Rim locks who has them and are they needed

I have rim locks on two bikes and one without are they needed? Re 750 bolt or Cush?

My rear ally flanged morad has one but I am thinking about renewing the wheel on my bolt hub job?

If you ever have a tire come off the rim you will wish you'd locked it - if ya brain survives beyond the full fork slap rodeo contest. Mere flats hardly ever takes any one down scary as it it but it take seasoned flat track stunt rider to save de-rimed instant hi side crash on first loose tire flip/flop. On the other hand I ain't put locks back in Trixie and had couple tube blow outs sans locks but tires stayed on rims so just normal wiggle worm to ride down to a stop with the last 1/2 bike length always giving an extra kick back tester. So just like cycling in general how lucky do ya feel vs how lazy you are. Had a neighboor with a metric curiser that took wife just a 5 miles on level highway and had to pull over with rear flat but bike gave that surprise extra whip lash just as fully stopping and brain injured and prefigured wife ever more. So de-rim tire is instant crisis at speed that gets better slowing while a blow out may no even be noticed at first going fast and straight but get weirder on slowing. BTW the normal fork range of Commando IS NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE DE-RIMed tires PERIOD END OF STORY THROW IN THE OLD TOWEL let ambulance take ya home. Only the likes of tri- linked Ms Peel with broken off fork stops and futher range by panic strenght bars bashed into tank crushing into it for fork range that allowed me to save a rear de-rim event BARELY and required flying into oncoming lane then off into ditch so if any traffic I"d never been heard from again. On normal cycle I would of hi sided at 55 on to my head with bike on top. Your first hint that you lost tire off rim will be there rear end passing your hip area.

Cheers for that Steve

Rim locks , no, new rim lock on 69 it is. Now should I change the hub to Cush while I am at it?
I have a spare hub.
J

cant have to much cush, I often wonder how effective the early clutch cush drive is as well as the Commando rear
wheel cush drive, having both can do no harm.

I'm delaying put off mechanical task again tonight so tell ya the cush drive has 2 schools of thought and both camps have good proof their way works out long term. I suspect many Cdo have run a good part of their lives with the cushions beat to obviation so Cdo's lands in both camps w/o much issue long term.

madass140 said:

cant have to much cush, I often wonder how effective the early clutch cush drive is as well as the Commando rear
wheel cush drive, having both can do no harm.

Click to expand...

Madass/steve

There is nothing on the clutch or the wheel on my 69 bike . Even 1950's beezas had a kinda Cush on the crank drive . I've got nothing at all. I recon that is what clutch slip is for .

Cheers ji

Norton suffered a rash of warranty repairs for broken gearbox teeth, due to NOT having
a "cush" or any kind or shock absorber between the gearbox and rear drive

the cush drive solved those problems

I had no idea there was any kind of controversy about this.

There really are two schools of thought?

Ok, now I am really curious

Can someone tell me just what is the other school of thought, the one that believes that the Norton solution to broken gearbox teeth was not solved by the addition of the cush rear wheel? Or, that the cush drive rear wheel feature was somehow "not necessary" ?

I'm guilty, I have a rim lock. Wife rides on the back with me. Have to deal with extra wheel weights when balancing the wheel though. I feel confident that I have that safety feature if a rear tire blow-out occurs. I'm sure many don't have them installed.

Rim locks are dangerous out of date bad news if a rider vehicle.

Having had flat tires on both street and dirt bikes, with two on dirt bikes that were with and without rim locks, I have to whole-heartedly recommend installing rim locks on everything out there. Now, before spouting anything about current bikes not using rim locks, keep in mind that most of those are tubeless, and the rim's bead area is designed differently. Assuming you incorporate new-style rims (even with tubes), then you could probably "safely" go without rim locks. But, I won't.

Nathan

Run new tires without rim locks. Pure trouble. You have enough to worry about running such an old bike. Each -his/her own decision.

To clarify - I think cush in our type drive line is the cats meow and got lots of it in next Peel, but also know of lots who get away w/o it, some on this forum, racers over decades d/t expedient make do, my buddy's '71 and years of descriptions on NOC and BI list. Some seem to get away w/o cush some don't, I don't know why but my jerking style is in cushion camp. Tap a hammer raw on anvil or head and then with some rubber in between, sheeze.

Rim locks were for old school tires with 26 lb of air. New tech tires are 36 lb rear. No rim locks needed!

I tried running my bike without a rim lock...... one time.
I put on a new rear tire and decided to leave out the piece and see if it made any difference in the balance/handling etc.
One ride had the valve stem cocked at a pretty good angle as the rim had spun around inside of the tire.

1) The tiny hard plastic wafers in the rear wheel don't even remotely qualify as a "cush drive" as seen on other bikes. Merely a way to have the wheel come off quickly. :lol:

2) I was told to can the rim locks by everyone I talked to... then I saw the aftermath of a seasoned veteran rider getting a punctured front at 50 mph, and barely escaping injury, (albeit ruined underwear) so shaken he could hardly hold a spanner... :shock: made a rim lock impression on me.

I have never had them on my Commando and have never had any issue so I guess I have to say that my experience indicates TO ME that they aren't necessary though they certainly can't hurt and I wouldn't argue against having them. I had dirt bikes that had them back in the day and understand their purpose but haven't seen a need for them on my Norton.

We locked the tires onto the rims in drag-race applications but that was done with sheet metal screws through the rim into the tire bead and wouldn't look too attractive on a Commando!

Ya know its boils down to how lucky vs lazy you are and I decided not to put lock back in after last rear flat I changed away from home in the rain with pissed off wife who took me with new tube back to the scene. I felt the thing going down and heading to appointment 10 more miles away so attempted to ride it but got so squirrely I could not compensate for road texture and wind so gave up BUT was very pleased the totally torn up tube and over heated tire did not de-rim, which can put tire into the sprocket and swing arm and eventually come apart twisting bead wires around axle so good to have wire snips in tool kit. So rim locks are like the brake safety spring or oil filters decision, so I'm screwing tire on Peel's 16" cast rim but going leave lock out on the spoked 18" rim for lightness.

Steve
Going off topic now the temp here is about 26 c today and tomorrow , so am going to attempt Caswell dragons blood repair to original glass fastback tank. Tank washed out and heating in sun ready for some outside prep. Then going in with the goods mixed with 125cc thinners . I have waited for this weather in case of Bosch job for months . Heard of real horror stories , well this is it.

Thanks to every one for input, maybe swap wheels on hopper ,for all it is better safe than sorry.

J

concours said:

I was told to can the rim locks by everyone I talked to... then I saw the aftermath of a seasoned veteran rider getting a punctured front at 50 mph, and barely escaping injury, (albeit ruined underwear) so shaken he could hardly hold a spanner... :shock: made a rim lock impression on me.

Click to expand...

That interesting as my MK3 never had rim locks on the front anyway. I believe the locks were to prevent the tire from moving on the rim under the awesome acceleration potential of the ultra high HP output of the Commando, and my 650 BSA T-Bolt has two of them on the rear rim!, holy cow, that's overkill! My 350 Honda race-ish bike doesn't have any, never did, and now neither the Norton nor the Beeza are rim lock equipped. The Honda has tubed tires and a puncture would act the same on any bike with tubes so all I can think of is the lesser HP of the Honda deemed them un-necessary even though the tires have tubes. Truth be told, I think more flats were caused by improper lock installation resulting in pinched tubes, than prevented by keeping tires from rotating on the rim and ripping out valve stems. By the way, do you ever do "the Kanc" ? Give me a shout if it's in the cards this summer.

Pinched tube blowout I-90 Rear terrifying rim lock non-sense thank god for State Trooper rescue.