Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech witworth wrenches

Do I need to get a set of these for my 69 engine?

it's a good idea. maybe some sockets, too... although i have a 70 bsa and use metrics & saes that come close most times. it's amazing how many bolts a 14 mm and 1/2 inch wrench/socket work on! i also use a good crescent wrench for many things. but i'm an old hack mechanic.

what kind of project are you working on?

the Brit Bike forums are a good place for info:
below
brit bike forum


if this is a new project, get a set of allen head case screws, if the bike doesn't already have them. the old "cheese head" philips screws bugger up very easy.

i replaced my rectifier last week w/ a solid state rectifier and next week hope to install my boyer electronic ignition. set the valves last week, too. i love working on the old thing. i've had it since '78. and it runs pretty good.



check out ebay. there are always sets there from 30-50 dollars each.

cat whitworth ebay

That is a beauty Cat. Makes me smile every time I see your bike. I love the chrome/paint tank. A guy in my town has one just like yours, he rides it pretty regularly and I bump into him occasionally.

OK... at the risk of sounding dumb, are witworth wrenches just metric wrenches, or are they something special?

Soren

They are a little differenct from SAE. It is actually spelled whitworth.

Basically the bigest difference is how they are sized. from my understanding, the size is based on the bolt shaft not the head. Crazy brits.

Soren,
Some background from an equally uninformed Yankee

WHITWORTH adj. - A type of thread not to be confused with the BSF thread (British Standard Fine, or colloq. British Strip Fine), and not interchanged with SI or SAE threads as used by the developed nations of the world. The selection of suitable wrenches for use with Whitworth fasteners is sometimes confusing to the novice, but is greatly simplified if these few rules, which are completely true and correct, are committed to memory:


>Whitworth nut sizes are not even in fractions of an inch, except in certain cases where they are:


>A Whitworth wrench is not the size marked upon it and will not fit a nut of that size, though it will fit a nut which fits a bolt that is almost, but not quite, that size.


>A Whitworth wrench of a given size will fit the nut that fits a BSF bolt of 1/16 inch larger nominal diameter, hence of approximately 1/16 inch larger actual diameter, than the bolt that fits the Whitworth nut the wrench fits.


>Some Whitworth, SI, and SAE wrenches fit some Whitworth, SI and SAE nuts and others definitely do not.

There was some additional info I had posted long ago in the archives that had some of the history as well.

pipedr -

that was priceless man !!! i was guffawin over that one!