Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

Hi, Assembled crankcase,put cam in and timing cover on without followers turned engine over by hand on bench.Timing gears sound noisy or rough,do show some signs of wear, never had engine running before so don't know if this is okay, but new cam pinion and half timing I could get ,could be sourced may be the thing to do.Your thoughts would be great. Ariel 1949 Ng 350. Barrie.

When I rebuilt the W/NG a couple of years ago, I had a similar problem. The crankshaft pinion was very worn; the cam pinion was fine.

The cam pinion will very quickly show some signs of wear on a portion of the teeth and wear no more after that, warned Ariel many years ago. The half time pinion does not do this so if yours is showing signs of distress try a new one.

Here's an example!

The cheapskate answer is to transfer carefully the timing marks on the two gear wheels to the other side of them and then put the gears on the other way round. The gear on the camshaft can be pressed off easily enough using a vice.

But new gears would always be a better option if you can find them.

Mine came from singles spares, but obviously there's a problem with that at the moment.

Very strong valve springs Load and wear the teeth quicker and any.Flywheel main shaft run out on the timing side doesn't help much either. The inner camshaft bush wears on each side. At 3 and 9 oclock. Not up and down .Any play there should be eliminated to keep the gear mesh depth constant. Then how well the teeth have been generated decider the amount of whine also. I wouldn't run THIN oil in those motors either. Use something with a bit of GUTS in it and some anti scuffing for the cams too. ARIEL single Cyl cams cop it a bit. The single cam survives better. than the earlier style. Nev

Thanks for the interesting replies,looking at it more the smaller crank pinion has double the work to do twice the speed and wear.Can now see why that suffers more looking at the pictures. Will soon try and get new pinions smaller one first,hopefully cam pinion too would be ideal.
Running new on new. Mine dont look to bad as the one in picture.Cam pinion removal in vice,how do you protect the offset oil pump spindle end if you use hammer or use hydraulic press or puller? Thank's Barrie.

Hi Barrie
I can help with a good used mainshaft timing pinion, see contact details in first listing under spares wanted/for Sale section
Pete

Use a suitable piece of tube, a deep reach socket or box spanner etc. You will need a big strong vice, an hydraulic press is better. Not a hammer!