Ruggerfields clutch

Post by **Stuart** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:27 pm

Took my clutch off on Sunday. Interesting. An extension shaft has been fitted to the back so that it reaches the gearbox. God knows how I'm gonna fit the Beltdrive

Silly question as this is homemade but are there such things as commercially available extension shafts? I think not but a workmate thinks maybe...

You can just see the gearbox shaft down this hole past the new bearing.

Sphere · Post by **Sphere** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:14 pm

What is the advantage of fitting a belt drive?

Post by **Stuart** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:41 pm

It's a bit more efficient and I hope to increase the speed a little. The bike is very under-geared (as those who rode it at the rally will testify) and needs the ratios altered a bit.
I'm not gonna push it though. HP limits me but I'm uring on the side of caution and looking for an extra 10 mph. I'll be able to keep up with the traffic then.
We've already started machining a blank piece of steel into a new clutch centre to replace the BNR one. The new one will have a shaft with keyways cut.
I'm lucky in that I have a choice of two front cogs. One is a perfect fit whilst the more likely one will need an idler wheel.
I'm not canabalising/altering any of the original parts just in case it doesn't work out.
I'm taking pictures at every stage and will post them eventually.

Sphere · Post by **Sphere** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:47 pm

Hrm, I thought the 850cc would be just fine for slow lane highway traffic. How fast does it run in practice? I'm going to take a look at an Enfield next week, so I will keep this in mind.

Post by **Stuart** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:53 pm

Other bike builders get 65-70mph from this engine with no problems. I get 55mph. But my revs are probably limited a bit more than theirs - but only a little. With an engine that fires on each stroke (twin) I should be ok. Gearbox has a tiny 18 tooth job.
The 850 engines are awesome units and well worth using. Nice balance of economy and speed I think.

Sphere · Post by **Sphere** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:57 pm

Yeah others get 55mph with 416cc chinese b-grade engines, even without belt drive tweaking, so I figure something must be off in your setup, at least when you hunger for more top speed.

andrewaust · Post by **andrewaust** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:25 am

Damn mate! Something is wrong somewhere if your only getting 55mph, I'm getting 60mph on the 406 on a good day with no wind. I must admit I'm revving the engine over suggested speed, but boy you should be able to get 65 to 70 mph out of the ole girl.

Might be time to place a tacho on it mate and see if your only getting the rpm 's governing out at 3000 rpm. Surely the engine will rev to 3800?, the other thing is gearing which you have tried to sort out.

That's a shame your having problems, I thought it would be a real nice bike for highway running.

Keep us posted Stuart!

Post by **Stuart** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:51 pm

Here's a few shots of just how the old clutch has been modified to reach the Gearbox main shaft.

And here's a shot of the BNR Belt clutch centre sitting next to a lump of steel that will soon become a mixture of both

Yep, need to get her revving a bit higher I think but she feels like she is most of the way there. The adjustment is hard to get at.

oldbmw · Post by **oldbmw** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 9:31 pm

If I were you I would install a bigger gearbox sprocket, by far the easiest and most efficient way to gear up the bike. Remember if you gear up teh primary ratio, you will increase power loss in teh gearbox by making it run faster. all the Indian made sprockets are 13.50 a time from hitchcocks and go up to 21 teeth . A Uk made one of 22 teeth is available at 22.50. This represents nearly 25% increase in gearing over your 18 teeth.

Post by **Stuart** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 9:06 am

I'm only looking for a little more speed, Larry and I'm not gonna stress the box too much.
If you think changing the gearbox cog on my particular bike is easy then you should read earlier posts

oldbmw · Post by **oldbmw** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 8:28 pm

Stuart wrote:I'm only looking for a little more speed, Larry and I'm not gonna stress the box too much.
If you think changing the gearbox cog on my particular bike is easy then you should read earlier posts

You can have as little a syou like, as teh sprockets are made in all sizes from 15 to 22 each one with one more teeth. so if toy want you could fit a19 tooth sprocked and go up just the one tooth. what I was trying to say it will be much easier to change a ready made £22 sprocket than reworking your clutch.

oldbmw · Post by **oldbmw** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 8:29 pm

oldbmw wrote:
Stuart wrote:I'm only looking for a little more speed, Larry and I'm not gonna stress the box too much.
If you think changing the gearbox cog on my particular bike is easy then you should read earlier posts
You can have as little as you like, as the sprockets are made in all sizes from 15 to 22 each one with one more teeth. so if you want you could fit a 19 tooth sprocked and go up just the one tooth. what I was trying to say it will be much easier to change a ready made £22 sprocket than reworking your clutch.

I have to admit it was a bigger job than i expected when I changed a sprocket on my 1961 Triumph

Post by **Stuart** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 11:10 pm

Basically I would have to take the engine out to change the gearbox cog. While I'm changing to belt drive I might as well kill two birds as it were.
I'll keep you informed. Quite an interesting project

Post by **Stuart** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:29 pm

Update: The belt drive has now been fitted to the Ruggerfield after a new centre was made for the BNR Clutch.
A workmate Nick made this on his lathe and fitted the pillars. Studs were taken from the BNR clutch.

A shot of the new old centre next to the new new one which is beginning to take shape.

End on shot of the new clutch inner. The hardest part was cutting the five splines into the inner of the shaft. I did this by firstly scribing five lines down the outer and then drilling in at 3.4mm (the splines themselves were about 4mm wide). I finnished then off with a needle file which took like forever.

Here you can see the slots that create the internal splining. To get this done would have cost me £800 at least and I couldn't find anyone to do it so had to figure a way around the problem.

Here you see the clutch assembled (with shaft protruding out the back) sitting next to the new and discarded BNR Inner.

The engine sprocket and its assy was interesting.

I decided to use the sprocket holder for my new belt cog and set about cutting the internal teeth by first drilling 4 holes and then hack sawing them. Then I chopped them out with an old wood chiesel

and finally filed them. I had to do this on two cogs because the belt didn't quite fit

Took me 10 hours each

There was no sideways movement on this cog once it slotted onto the assy. Because I was going for a 30mm wide belt I had width considerations and sunk the assy 10mm into the cog. Nick machined this out on his lathe.

This shot is of the 48T cog I did earlier. See how I removed the majority of the metal before I filed the 6 internal splines with the chisel

The finished assy showing the 44T cog. The 48T would have given me 70mph but I am restricted because of available belt lengths. Ideally I could do with a 126T or 127T belt but I don't think they make them.

I had some slack to take up in the belt and so used the original tenstioner to support an M10 bolt packed full of bearings. This is very solid as I've tapped the far end of the bolt into the inner primary case.

The finished setup below. Top speed is up by just over 10mph and I can now cruise comfortably at a genuine 55mph+ instead of the previous 45. Top speed is now just over 60mph which is far more acceptable although not the best that could be got from this engine I'm sure. I'm still not convinced the revs go as high as they should, (3600).

I've done a few miles on the bike so far and it feels much better. First gear pull away is much more respectable. The last two pictures above were taken with the engine running by the way.
All that remains is to put a few miles on her and see if it all holds together. So far, so good

I may now get a 46T HTD cog made for a custom car blower, cut down my 48T engine cog and use that to fill the hole in the 46. That might allow me to take up the slack and get rid of the tensioner wheel.

I've done 50 miles on her so far and no probs

Anorak_ian · Post by **Anorak_ian** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 3:36 pm

I think I may be missing something here.
Why didn't you use the long gearbox main shaft? I can understand going to the lengths you have if you were to change the splines, say from 5 to 6 spline so you could use a Norton clutch, but wow a lot of work just to attatch a clutch.

Would you consider selling me the remains of the newby clutch centre?

Post by **Stuart** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 8:10 pm

At the begining of this thread I asked whether there were any exstenstions available and got no answers. That's why I started the thread really, to see if anyone could suggest an easier way of doing it. Even my Enfield dealer didn't mention them when he had the clutch out and saw the problem.
Do you have a part number or picture of this shaft? Any ideas where and what on it is used? Any idea of length?
More specifically can it be changed without disturbing the gearbox sprocket shaft as it's impossible to get in there without removing the engine.
If I have trouble in future I may have to go that route. Just in case then I guess I better not sell that BNR clutch centre.

oldbmw · Post by **oldbmw** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 8:58 pm

Attrition overcomes all obstacles...

A good effort stuart, hope to see it at Hamm in a couple of weeks.

Had a puncture yesterday, or to be more exact, the new ( two months old) tube failed. Grrgh!
This is my second puncture on a bike, the last one was in the winter of 1961/2, I do hope it wont become a habit

Anorak_ian · Post by **Anorak_ian** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 10:55 pm

Yea ya know it's the Taurus Diesel main shaft, almost 4cm longer than the stock Bullet main shaft. I've lost the Enfield number for it but Henry Price just sold one for I think it was £30 on eBay.

The gearbox comes apart from the right side of the bike (with out removing the box from the bike), and the main shaft will come out with out removing the gears (pinions), and a longer one fitted in with out removing the gearbox sprocket or output shaft.

Of course it all depends on where your engine is positioned in your frame, I have to position mine according to the main shaft length and no more, but I would have positioned it further over if I had the option (countering the weight of the flywheel), I.e. made the part myself.
As yours is a home made part, the long main shaft may not fit exactly, some jiggery pokery may be needed to make it all fit nice.

Sorry I didn't read your first entry, I have been busy doing just about everything else but bikes just lately.

Damn good bit of metal work you did though, doubt that I could have done it.

Post by **Stuart** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 10:35 am

Cheers for the info Ian. The 40mm wouldn't have been long enough. I just measured the length of the shaft on the old clutch and it stands out 60mm from the rear. I think even if I could have got away with a longer shaft I'd have had to support the clutch more, it being subject to perhaps more leaverage being further out.
The clutch shaft sits snuggly in a big bearing fitted into the inner Primary plate and that takes a lot of the load I figure.
I'm not an engineer so I figured I best keep it as close to the original build as possible. Anyway, no problems so far, fingers crossed.

Post by **Diesel Dave** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:06 am

Stu, your extension with carrier bearings is a lot better engineering wise.

The extended shaft was a factory bodge for the Taurus 325cc, fine for 6.5HP but really dodgy on anything more powerful.

Well done on the belt drive conversion though!

See you in a few weeks - Hamm.

Dave

Post by **Stuart** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 10:52 pm

Ok Dave, I figured it was best to duplicate the original for the most part.

The new clutch is great

. And gear changing is how it should be now. She pulls well and it's nice to be able to get her up to a reasonable speed now. 67mph last count

Although she's weighty old bike at those speeds. I hope nobody gets in my way. I've a feeling the bike would chop a car in half if it hit one. It's nice that the weight is low though. Makes for pretty good handling

Ian. I reckon that BNR centre will be for sale after all. Well chat about it after Hamm maybe

Post by **Diesel Dave** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:42 pm

Save up those pennies and buy a disk brake kit, it's about 200 quid as a genuine Royal Enfield upgrade.

Works well on my 500 petrol.

Dave

Post by **Stuart** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:45 pm

Been ages since I've posted to this one but time for an update

I fitted the 44T to the engine and that's been on the bike ever since I added the belt drive. I tried the 48T at the time but it was too tall and so abandoned that idea. But I'd filed out the middle to fit the carrier so wouldn't it be a waste

Well, the only place I could get a 46T was State-side, from a custom car firm. It arrived (along with a large shipping & import tax bill) a few years ago now and I've only just got it sorted. Here's how Simon (in the company machine shop) turned that 48T down and slipped it into the 46T

Now I'd gone this route after exhausting all other options (to the rear) and I know the bike will not be great at crawling through traffic with this 46T on but hey, it's the quest for speed right

and the Ruggerfield might just pull this baby

I've done this now because I'm thinking it maybe the only way she can keep up with the Tiger

I dunno when we'll ever get round to trying it though

DieselBike.net

Ruggerfields clutch

Ruggerfields clutch

Longer gearbox shafts

Weighty at Speed

Re: Ruggerfields clutch