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Home Motorcycle Home Triumph Home Export Home Norton Info Home Contact Us! Special Parts Updated 04/03/24 Norton Projects Blog Updated 08/31/24 850 Commando Recommission Updated 08/21/24 Customer Combat Partial Rebuild July 24 Updated 09/06/24 Customer Combat Build Oct 23 Shipped 7/13/24 1975 Norton Wiring Pickup 06/07/24 Combat 5 Updated 06/04/24 Roadster 850 Updated 04/03/24 Blue 69S Delivered 05/17/24 High Mileage 850 Delivered 03/26/24 Mk3 Engine & Gearbox Delivered 03/07/23 1973 Customer BasketCase Build Delivered 07/15/22 1974 Norton 850 Commando Rebuild Sold 01/12/21 Updated 06/10/21 Customer Combat Delivered 09/07/20 1974 Norton Wiring Completed 07/27/20 1972 Norton 750 Commando Rebuild Completed 05/15/19 First Place Norton 05/16/19 Sold 01/01/20 1972 Norton Wiring Completed 07/19/18 Customer Combat and 69S Builds Closed 10/18/23		Saturday, September 7, 2024
	June 7, 2024 A guy has been waiting a long time for me to have time to recommission his 850 Command Roadster. Several years ago, he did a lot of work on it and then life got in the way as often happens. So, now the bike has been sitting for a long time. I normally would not have documented this but it's a little different from what I normally do, and I'm going to document is in a different way that will be more concise. He gave me a list of what he wants done and then anything else I see that needs to be done. Below is what he wants done and a couple of things I noticed. I'll add a date when each is finished. I'll also do my daily-type comments as needed in my normal format. Service Forks: July 6 the forks themselves are done. Check and replace steering bearings if needed: July 6, 2024 they are good, only needed to replace the bottom nut and tab washer. Adjust Isolastics: See the July 17, 2024 write-up. Service Gearbox: Completed June 18, 2024. Change Engine Oil and Filter: Completed June 18, 2024 Check and replace oil hoses if needed: Completed June 18, 2024 Return line original herringbone in good shape. Has an in-line anti-sump valve, do something about that: Completed June 18, 2024. Service the Primary: Completed July 15, 2024 Check/Service the swingarm pivot: Completed July 16, 2024 Flush and refill front brake: July 12, Caliper done, master cylinder inspected, When disk is back need to the final bleed. Completed 7/24/2024 My added things: Check/Service the rear brake, cush drive, and bearings: Completed July 17, 2024 Check/Service the front wheel bearings: July 7, 2024 Replaced bearings with sealed. The disk is grooved so sent it TrueDisk to be ground. Completed July 22, 2024 Check/Cleanup wiring: Completed August 14, 2024 June 8, 2024 All bikes must fly if I'm going to do more than a little to them! My priority right now is to finish a Trident that a guy has been waiting to buy even longer than this, see: Trident. So, it might be a while before I start daily updates on this one. The first picture show it rigged and ready to fly. The second shows it just before landing on the roll around table. June 17, 2024 I'm almost done with the Trident so this will start getting attention soon. I'm waiting for a couple of parts for the Trident, so I did a little on this today. It looks like it was services before being parked - that's good. The engine oil looks new, but of course, it is getting changed. The gearbox oil appears new too, but after draining a while that last part was brownish. I suspect that was caused by condensation. I'm trying an old school trick to clean it out. After it was fully drained, put the plug back in and added about 10 oz of mineral spirits - wish kerosene were available! Tomorrow, I'll drain that and do it again. Once it looks clean, I'll put in some SAE 30 to flush out the remnants of the mineral spirits, drain that and then fill it with proper gear oil. Of course, if it doesn't come clean, then I'll strip the gearbox. June 18,2924 The gearbox flush worked, and it is refilled with gear oil. The weird color may be identified - it appeared that a fly and a beetle like a ladybug were in the gearbox! There is no way in once closed so the only way was when last worked on. Of course I don't for sure know the condition but it looked good after the second flush. So, for now I'm calling it good and when we get to testing, we'll know for sure. Once it has a few miles and is warmed up, I'll drain a little oil and see if it looks good. The oil feed hose was an original herringbone hose. Unless physically damaged, they seem to last forever, and you cannot buy them today. Once in a while a NOS piece will be found, and they sell by the inch. The telltale sign that they are original are either two red striped side by side like these or a reg and green stripe sis by side which were seen on Triumphs. Unfortunately, the feed line to the engine had a one-way valve installed. Those have a good and bad side. The good side is that they stop wet sumping. The bad side is the destruction of engines! The feed side is gravity fed to the oil pump. The oil pump produces very little suction. I tried to blow through the valve I could not and when I used air it did open but that pressure is WAY more than the weight of the oil and suction of the pump, so it was a engine destruction waiting to happen. I rebuilt and engine last year badly damaged but the same valve! So, that link has been replaced. Drained the timing side fork. First clear water came out, then new-looking oil with chunks of black stuff. I noticed that the axle nut is on backwards and the gaiter is cracked. Since I need to check all that as well as the steering bearings, I'll disassemble, clean, and check all the fork components. I need to do most of it anyway as when the owner delivered it I checked and the forks are not on the same plane which can be bad at speed. July 1, 2024 Spent some time on this bike today. I drained the drive-side fork is it had only some sludge that came out first and then clean oil - no water. Then I started loosening things to get the front wheel off and got stuck for a while. The spindle nut was very tight and as I said before, on backwards - see the first picture. Once it was off I found the washer that does not belong and that was crushed into the threads of the spindle. That took a LONG time to get off - see the second picture. Then I put the nut back on just for the third picture to show how is supposed to look. Looks like someone spent serious hammer time on that nut! July 3, 2024 After all the weird problems with the Trident, was ready to just get the front end of this bike apart and finish it in a day or two. Got the caliper, hose and master cylinder off without much trouble but it clearly has not been serviced in a very long time as it was milky The pucks appear to be nearly new thickness but have been drenched in brake fluid and the pucks are really stuck. The disk and pucks have some small grooves. I'll talk to the owner - if it were my bike, I would send the disk to TrueDisk LLC (www.truedisk.net) to be surfaced. They stop better than new once he grinds them and it's not expensive - about $95 including shipping both ways. A new disk is over $200 plus shipping from the UK. OK, now the really weird! Normally removing the front spindle only requires twisting and pulling. Sometimes, light tapping. I had to use an aluminum drift and the hammer in the second picture! The pictures show why. I have no idea how one fork leg is that much "longer" than the other! I suspect that the one on the right is not all the way up into the triple tree or the fork is mis-assembled on the inside. It took so long to get the axle out that I ran out of time. I should have it all apart tomorrow and will know more then. July 5, 2024 Had a real struggle getting the fork collars off. Normally my strap wrench easily removed them. In this case it too a lot of heat and a lot of pulling before they finally let go. They are a bit of a rusty mess. I've cleaned them up and will try to re-plate them. If that doesn't work well, I'll replace them. The fork problem was weird. It turns out that the bolt through the bottom of the drive-side slider into the damper was nearly unscrewed which let the slider extend more than normal. The only reason the oil didn't all come out is the sludge in the bottom somehow sealed the bolt. The short red line in the picture shows how deep the sludge was with the bolt almost out (I wiped that one off). The long red line shows how deep the sludge was in the timing side. The bottoms of the dampers were also full of sludge. The fork tubes are in decent shape. The dampers are in really good shape. The damper rods have some rust but not where it matters so I won't change those. The springs are in good shape. The top bushings are worn enough that there is a little movement so it's best to change them. The bottom bushings are fine, but I only have sets so those will be changed. The seals were working but are hard so they will be changed too. The paper washers were missing. The steering bearings are fine but the bottom nut and tab washer are very rusted and the tab was not bent so I'll change both. I got the most of the sludge out with WD40 and a big bottle brush. Now the sliders are soaking in the kitchen sink in soapy water so I can get them perfectly clean. July 6, 2024 Finished cleaning the sliders and re-plated the fork collars. Then gave the sliders a quick polish. I mentioned earlier that the forks were not on the same plane. That is sometimes hard to correct. This time I was shocked. I removed the triple tree bottom nut and tab washer to replace them, gave the timing side fork bottom one nice hit with a rubber hammer and they were perfect. Installed the new tab washer and nut and tightened fully and rechecked - still prefect. Then I put the forks back together and that took time but went well. The owner decided on having the disk ground so I took to off - I'll ship it on Monday. The double-row (disk side) bearing was rough and the other side was OK. I will change them both to sealed bearings since they are both expensive. It took forever to get the bearings out. It's really weird that the Triumph front disk bearings can be changed in about 15 minutes once the wheel is off and the Norton uses almost the same setup, but getting the first bearing out is very difficult. Once it's finally out, the rest is easy and it's all easy to put back together. Tomorrow, I'll install the bearings and put the wheel back on without the disk so I can work on other parts of the bike. July 7, 2024 The front wheel bearings are changed and the front end is back together less the caliper and disk. The disk is leaving for TrueDisk in tomorrow's mail. The caliper is fighting me getting the inside piston out. The caliper has leaked some and the inside piston is either rusty or covered with crud on the part I can see. It will probably come out with air pressure. I'll definitely change the seals and will inspect the bores and pistons - hopefully I won't find anything wrong. The fork are filled with straight SAE 30. I wish you could still find SAE 20 but it doesn't make a big difference in Norton forks. I may not be back on this for a couple of days. The right fork has a small leak on the Trident I've been getting ready and the guy who wants it is coming Saturday. Also, I have a bike coming to recommission on Wednesday, and two bikes coming on Saturday - I have to clean up so there's room to get them all in! Worse than all that, two more are coming near the end of the month! I definitely need to learn to say no! July 12, 2024 Back on the caliper. Struggled a bit but rigged a better seal and used air to pop the inner piston. The outer pushed out without much trouble. The seals looked OK but were both leaking. The inner seal apparently was put in on top crude. Took quite a while to get the slot clean. The outer slot was fairly clean but there was a manufacturing defect in one spot where there was a bump of metal protruding a little into the slot. Very carefully reduced that. Then gave it a quick polish on the buffer, washed it out thoroughly in hot soapy water, blew it dry, wiped everything with alcohol, and then installing the new seals. Then inspected the pads. Then cleaned up fine and I sanded them with 320 grit paper to get rid of the grooves. They have plenty of life left. Then went through my pre-bleeding (pre-filling) procedure that makes bleeding the system MUCH easier. The Bundy pipe was misshapen at the top end but I was able to correct it. Checked the master cylinder and found no reason to rebuild it. So, I put it all together and will finish bleeding it when the disk is back from TrueDisk. July 14, 2024 Got started on the primary today. The first thing I noticed was that the oil looked like maple syrup in both color and consistency. But once drained and the cover was off, the inner and out primary covers looked new on the inside and there was none of the usual black deposits. I can't imagine why the oil looked that way. Then I noticed that the chain was very loose. That's easy to fix. Then I took the clutch apart to inspect and everything there looked good. The basket has a tiny bit of wear but I can find no other wear. Then I completely cleaned everything and noticed that the degree indicator was worn halfway through so I took a good look at the rotor and noticed the very over-sized Belleville washer behind the nut. In the first picture the red ovals show where it was rubbing on the degree indicator. I also noticed that the rotor was out further than it's supposed to be on a Norton. So, I got out a big breaker bar to crack the nut loose and realized it was barely tightened - wow! Lucky it didn't make a terrible mess! So, off came the stator and rotor and the second picture shows another Belleville washer - there's not supposed to be anything there! Tomorrow I'll put the primary back together properly, adjust the chain, put the cover back on with a new O-ring and refill it. July 15, 2024 Finished the primary. The chain is supposed to have 3/8" total up and down movement - it had 1-1/8"! Corrected that. Checked the degree indicator - it was off by two degrees so I corrected that. In the process I needed to put my TDC tool in the drive side spark plug hole. I could only get it in three turns. When I removed that plug, it was difficult. Just looking, the threads seem OK but new and old plugs will not go in without forcing them so I need to chase the threads but I loaned my spark plug thread chaser and never got it back. After putting the outer primary on I needed to removed the top big plug to add oil. I cannot imagine how it was put in but I finally had to use a large breaker bar and the correct tool and it was still hard! I got it out and after filling the oil, put it back in properly without trouble. July 16, 2024 Tackled several things today: Removed the rear wheel and checked the bearings. They are fine and have already been changed to sealed. However it took forever to get the wheel off because at some point the axle was overtightened and the standard Norton speedo drive problem occurred - warped. Checked the brake drum bearing. It is fine too. Check the swingarm for play and smooth movement. It is fine Removed the fender and horn so I could add oil to the swingarm - what a PITA for this simple task. It only took about an ounce. This bike is late enough that it has the permanent seals and it's seems to have never leaked. Check the cush drive. One small rubber missing and the rest are good. Tested the horn - it works fine. Put the horn and fender back on. So, now it was time to see if I could fix the speedo drive. When overtightened they get warped, the "top hat" spacer get trapped, and a ridge of metal gets extruded on the inside by the inner spacer. the hardest part of fixing them is getting the "top hat" out without damage. That too a long time. Once it was out, some judicious hammer work made the drive's outer surface flat again. Then I had to carve away the extruded metal on the inside without losing and metal chips - only stabbed myself with an X-Acto knife three times! Once that was done, I taped off the inside and used a Dremel sanding disk to cleanup the hole and get it back to the right size so the "top hat" would go back in. then, I removed the felt seal retainer, throughly washer it out with WD40, blew it dry and re-packed with grease. Then some hammer time to fix the seal retainer and put it cab together. I would have just replaced it as it took way to long to recover, but I'm out of them. I still need to check the brake shoes, and replace them if needed. Then I can put the wheel back together, adjust it, and move on. July 17, 2024 The brake shoes have about half their life left and the drum look very good. Cleaned it all up - the road grime was terrible. Replaced the missing cush rubber and put it back together. Then I looked at the ISOs and was surprised. They are some sort of verier, but not AN or RGM and the boots are not put on normally. I'm going to leave them for a test ride. If they prove to need something, then I'll have to figure out who made them and how to adjust them. July 18, 2024 I didn't have a lot of time today, but I did start looking at the wiring and did hear that the front disk is on it's way back I probably won't update again until Sunday. I have a bike coming tomorrow for an e-start installation that has been waiting a really long time. July 21, 2024 The e-start installation I mentioned is finished and I'm back on this bike. The disk arrived in yesterday's mail. When I sent it, it was clean but ugly and grooved. It came back with an excellent grind pattern on the brake surface but of course the center was still not good looking. The first picture shows it masked for painting The second picture shows it in my paint/power coat cabinet being painted. The board under it rotates so an even coat is easy to apply. The third picture show is done. The lighting makes it had to take a picture that does it justice. the ground surface is even all the way around. July 22, 2024 The first picture shows the restored disk (almost) installed. Big problem! The second picture shows the wheel centered in the caliper. The red arrow points to the gap that should not be there - that side locates the hub/disk. If the axle is pushed in fully, that gap closes but then the disk is almost touching the fork leg and the disk is off-center in the caliper. Most likely, the caliper timing side spacer is not the correct one for a Commando. I'll have to take is back off and compare the spacers on both sides to new spacers to see what's wrong. July 23, 2024 The front disk alignment problem is fixed. The timing side spacer was incorrect - I have idea where it came from but I had a good used one. The drive side spacer is fine. The brake is bled but Commando brakes are notorious for trapped air so I will double check it later. So, now, assuming I don't find anything when testing, it's only the wiring to clean/fix up and it is a real mess. I'll probably take the bike off the table to do that. My foot and knee keep me from standing for long periods. July 24, 2024 I said yesterday that the brake was bled but I would check again today. There was a little trapped air that rose to the top and came out with no problem, but the brake didn't feel right. The lever on a Commando always travels farther than other bikes but this was even farther. I kept thinking there was trapped air and worked on it for a long time with only slight improvement. I noticed a little fluid at the lever pivot but figure I spilled a little and finally decided it was good enough. So then I squeezed real hard like you would in a panic stop to make sure there were no leaks at the connections. Fluid squirted all over the place from the master cylinder! That's when I realized why I was having trouble. The are two seals on the master cylinder's piston. The one farther in is the one that makes pressure and the other basically stops anything that gets by the first. It's clear now that the main seal was not sealing well and the second was keeping the fluid in. When I squeezed hard, a lot got by the first and the second could not contain it. So, this was an important catch. The brake was working but would have failed at the first panic stop. Rather than rebuild it, I installed a used one I had on the shelf that was fully rebuilt. Once installed, it only took a few minutes to bled and have a good working brake. I wish I had done that to start with - I wasted over 5 hours thinking I was having a bleeding problem when it was a bad master cylinder! OK, the checklist is done except the wiring and testing. However, I looked at the carbs - from their looks I suspect that I need to at least take them off and make sure they are worth working on and if so to make sure that they are clean and sync'ed. July 25, 2024 Rechecked the front brake - it's good now. I had the master cylinder mover outward on the handlebar so I could turn it level while bleeding. When I tried to put in place and tighten the switch console to it there was a large gap and the screws barely caught. See the picture - all the red circles are bad. The White/Yellow wire is the kill - there is copper showing so if it makes firm contact and is pressed the fuse will blow. The White/Red wire has been rubbing and eventually would wear through. Even though is it not used, accidentally pushing the unused button once worn through would blow the fuse. The Light Green/Brown wire and the wire under it are heavily pinched - a future problem with the turn signals. This is all caused buy the improperly managed entry into the console metal. The good news is that I can fix all that. What's going to be harder is the main and headlight harnesses. When the Boyer and regulator were installed the extra wires were not removed but the harness was covered at some point with electrical tape. This is TERRIBLE on a motorcycles - it makes a sticky mess that is ridiculously hard to deal with when trying to correct harness problems. I keep promising myself that I won't do major wiring harness fixes - they take longer than making a new hardness. That's most likely what will happen here. I need to talk to the owner, I would prefer to install Tri-Spark as the wiring is even simpler. July 26, 2024 Heavily greased the spark plug thread chaser I just got (catches any metal filings) and ran it in the drive-side spark plug hole. The plug now screws in properly. Attacked the wiring. Most of the bullets have been replaced with hardware store bullets that are slightly too small for the connectors - they slipped out easily where the correct bullets are difficult to put in and take out. So, there are about 25 problems waiting to happen. It makes no sense to fight these harnesses especially since they have a lot of electrical tape which is a sticky mess. So, I will re-wire the bike. July 27, 2024 Got a good start on the wiring today. The old harness is off, the horn and master switch are tested and everything is cleaned up so I don't wiring dirty as I wire. I have wire another Norton so I will cut two of the normal wires to get started. However, this bike has an old Boyer and the other is getting a new Tri-Spark and this bike has no turn signals so I need to ask the owner about that. July 28, 2024 I ran all the primary wires today. I need answers to some questions so I know what other wires to run. I have another bike I need to wire so each wire a cut for this one I cut a duplicate for that one. July 30, 2024 The owner and I have agreed to a Tri-Spark ignition, oil pressure switch, no assimilator, wiring for turned signals and flasher but none installed, and new Premier carbs. Took the carbs off today and cleaned up the manifolds. I'll install the new carbs once the wiring is done. Worked on that more today. Removed the points cover to remove the Boyer stator and found two problems. There was a good bit of oil inside so the cam seal is leaking. Now I have to take the timing cover off to fix that. Supposedly the engine was OK - I guess it's good as now I'll inspect everything in the timing area. Also, I intended to use the Black/White and Black/Yellow wires for the Tri-Spark. There are hard and have been spliced in the middle so I'll make a new sub-harness for that. July 31, 2024 I expected to wrap the harness today and start terminating. When I started to add the last wire I realized I have a problem. The bike has an after-market head steady and there's no reasonable way to ground the engine in the normal place. I studied for quite a while and have a plan but by then I was worn out. I'll see if I still like the plan tomorrow. Although the bike has many frame grounds, that does nothing for the engine! If there is no engine ground, the only ground it gets is through the clutch cable - not good! The frame needs no ground at all on a Norton. August 1, 2024 I decided that the plan I had was too complicated and would make some things harder than they needed to be in the future so I came up with another. I'm happy with it, but the first wire I lay down from the headlight to the taillight is the 14ga red ground wire and all but one splices to it were done. My new plan made me replace that wire and all the splices but it will be fine for the other bike I'll wire when I finish this one. The engine ground will now be the 3/8" stud at the top rear of the engine just like a MK3 and it will be hard to see. Also, I'm using a MK3 rear master switch cover as it aligns well with the wires. The previous rear cover was split and taped because it was rubbing on the battery box. I'm almost done fixing the custom mount so that no longer happens. I'm also making it possible to return to the standard "hamcan" air filter if desired in the future. August 6, 2024 Nope, didn't die or get carried off by aliens! I've just been swamped and crippled. Sure would be nice to have the medical technology that I suspect will be here in the year 2100! Now besides doctor visits I'm going to physical therapy three times a week - really doubtful that PT can fix bones grinding on each other but it's a Medicare requirement for the next step :-( I have been making progress on the wiring. The harness is made and on the bike and a lot of it is connected. I ended up using the standard rear master switch cover - turned out that it was better for routing after all. Here's what's outstanding. Replace the seals in the timing cover - have to do this before installing/wiring the Tri-Spark ignition and installing oil pressure switch. Install the oil pressure switch when putting the timing cover back on - the wiring for it is done. Test/repair the handlebar consoles. Finish the wiring in the headlight shell. Install, statically time, and test the Tri-Spark ignition. Install and sync the carbs Cross fingers that nothing else pops up while test riding. August 7, 2024 My biggest motorcycle pet peeve is people "gluing" bikes together. Generally, good gaskets need nothing. For timing covers, I often spray both sides with Copper Coat and them it dry. This slightly improves the sealing but does not "glue" the cover on. I spent over two hours getting the timing cover off and then 45 minutes getting the gasket and sealer off the cover. I've spent about 30 minutes so far cleaning the crankcase :-( The timing area looks good. The cam chain is a little loose. I'll adjust that. The seals look OK but the cam seal leaked so I'll change all of them. Since I was there, I took apart the pressure relief valve - good thing I did. The piston was stuck due to a piece of clear plastic. Took a while but I got it out and once cleaned up, the piston moves perfectly. The other issue is that there are supposed to be one or two shims which increase the pressure release point. I'll put in one when I re-assemble and then check the pressure. If it's around 60psi, good enough, if less, then I'll add another shim. I don't know what the devil is going on. So far in the past two weeks on this bike, I've stuck an X-Acto blade into the bone on my right ring finger, I stuck a flat-blade screwdriver into my left hand stopping at the bone, I stuck an X-Acto blade into my right wrist, and today I slashed the outside of my left hand with a utility knife. Some of my DNA is surely on the bike. The wrist cut and the cut today were both big bleeders! August 8, 2024 It took quit a while to get the gasket and glue off the crankcase, but that done, it didn't take long adjust the cam chain, replace the seals and reinstall the cover. The pressure relief valve is back on and the oil pressure switch is installed and wired. Now I can install, wire, and statically time the Tri-spark. The really good news is that didn't cut myself or even get and bumps or bruises! August 10, 2024 Got a little done yesterday and a lot today. The Tri-Spark is installed, tested and statically timed. Finished the battery area wiring including modifying the custom switch holder. When I buy Shorai Lithium batteries, they come with a lot of self-sticking foam in various sizes and thicknesses. I removed all the old dried out foam and replaced it with some of that foam. This bike now has a PS-YB-9L (12N9) battery securely held in place. Repaired and restored the handlebar consoles. Since the bike has no turn-signals or e-start, the left-hand console only has the kill button. However, I cleaned all contacts and made sure they work properly. The White/Yellow wire (kill switch), was a mess as it was about 3/8" too long and folded like a snake. It now runs properly. The cables on both sides look almost new and both consoles have been polished to like new (not a mirror finish,just nicely polished.) The carbs arrived yesterday. I'll fix/repair/replace the cables, sync and install the carbs tomorrow. That will leave only the headlight wiring. Getting it down form the table. And firing it up. Fingers crossed - nothing else pops up! August 11, 2024 I REALLY need to start paying attention to Murphy's Law! Yesterday Is said: "Fingers crossed - nothing else pops up!". If I worked on the throttle cables. On junction to carb cable was fine when cleaned up, but had a base spot - that was easily fixed with a piece of heat shrink. The other one had a bad kink in the outer cable and I could not straighten it and the cable was dragging badly. Got out my cable making kits and found a match cable already made - great. Cleaned that up, as well as the junction box and the junction to twist grip cable. The twist grip had a lot of old hard grease so cleaned that all up. After taking care of a few things other small things, I got out a new set of Aluminum Premier carbs and attached them to the manifolds, bench sync'ed them and while doing one final check of the cables noticed that the left one had the wrong spray bar! I've never seen Amal make that mistake before! Double checked everything else and all was right except that spray bar. No way I would install it so undid them from the cables re-packed the set and wrote Amal a a note. Then got out another set and throughly checked every component - all fine. So, I statically sync'ed them and was ready to put them on when I realized I needed to put the breather and tank vent hoses back on. Since this bike has a K&N type air filter, the tank hose goes to a little filter that attached with a little home-made bracket. I didn't like how hard it was to install, so I modified it, and then repainted it. Long story short, the carbs aren't on yet. The next issue might be that the junction to carbs cables are the shortest I've seen and they may interfere with the fancy head steady - that may be where that kink came from. If so, I may have to remake it all and start over on the bench sync! August 12, 2024 It's a really good thing that I don't do this to make a living! I spent five hours screwing with the interference between the crankcase breather, oil tank vent., air cleaner and carbs. I finally came up with a routing of the hoses that interfere with nothing. Then I spent a silly amount of time cleaning the K&N air filter I should have just replaced it. I have identical looking ones that are thinner and much easier to mount. While cleaning it I found four holes. Tomorrow I'll epoxy them closed before I spray them with K&N air cleaner oil. Once the air cleaner is on, it can come off the table and I'll do the headlight wiring with it on the center stand. I wanted that done today as tomorrow I have appointments so I won't have a lot of time. My stepson will be here Wednesday and Thursday so he can help with the strobe timing and he can test ride for me. I have to check though - I don't think it has a plate, registration, or insurance so it may be a very short systems test and have the owner take it out for a serious test. It's a little hard to see with all the black, but everything under that tanks is done and very neat now. The junction box to carb cables are just long enough and I have them sitting neatly on the head steady. I have no idea why people buy that type of head steady! I'm happy with the MK2 or MK3 type. This type, besides damaging the frame tube is in the way, removes the best engine ground spot, and I can't see where it does any good! It prevents side-to-side movement but I don't see that as a good thing and it weakens the front-to-rear movement which I also don't see as a good thing! The single connector under the tank is power to the Tri-Spark from the kill button. If the kill button ever when bad, the White/Yellow could be removed from that connector and a White wire from the headlight shell could replace it. That's all it takes to eliminate the kill button. August 13, 2024. As expected, not much time today. After I cleaned up and made a space big enough for it on the floor it took it's second flight today and landed safely on the floor. I also fixed up the headlight shell and got all the cables ready to go in it. I hope to finish the final wiring tomorrow. I asked my stepson to come Friday instead of tomorrow so I can be sure to finish and because I have two medical appointments on Thursday. August 14, 2024. The wiring is done and tested. Still have a little dressing of the headlight wiring to do. Of course I ran into another problem. The AGM battery I put in that I thought was new and good had a problem. It seems to charge just fine, and certainly will run the bike but with the lights on and the bike not running the horn just squeaks and the headlight dims so it is not good. With the charger on it everything is normal. So, emergency battery order time. The only other new battery I have is a $200 Lithium which is way overkill for this bike and won;t work with the battery hold down. So, tomorrow I'll finish it up ready for testing on Friday. August 15, 2024 the new battery should be here Saturday. However I spent hours trying to find a "B" battery the same size. Everyone has "A" (Positive on left) and I wired for the battery I have which is a "B" (positive on right). I may have to extend, re-route, or rewire the Red wire and shorten or re-route the Brown/Blue wire. This would be no problem with my normal battery hold down, but this bike has a nice one I would like to keep - the only problem is that the terminals must face the oil tank rather than the drive side. When you can get to them with the battery installed, the wire routing is not critical. I may yet change it because it is not possible to put a charger on it without partly removing the battery. One doctor visit down and another to go so my time will be very limited today. If I get anything significant done later today I will update. OK, blow by blow as the day went to hell. First, finished up my IT work and got ready to go to PT. The steroid shot I got in my foot this morning was fully kicking in and I was able to go down my stairs to the car like a normal human, left - right - left without pain - cool. My replaced left hip (2013) has been giving me trouble with pain in the muscle/tendon/ligament in the front so getting in the car it's butt first, then right leg, then left leg with left hand help. Didn't hurt so I forget to help it in -massive pain now! Having any pain with steroids on-board means that it is real bad. OK, went to PT anyway and that loosened it some but still have a lot of trouble. Next, my stepson called - he damaged his shoulder working on his truck and now his left arm is useless so he's not coming tomorrow. Next, I tried to finish up the bike so I can start it tomorrow. That was going fine until the headlight quit working and blew the fuse. Fortunately when rewiring I use a 5amp fuse so if anything goes wrong the harness is not hurt. The bike has a Halogen headlight and the socket is a mess. I knew it wasn't great but it seemed OK - nope two terminals shorted together intermittently. Fortunately I had a quality socket to replace it with except that it had the wrong wire colors. Spliced the right colors to is and reinstalled. So, the headlight is not working fine and all wiring has been re-tested again. I even though of a way to put the battery in correctly instead of backwards. I'll probably redo the batter ends of those two wires as they are now overly long - I'll decide that when the new battery gets here. Next, I put the timing side panel on - that went fine. Then the tank. It has abnormal rubber washers and under the tank rubbers - fixed all that. The bike came with what I thought was an junky old fuel line so I installed a correct one for a 74 Commando.It would not screw onto the petcocks. Then I tried the one that came with the bike and it turns out to be new, but it would not screw on either! Turns out that the installed petcocks have a different thread than standard! That's when I gave up for th day. Tomorrow I'll put in correct petcocks but will use two reserve rather than a reserve and main. When the main runs out on a commando tank and you switch to reserver, you keep going as usual. But, the main side cannot get to the reserve side so unless you lay the bike over, you cannot use that gas. Also, if you leave a tank site partly full with E10 gas, it can condense water which will sink to the bottom of the tank and there's no good way to get it out of the main side. With two reserve, you run one side dry, open the other and go straight to a gas station! I have a Bonneville that was running perfect but hadn't been started in several months - now, trying to run of water it's not doing well so I have to drain that tank! Ride em or keep the tank empty or brim full with E10 gas. BTW, I like E10 gas, but you mush do a few things like this. August 16, 2024 The new battery arrived and I flip-flopped again. I realized that with the battery in "normally" and the custom hold down you still have to remove the hold down to get to the terminals. So, I put the battery in with the terminals towards the oil tank, protection on the oil tank, and with a charging pigtail. I left the wires long enough to use a "B" battery in the future if needed. Installed the new petcocks. Then decided this bike is fighting me so I would trick it and put it 100% together and start id tomorrow (if my leg will do it). I still need to put in some gas and make sure there are no leaks, but I have to go get some - gas can is empty. I even cleaned up and installed the seat! Of course, I have to take the seat back off as step one when starting a bike after service is to make sure oil is returning to the oil tank and then correcting the oil level. Then, assuming it will idle (should) strobe the timing. If I'm able to get it outside and started, I'll try to climb on and go a short distance - can't go far, no plate. I'm sure the guy waiting in line for me to work on his bike is hoping it goes well! August 17, 2024 This morning was all about phone calls - could not get away from them. Finally got started at 1pm. While checking everything over I realized that I had not installed the rear brake switch - I was out of them and they arrived yesterday but it was already off the table. It is very difficult for me to get low enough to install one with the bike on the ground, but I sucked it up and got it done. Then I spent about 20 minutes breathing O₂ from my O₂ concentrator - that's the first time I've needed it in months. OK, time to put in gas and look for leaks - yippy - no leaks! The time has come! rearranged half the shop, got the back-end of the bike pointing outside, gave a good tickle and pop! Makes me made that it didn't start on the first kick, but my kick was wimpy. OK, try again, not even a pop but even a wimpier kick. OK, time to man up, grit teeth, and kick. Here's the result: After all the PITA I've had getting to this point, the bike just stayed there idling at about 750 rpm and eventually rose to about 1000 rpm. I could blip the throttle and it would simply accelerate - in other words the air screws are about perfect. Once I get it fully warmed up, I will set the idle to about 1100 rpm so it will be about 800-850 at startup. Oil returning fine. The bike just kept running but I don't like them to idle long so I turned off the gas waited about 20 seconds and push the kill button - it never died once! I was so worn out then, that I forgot to verify that it is charging (no reason to think it won't), and will do that when I time it. I have to find some help to time it. To time a Norton, you need to be on your knees on the drive side, manipulate the throttle, keeping the bike from running all over the shop, and watch the marks. That's hard for a young person - I'm not a young person! Nine times out of ten, my static timing is right on and the engine sounds good so I suspect it will be right. Back to the O₂ concentrator for a while. So, it's alive! It's almost done! This is my last recommission! I have another to get running right which in some ways is the same as this but it was recently built by a "well known" builder who appears to be off his game these days. The wiring is bad, the owner thinks the Mikuni carb is not set right, and he wants Tri-Spark all the way. If I get the energy later today, that one will go on the table. Then I have a customer bike blowing fuses - I've already found one problem but must inspect all the wiring. From there, I have a custom wiring job coming, a customer rebuild coming, and then many projects of my own. I may even get to finish my 850 rider some day! August 18, 2024 Still no help so all I did today is verify that there are still no gas leaks. August 21, 2024 I got hurt Monday night and spent hours in the ER. Couldn't do anything yesterday. Today I noticed that this bike has a big leak somewhere. My right arm is nearly useless right now so I can't get down low enough to see where it's coming from. It dodn't leak when on the table so it has something to do with filling the oil tank and running the bike. they often leak a little, but this is way more than a little.

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