used a Wills ring to seal between barrel and head.

Push rod, or camshaft drive, bores/tubes, being in a low pressure region, were often sealed with O rings.

Depending upon which stage, prototype engines could differ quite markedly from what eventually went into production, as problems arose and were, hopefully, solved.

(Compression ratios, gaskets, gears, drive arrangements, fuel feeds, could all change between prototype and production engines.)

So a prototype could be quite different from what eventually went into volume production.

Howard

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Ford 4D and 6D had wet liners sealed at the bottom by o ring. We has one that persistently leaked water into the oil. Turned out the liner had pinhole caused by rust. I found it when I descaled the outside with a screwdriver and it went through. Pretty robust old engines, that’s why forestry guys were keen on them

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Waterside attack was always a problem with wet liner engines.

The problem was often made worse by the piston / con rod relative position.

Adjusting the gudgeon pin bore position by a few thou considably reduced the impact of the piston skirt on the liner, (At tdc and bdc ) making it less prone to shaking ferrite out of the liner.

Cummins used a chromate additive to lessen the problem.

Obviously adding an inhibitor to the coolant reduced the risk of corrosive attack.

The combustion system could also affect matters.  A high rate of pressure rise would make matters worse, so highly rated engines were more at risk, or those with a louder diesel knock.

Because of higher charge temperatures, supercharged or turbocharged engines has less ignition delay, and were slightly “quieter”, which could help.

But care had to be taken to avoid making conditions which accentuated the problem.

When Perkins changed the 4.107 from wet liner to the dry liner 4.108, they also changed the con rod length and the piston dimensions!

Howard

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Early Renault 5 had wet liners, paper seals in various thicknesses to give the correct deck height provided the lower seal.

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

Well when this was 1st introduced me & some mates saw it at the motorcycle show. Needless to say you could not get anywhere near it. It was on a elevated stand & roped off. We, because of the fairings could not even see if it had an engine in it. I have been watching this build & most of the engine is Suzuki GSXR750 internals, inc gearbox ,clutch & pistons. What I will say is that if Mr Millyard is doing it then do not question too much as the guy is a genious on bike engines. Plus eating cup cakes & feeding the Hedgehogs.

Motorcycle news i think tested it. It overheated badly & produced around 90 BHP from memory. Looking at the build it was discusting to see it being stripped. There was one drive sprocket that was helical cut mated to a straight cut gear. A total joke on Nortons part.

P.S. They are in big trouble again apparently financialy.

Steve.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

An occasional acquaintance of mine briefly considered going in with Stuart Garner when looking for a new company to invest in after selling his previous one. Asked me if I’d care to get involved as Garner was saying he was interested in further development of the rotary bikes as we’d had discussions over what could be done drawing on my experience as Commander owner.

Asked what was happening the next time we met and got the withering response.

“Bent as a nine bob note doesn’t begin to describe the man.”

“Ah. Makes a corkscrew look like a precision straight edge.” quoth I.

“Yep. That might not be an understatement.”

Yikes!

Hafta say the the Norton saga confirms my view that the financial and investment, company running, wizards haven’t an actual clue about anything. Certainly the ones I’ve had the misfortune to encounter seemed to be working very hard to demonstrate a real world intelligence not greatly superior to that of a mantis shrimp. Which, in captivity, apparently like having their food presented in a puzzle box to open as it’s boring when the food is just thrown in the tank.

Totally stupid thing is that if Garner had played it straight there would have been enough money to make a go of things using the “Norton” twin design he got with the company. Seems to have been basically sound, just suffering from too many cooks and too much fudgeting around over the years by various people. Easily sortable given someone with the skills to ramrod the design straight. Whether proper production at a sellable price once the initial market of “people who’d buy a badge” would have been possible in the UK is of course a whole n’other matter.

The Nemesis is certainly no advert for Al Mellings “design skills”. Especially as the engine was allegedly a doubled up version of a 750 four that had not only been tested but was fully tooled for production. According to Wikipedia. But the chronology of that particular article looks more than a bit suspect.

To my eyes what Ian Millyard is uncovering in the engine is a crazy mixture of quite nice and blatantly incompetent engineering.

I shudder to think what the costs of prototype tooling and manufacture of that front end must have been.

But Al Melling overall is an interesting (not necessarily in a good way) character. Seems to have been just as much as a chancer as Garner. But a bit better at getting away with the proceeds. I’ve always reckoned that TVR were very lucky to get an engine design that could be bullied into working out of him.

Clive

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

I am a regular at the Squires cafe near Sherbun in elmete. We are old codgers now & ride less each year. I sold my lovely Ducati Multistrada 1200s Skyhook with all the bells etc. Full race termi upmap chip etc, cos I found it getting heavier by the year & loosing money being stood. I now have a much cheaper BMW F800 st. Much lighter & slower.

What i do know is that the likes of Norton would never make it. Triumph however are doing fine. Why do i say this. Just look at the auction sites selling old British classics. Take Mathewsons. The last sale had over 100 British classic bikes for sale. Not many sold & those that did sold for a pittance. Why. Well me & mey old codger friends had a disscussion on this very topic.

In essence most of the guys that liked old classic bikes are now growing Flowers from there dery-air. The young guys that come to the cafe & there are quite a fair few of them now. Talk to them about bikes they like & bare in mind these are lads just like we once were , they will remember bikes from their own era. They talk about Sim 125cc or Honda cbr 125. Mostly chinese made stuff.

Even the Jap bikes like the RD350 LC etc are dropping in value.

So the sales of Norton would never have been big. Am i wrong. If so tell me.

Steve.

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

OK, so it was designed by possibly dubious people, financed by probably naive people and thrown together by the factory cleaner on a bad day, but I still would like to know, whether after all his work, Allen Millyard is going to find coolant piddling out around the liner tops, between block and heads. I just don’t see an adequate seal… What am I missing? Anyone?

[Kiwi Bloke]

On Kiwi Bloke Said:

OK, so it was designed by possibly dubious people, financed by probably naive people and thrown together by the factory cleaner on a bad day, but I still would like to know, whether after all his work, Allen Millyard is going to find coolant piddling out around the liner tops, between block and heads. I just don’t see an adequate seal… What am I missing? Anyone?

If you watch episode 3 sfter he removes the heads he explains why no head gasket.

Steve.

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

Well, thanks for trying to help, but I’m no wiser. I watched the video (again), and don’t think it explains why there’s no head gasket, however that wasn’t what was puzzling me. In fact the video strengthens my suspicions that there is no proper coolant seal twixt block and top of liner. To my eyes, there’s a greenish ring of some sort of deposit between the copper or bronze compression-sealing element and the block – just what you’d expect from a coolant weep. Perhaps the ‘crud’ choking the coolant passages is the remains of coolant leak-stopping stuff that I remember from the days when we couldn’t afford proper fixes. Apologies for perhaps flogging a dead horse.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

These are the things prototypes are made to discover. Probably designed by an engineer with no hands-on experience of working on wet-liner engines. Looks good on CAD…

[norm nortonParticipant @normnorton75434]

The Nemesis design carries the Norton brand name, but the Norton motorcycle company as known really finished in 1962 when it was absorbed into AMC and moved production from its home in Birmingham to Plumstead. Ever since then, the brand name has been traded and attempts at resurrection tried. Perhaps the last true Norton production units were for Andover Norton making the Commando in the 1970s and the production of the rotary engined bikes at Shenstone in the 1980s. The brand was then sold and Canadian/American names got involved.

The Nemesis prototype construction was not viewed by many as a serious contender, it was more a part of financial misdoing amongst North Americans who were playing money games. The survival of that V8 is of historical interest and all credit to the National Motorcycle Museum for having Allen Millyard take it apart. I will say that it is a delight to watch him work on anything mechanical.

The only credit that might be given to Stuart Garner is that he did buy the various Norton trademarks from the American Lawyer who had them, and thus stopped them being scattered across the world. The 961 Commando that Garner made perhaps 2,000 off has kept the name on two wheels, and generated interest from the very large, Indian company TVS who now own the brand. They have spent a lot of money on a new R&D and production site in Birmingham and, for sure, new Norton motorcycles are going to be be produced with most of the parts coming from India. Norton back in Birmingham might be viewed as the old company’s rebirth in a new era.

 

 

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

The new BSA company (Indian) was talking about opening a new factory in Birmingham when they launched the new 650 GoldStar last year. Promises promises. Yet to see it though.

Apparently the Indian-made Goldies are quite good though, after a few teething troubles with ECUs, so expect the Indian-made Norton components will be OK.

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

A friend of mine has the new Goldstar & he loves it. Along with his 1956 BSA B33 plunger. He also has a origonal Goldstar DB34, he sold one not long back. He has 2 Enfield bullets too. Funny i was talking to him the other day & saying I may sell my bike due to old age etc. He rides nearly every day & is the same age 72.

Steve.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions from a prototype produced whilst a company was going bankrupt!   Even a genius designer will be stuffed if there’s no money for materials, tooling and outsourcing.  Also, because people aren’t stupid, that some of the team will be jumping ship after spotting the danger signs.  Morale rock-bottom etc.

Norton is a good example of a company that zigzagged throughout it’s existence between success and failure.   Success when it came up with a competitively priced bike that trounced the opposition, which they did a few times, doom and gloom when they were leapfrogged.   By 1950 motorbikes had moved from simply being a means of transport to being objects of desire, where style and performance matter more than basic utility.  Unfortunately the market for objects of desire is even more brutally competitive than usual in manufacturing.  It requires firms not only to manufacture a product, but to have an even more wonderful offering under development ready for the next round.   Keeping on top requires good leadership, excellent management, talented designers, adequate investment, engineering capability and an agile workforce.  Getting the timing wrong or losing momentum due to any of these not being in good order is deadly.

British industry has always suffered from low productivity.   The cause is unclear, though small-c conservatism is certainly a factor.   Absentee owners who would rather spend profits on yachts or maintain income by investing in someone else.  A board with no sense of direction, or an ill-considered strategy.  Poor managers.   Burnt out designers.  Unconvinced lenders, or accountants who prefer not to risk money earning interest.   Obsolete buildings, machines and working practices.  A workforce extremely reluctant to change anything who can get better pay and conditions elsewhere.   Tooth and nail resistance to the metric system is an example of the sort of small-c conservatism caused enormous damage to British industry.   Too many enterprises full of people performing entirtely to their own satisfaction.

Modern manufacturing, whether British or foreign, is still highly vulnerable to these challenges.   For years Nokia dominated the mobile phone market with affordable stylish products: customers loved Nokia and bought them by the billion.   Then it all went horribly wrong.  Nokia are still a successful company, though not by selling mobile phones.  That side of the business was sold to Microsoft and it didn’t go well for them either.   Querying best Microsoft phone got me this comment from 2022:

Windows Phone is long dead, yet somehow you’ve ended up here. If you’re in the market for a new Windows Phone these days, we’ve got some bad news for you. There are no more Windows Phones being manufactured, by Microsoft or other smartphone makers. We would not recommend buying a Windows Phone in the current year, outside of nostalgia reasons.

There are thousands of other examples, historically mostly firms going bust in the west, but the same problem is emerging in the new manufacturing nations like China.   Chinese firms also find it difficult to cope with change forced by competition.

Dave

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

Getting back to the original question posed by the OP, I wonder if the seal at the top of the liner was intended to be a metallic O ring?  Sealing both the water space and combustion chamber? The bronze (brass?) rings being an attempt to cure a leak.

Metallic O rings are not the easiest of things to use, great care is required in the design for their use.

Moving off topic, I think it a great shame that this project is being resurrected.   My reason for thinking this is that over the last 3 decades or so the Norton name has become somewhat tainted.  Some enthusiasts think this started with the rotary, I’m inclined to agree.   The name went through various ownerships, promises were made, the Nemesis being one, through to the Donnington era.  The financial shenanigans there are well documented.   The bikes built at Donnington weren’t up to much.   TVS bought the name, Norton enthusiasts (like me!) had high hopes for the proper resurrection of the name.  All they have done so far is a revamp of the twin (and V4?).  Silk purse and sows ear comes to mind.

My view is that with this latest incarnation of Norton the owners should have severed any connection with the previous business, just as Triumph (Hinckley) did with Triumph (Meriden).  Initially stay with what they know, good  smaller capacity bikes.  Perhaps hang the “Norton” name on sporty versions of those.   While doing this develop new bikes that might fit the Norton name better.

TVS have other projects on the go, apparently.  Surely better to concentrate on those than, frankly, attempt to resurrect the dead.   Then the Nemesis project rears its ugly head to remind us of the past……

[John MC]

On John MC Said:

Getting back to the original question posed by the OP, I wonder if the seal at the top of the liner was intended to be a metallic O ring?  Sealing both the water space and combustion chamber? The bronze (brass?) rings being an attempt to cure a leak.

Metallic O rings are not the easiest of things to use, great care is required in the design for their use.

AFAIK, Wills rings are used to seal between opposed faces only, so would be fine to seal compression pressure – and are used thus. But the leakage path for coolant between liner and block persists, outboard of the rings (if used), although, with more luck than is reasonable to hope for, the metallic contact between the underside of the liner’s locating flange and the counterbore in the block may be good enough. However, I’m pretty sure the green deposit around many of the bronze rings indicates previous coolant leakage, and the mess in the waterways looks like leak-stopping additive. Allen Millyard has now installed the liners ‘permanently’, without sealant between liners and block, at their top end. I’m worried…

We’re all allowed blind spots. Perhaps the designer simply forgot about the need for a coolant seal the top end of the liner. Perhaps the blindness is mine – what have I missed? I do hope, after all his corrective work, Allen Millyard doesn’t find the engine piddles all over the place. Perhaps someone here knows him, and could ask him…?

[Kiwi Bloke]

On Kiwi Bloke Said:

On John MC Said:

…

… Perhaps the designer simply forgot about the need for a coolant seal the top end of the liner. Perhaps the blindness is mine – what have I missed? …

Only that this is an unfinished prototype.  May have been testing to see if the simple approach was ‘good enough’ in a context where keeping manufacturing costs down later was vital.   The evidence suggests it wasn’t good enough, but then work stopped.   Unless there’s a note in the archives, we shall probably never know what Norton’s next step would have been.

Failed engines are ‘quite interesting’.   Although the RR Merlin famously exceeded all expectations, the RR Vulture is mostly forgotten.   The Vulture was an advanced X layout aero-engine, first run in 1937, and it got into service before it became apparent that even after being de-rated by 10%, reliability was unacceptably poor.  Being rushed into production didn’t help, but the engine was abandoned because the list of difficult problems was too long.  The Vulture team knew they were pushing the envelope, and no doubt believed they’d addressed all likely failures, but went a step too far.   Many other engine failures in the literature.  No shame in that; engine design is still a formidable challenge.

Dave

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

If the compression seal is a Wills ring, it is possible that the coolant passages are sealed with a silicone type rubber (Known as Sactrac when applied to a conventional gasket to provide locally enhanced sealing)

As a prototype, it is possible that coolant seals were hand applied silicone rubber circles, rather than preformed.

Tightening while uncured provided a better seal than a pre cured ring, because of less torque relaxation, on effectively a metal to metal joujint with the silicone blocking small leak paths..

Gardners use a simular technique MANY years ago. The coolant passages between head and block, were separate bobbins, with a rubber ring around it (Useful as replacement tyres for Dinky vehicles)

When the head was tightened down, the rubber was compressed to seal.

Worked well until the engine was run short of water; that cooked the rubber so it no longer sealed.

Howard

 

[Bantam BillParticipant @bantambill]

In episode 3 about 8 minutes in Alan removes one of the heads, you can clearly see rubber rings located in counterbores sealing the oil and water passages

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