Progress on restoring an Overland

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Here are pictures showing some of the restoration work I have been doing on the Overland. Most of the work so far has been machining replacement parts. The white metal camshaft follower bushes had loosened and subsequently been broken in use. The zinc die-cast of the oil pump casing and of the magneto body had degenerated badly.

The oil pump: Someone had attempted, unsuccessfully, to repair this.

The poor fit of gears in the old casing meant it couldn't pump oil at all.

A slightly redesigned new oil pump casing

The finished new oil pump casing

Cam shaft follower bushes:

A broken old camshaft follower bush and some new replacements

The new camshaft follower bushes fully assembled

Magneto body: The problem here was that the old body had distorted so much that it was not possible to take any measurements from it. All dimensions had to be worked out from other components.

Machining the new magneto body

Comparing the new and old bodies

A trial assembly of the magneto

The crumbling die-cast body shown against the repaired magneto

A repair to the clutch spring spider:

Some damage to the clutch spring spider

The repaired fingers on the spider

Dynamo repairs:

Disintegrating end of dynamo case

New end for dynamo case

New shaft for dynamo

Steering wheel:

At some time the steering wheel must have loosened slightly. Someone had dealt with this problem by using Loctite and heavily driving in a key, badly denting the column tube, which in turn caused damage to the magneto and throttle tubes that run through it. Because there is a very small shoulder on the column it would be very difficult to stop any movement between the steering wheel and the column. I did not want follow the example of using Loctite so I bored the steering wheel with a 3.5 to 4 degree taper and turned a part parallel part tapered bush to fit the steering wheel and column. This is a simple and effective solution and makes the key almost redundant, apart from acting as a safety device should the nut loosen. It also means that if you need to take the steering wheel off at any time it easily done.