engine

head on barrells. all in frame.

Fitting the belt drive has been more troubling. The clutch hub is scraping against the inside of the inner chaincase cover. It will have a date with my grinstone some time in the near future.

I have to start writing my thesis this weekend so it looks like the bike is going to have to collect dust for a little while. Next project is getting the belt drive to fit right. Then gearbox adjuster, oil tank and then battery box.

the assembly begins

I got the wheels back. Nicely laced and trued by Cyclops cycles in Shawnee Kansas. They did a fantastic job and did it in just 2 days. The gears in the gearbox were shot. I ended up replacing all of them, I also bought a gearbox rebuild kit so it is effectively a brand new gearbox now. Strangely enough, after I put it all together, it worked. No one was more surprised than me. Building gearboxes will humble you. The disk brake looks lovely when you get up close too. I have the engine back, hopefully I will have time to reassemble it and put it back into the frame in the next couple weeks. The new belt drive kit is sitting on my kitchen table and will go on shortly afterwards.

wheel hubs

Got the wheel hubs back from Colorado Norton Works today. They look fantastic! I have always prided myself on being fairly good at polishing metal, having done it since I was a little kid, but I have met my match with Colorado Norton Works. Considering the condition of what I sent them, the result was better than I had hoped for. The hubs have the new sealed bearings in them and overall they look great. They also supplied me with new alloy fork seal retainer nuts which weigh exactly nothing and look sharp. Website at http://www.coloradonortonworks.com/

gearbox polish

Against my better judgment I decided to polish up the gear box casing like the rest of the bike. It did not turn out as nice as I had hoped. There were too many places that I could not get to with my bare hands and the drain plug area looks awful. I console myself in the fact that the easily visible areas look good. Oh well, i'll get to properly over the winter.

gearboxes

I decided against my better judgment to overhaul the gearbox. I know nothing about gearboxes. We will see how this works out. I got the gearbox overhaul kit from RGM with the fancy new bearing and oil seals. The below pics are after its all pulled apart. Wish me luck getting it all back together.

shiny

Some before and after photos of the fork slider I found on ebay. The before photo's are taken AFTER 8 hours of wet sanding. What a glorious weekend that was. I took the before photos and then put it striaght on the buffer. Rough soap, fine soap, then Autosol polish on the buffing cloth. Autosol is undoubtedly the best polish on earth. It smells really good too.

the rebuild begins

With the semester over and summer upon me, it is time to put it all back together. The folks powder coating the barrels are taking their sweet time; but that does not stop me completely.
Engine has been Balanced by Sunset Motors in Wisconsin. This is a good idea for an Atlas, though in all honesty I don't think it was much worse than any other British bike I have ridden.

As is clearly evident, I am not a photographer. Hopefully get the crankcase together in the next week or two.

the polishing

Some before, during and after shots of the timing side crankcase. I water papered them down about 2 years ago when I rebuilt the engine but the 2 years of riding had gotten them pretty scuffed up. Some 320, 600, and 1500 grit water paper fixed that problem along with three new buffing cloths from the hardware store. Other side will be done shortly.

First wave of new parts

The first wave of new parts came and they are friggin beautiful! You wouldn't believe it but thats nearly a grand worth of parts there. Oh well, you wanna play golf, you don't bitch about the price of balls.


The new shocks for the rear are chrome plated and they too are very nice. The old ones had leaked out all their hydraulic fluid a long time ago. These are unshrouded and I think it looks a lot cooler.

The new alloy yokes are mirror polished and weigh almost nothing. They are beautiful. I got the conversion to get rid of the crappy old ball bearing and cup set up and now have the roller bearings like the commando. The new setup is much nicer, less maintenance.