John Martin wrote:
Eric R Snow wrote:


Tha Norton weighs 385 lbs. A car would weigh about 1200 lbs. I think
that the Norton tranny might fail pulling that much weight. And it's
such a cool tranny.
Eric


Sure, it might fail, but it might fail on the bike too. I don't think
the weight of the car has a thing to do with it.

Think about it in terms of the "weakest link". If the Norton spins the
wheel on dry pavement now, then a heavier car will put more force on
the transmission. If it doesn't, though, it's limited by the torque of
the engine and not the weight of the car. The gearbox can take
anything the engine can throw at it, and that won't be any more with
the car than it would be with the bike or a bike with sidecar. Oh, it
might wear a bit quicker because you'll always be running at more
throttle due to the heavier and less streamlined car, but that will
wear the engine as well.

The clutch will wear out quicker, because you'll have to slip it more
to get the thing rolling.

You may also want to gear it a bit lower in the final drive than with
the bike, which would help the clutch. I'm not sure that you'll want
the top speed of the bike with a 1200 pound homemade car.

John Martin

The weakest link is the transmission case sideplate that holds the
shaft bearings. There is a bit less than adequate amounts of material
between the two bearings, and it tends to go it's own way at a bad time.
The mainshafts tend to flex rather more than is good as well. Ugly.
The additional weight of a car vice a bike would add even more stress
on an already marginal component, if the original AMC transmission were
to be attempted.

I would start wandering the rows of a U-pick wrecking yard, to see if
any of the subcompact car trannies could be carved free of their cases
and grafted into use.


Cheers
Trevor Jones