1968 Tank Design/Striping

kildes

Joined
Apr 25, 2010
Messages
20
I have a 68 P11A originally titled as a "P11 Ranger" and blue when new. Number 1259XX from the last batch of P11As. Tank was red and needed repair when I bought the bike. Looking at the various tank paint schemes, I have a question. I see some tanks striped in white, some tanks striped in gold, some tanks with the N tank badge, and some tanks that have no striping and have the "Norton" with no tank badge. Anyone know what is correct for my bike?

Thanks
Jefe
 
kildes said:
I have a 68 P11A originally titled as a "P11 Ranger" and blue when new. Number 1259XX from the last batch of P11As. Tank was red and needed repair when I bought the bike. Looking at the various tank paint schemes, I have a question. I see some tanks striped in white, some tanks striped in gold, some tanks with the N tank badge, and some tanks that have no striping and have the "Norton" with no tank badge. Anyone know what is correct for my bike?

Thanks
Jefe
Click to expand...

Jefe,
I think your engine number is before the ranger. Edit: Rangers started at 128XXX.
I am pretty sure the Rangers were Gold pin-stripped with gold "Norton" letters on the tank and gold "Ranger" letters on the side cover and Oil Tank in Candy Red colour. I am not sure of the base colour on the Ranger. The earlier bikes were silver pin- stripped with the Norton Tank Badge had a matte silver base colour under the red candy. I think BillT would know the dates when things changed over better than myself.
wait a bit. Bill might be still digging his way out from the hurricane that went through Florida. I think he was south of the eye that hit land.
Cheers,
Thomas
CNN
 
Hey Jefe,

The P11A would have been silver base candy apple red with silver plastic Norton badges, no pin stripes. Original P11's had the silver pinstripes, and as CNN said Rangers had gold pinstripe and Norton script decals. You sometimes see people paint gold stripes with silver badges claiming this to be correct. The factory never did this, they weren't colour blind. Is your tank drilled and tapped for plastic badges? I'm pretty sure Rangers weren't drilled, since they had decals.
If yours was really an original polychromatic blue bike, they were pretty rare.

Brian
 
Thomas wrote:
"I think your engine number is before the ranger. Edit: Rangers started at 128XXX."

Yep. from last batch of the P11A but was originally sold/titled as a Ranger, probably the dealer's doing. Thanks for the info!

Brian wrote:
"The P11A would have been silver base candy apple red with silver plastic Norton badges, no pin stripes. Original P11's had the silver pinstripes, and as CNN said Rangers had gold pinstripe and Norton script decals. You sometimes see people paint gold stripes with silver badges claiming this to be correct. The factory never did this, they weren't colour blind. Is your tank drilled and tapped for plastic badges? I'm pretty sure Rangers weren't drilled, since they had decals.
If yours was really an original polychromatic blue bike, they were pretty rare."

Paint was banged up and repainted by previous owners. it was blue under the red, original title had color "blu." May been drilled and tapped and later filled with bondo, I'll check. Thanks for the info, exactly what I needed to know, much appreciated.

Cheers
Jefe
 
Their was a lot of confusion on P11A, P11A Ranger, and Ranger 750 designation. Even the factory brochures are contradictory. The early 1968 P11A "Scrambler" brochure from Berliner shows a high pipe P11 complete with sheet metal taillight. A later brochure, probably from Norton, shows the low pipe, non-striped tank, longer seat, cast taillight version and also labels it a P11A. Even more confusing, this exact same brochure was also released calling the bike a P11A Ranger!

The Ranger 750 brochure from Berliner shows a P11A! The Ranger 750 brochure from Norton shows the G15-type seat, decal and striping rather than plastic tank badge, and ribbed wheel hubs.

There apparently is some evidence that a few P11 models were delivered in blue. Whether repainted by the dealer or supplied from England is often debated.
 
Jefe,
Here are some pictures I took of a P11A in the Barber Museum this July.

1968 Tank Design/Striping

1968 Tank Design/Striping

This should be a good P-11A representation bike as it would look in Candy red. I am not sure of the P-11A Ranger. Still a mystery to me. I thought Rangers were 69 models with the ribbed hubs as well as the low pipes like this one in Barber.
Hope that helps you.
Cheers,
Thomas
CNN
 
As I understand it, Norton sent 'Ranger 750' decals to dealers to help sell any leftover P11As.
About 1300 P11As were built, compared to 497 Rangers. All Rangers were built in a single batch from roughly 15 Sept to 17 Oct, 1968 and numbering from P11/128646 to P11/129145. There were a couple of pre-production 1969 commandos in the run, so 497 is the generally accepted number.

P11As varied from Rangers in the following minor points:

P11As had skimmed hubs - most Rangers had ribbed hubs (any skimmed hubs were a result of using up spares to push bikes out the door)
Rangers had a front brake switch - P11As did not
P11As had candy red tanks with no stripes and either an 'N' or 'M' badge on the tank (somewhere around 400 P11As were sold as Matchless)
Rangers had the same tank, without any badge, but with a small 'Norton' transfer and a gold 'D' stripe (like the silver 'D' stripe of a P11 or N15)
P11As had a large, triangular shaped seat with a fiberglass pan and stud inserts that mounted through holes in the crossover brace brazed to the rear fender loop. The front of the seat has a tongue that slips under the fuel tank.
The Ranger seat is a late G15/N15 seat with a metal pan and brackets that mount the rear of the seat to the upper damper bolts. The front of the seat slips into a pin brazed to front crossover, which is essentially the same pin used to mount the tire pump on other models. There is a gold 'Norton' logo on the back.
A P11A rear fender started as an alloy fender, but was changed to a chromed steel fender midway through production, due to fatigue cracking. A P11A fender ends at the crossover brace that also mounts the rear of the seat.
The Ranger rear fender is about 10 inches longer than a P11A fender, and all are chromed steel. The front af the Ranger fender mounts to a tab on the rear frame crossover brace, Where previous P11 fenders ended at or just under the seat, the Ranger fender goes all the way to the oil tank, and has 5 mounting points rather than the 4 used on the P11 and P11A.
All Rangers have matching numbers stamped on their transmissions (typically P11/128xxx, sometimes with S stamped at the end)
Most P11As had transmissions with a 5-digit number and an alphabetical suffix, such as 19118NA. Matching transmission numbers happened sometime in 1968, but I don't know is it was during P11A production or after

I may have missed a point or two, but I'm sure anyone who knows better will correct the above.
 
Thomas, Bill and Brian, thanks for the excellent info. I started with a beat-to-hell example, but was fortunate to get the original registration. Frame up restore in progress, to high piped scrambler.

I posted a photo last year, but here you go, as found:

1968 Tank Design/Striping


1968 Tank Design/Striping


Cheers
Jefe
 
You got all the important bits to get it right. :) The pipes, mufflers, mud guards and seats are available. Most of the bolts are Cycle thread 26TPI or whitworth.
these are available. Go through some of the P11 threads, This is a good start from BillT : the-p11-thread-t14925.html vendors who supply parts for the P11. Andover Norton is starting to carry some P11 parts. http://www.nortonmotors.de/ANIL/News.htm
Keep us posted. By the way, it looks like your front drum is on the opposite side. :shock:
Cheers,
Thomas
CNN
 
BillT said:
As I understand it, Norton sent 'Ranger 750' decals to dealers to help sell any leftover P11As.
About 1300 P11As were built, compared to 497 Rangers. All Rangers were built in a single batch from roughly 15 Sept to 17 Oct, 1968 and numbering from P11/128646 to P11/129145. There were a couple of pre-production 1969 commandos in the run, so 497 is the generally accepted number.

P11As varied from Rangers in the following minor points:

P11As had skimmed hubs - most Rangers had ribbed hubs (any skimmed hubs were a result of using up spares to push bikes out the door)
Rangers had a front brake switch - P11As did not
P11As had candy red tanks with no stripes and either an 'N' or 'M' badge on the tank (somewhere around 400 P11As were sold as Matchless)
Rangers had the same tank, without any badge, but with a small 'Norton' transfer and a gold 'D' stripe (like the silver 'D' stripe of a P11 or N15)
P11As had a large, triangular shaped seat with a fiberglass pan and stud inserts that mounted through holes in the crossover brace brazed to the rear fender loop. The front of the seat has a tongue that slips under the fuel tank.
The Ranger seat is a late G15/N15 seat with a metal pan and brackets that mount the rear of the seat to the upper damper bolts. The front of the seat slips into a pin brazed to front crossover, which is essentially the same pin used to mount the tire pump on other models. There is a gold 'Norton' logo on the back.
A P11A rear fender started as an alloy fender, but was changed to a chromed steel fender midway through production, due to fatigue cracking. A P11A fender ends at the crossover brace that also mounts the rear of the seat.
The Ranger rear fender is about 10 inches longer than a P11A fender, and all are chromed steel. The front af the Ranger fender mounts to a tab on the rear frame crossover brace, Where previous P11 fenders ended at or just under the seat, the Ranger fender goes all the way to the oil tank, and has 5 mounting points rather than the 4 used on the P11 and P11A.
All Rangers have matching numbers stamped on their transmissions (typically P11/128xxx, sometimes with S stamped at the end)
Most P11As had transmissions with a 5-digit number and an alphabetical suffix, such as 19118NA. Matching transmission numbers happened sometime in 1968, but I don't know is it was during P11A production or after

I may have missed a point or two, but I'm sure anyone who knows better will correct the above.
Click to expand...

I believe a lot of the confusion was created by the factory. I have in my possession, sales brochures of the P11A and one of the P11A Ranger which are identical except for the name. The bike in the photo does not bear the name "Ranger" anywhere and has skimmed hubs and a tank badge just as the P11A.

In addition, I have the "Color Me Fun" brochure which shows the Ranger 750 as you describe the Ranger above.

So did the "P11A Ranger" actually exist? Who knows. There were so many changes in such a short time. I know of P11A's sold with alloy fenders and P11A's sold with chrome. I also personally know two former owners who swear their P11A's had gold striping and plastic badges when purchased new.

The high pipe P11 and the Ranger 750 seem to be relatively consistent, but the P11A models seemed to be more of a transitional bike. Of course, the dealers would do anything to sell a bike. (Such as remove Matchless badges for Norton ones and vice versa)
 
Hi.
My Norton P11A (as the NOC Record say) has number 12454X and dates from 22nd February 1968.
The engine have P11 12454X stamped with any "A".
The frame on the left had only the number 12454X stamped.
Please, what model my P11 is?
The tank must have the pinstrips or only the badges?
But, the Matchless G80 G80CS tank is the same of P11?.
Thank you.
Ciao
Piero
 
pierodn said:
Hi.
My Norton P11A (as the NOC Record say) has number 12454X and dates from 22nd February 1968.
The engine have P11 12454X stamped with any "A".
The frame on the left had only the number 12454X stamped.
Please, what model my P11 is?
The tank must have the pinstrips or only the badges?
But, the Matchless G80 G80CS tank is the same of P11?.
Thank you.
Ciao
Piero
Click to expand...

The tank would be about 3 US gal capacity, have the buttons on the back for the O-ring attachment, and have two pins inside the filler neck to engage the quick-release gas cap.

AMC had been making this tank for a while, and was built in several variations - with or without the 'bump' at the badge location, with or without the pins in the filler neck, small or large filler neck, with the buttons for the elastic band, or with a tab at the rear to bolt to the frame. It was also built in two capacities - about 3 us gallon and about 3 3/4 gallon.
 
Hi.
Please, may i know the width of the pinstripes, the large and the small and the distance from each.
Thank you.
Piero
 
Hello Piero,

Since P11A numbers start at 124372, your serial # 12454X would be within the range of P11A (P11A Ranger beginning at 128646). If we take these dates to be somewhat accurate, then your bike would not have stripes, but would have the plastic badge only. However, if you prefer to stripe it, here are the dimensions.

1968 Tank Design/Striping
 
Thanks for the drawing, Ron! As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

My '61 G80CS has the large tank with the expanding chrome cap (no pins)
The '67 G15 has the small tank with the humps and the alloy 'quick release' cap (pins inside the tank neck) and the badge mounting holes. Buttons on the back for the elastic mounting ring.
The '69 has the same tank, with the badge mounting holes filled

The 'D' stripe was done with a 1/8" pinstriping brush. the small stripe as a single line, the wide stripe done by striping the inner and outer edge, then a third pass down the middle to fill in the stripe.

On the '67 the 'D' stripe was the same silver stripe as used on the G15/N15
68s did not have a stripe from the factory, but were apparently a popular add-on
1969 Rangers had the same style 'D' stripe as the '67s, but in gold. The tanks were the same candy red as the 67s and most 68s over a metallic silver base. Some 68s came in other colors, such as blue and green.
1968 Tank Design/Striping
1968 Tank Design/Striping

1966 N15CS in green ................................................. P11A in blue with the 'D' stripe
The bike in the foreground in the second picture is a P11A, but with a Ranger fuel tank, and P11 high pipes!
 
BillT said:
pierodn said:
Hi.
My Norton P11A (as the NOC Record say) has number 12454X and dates from 22nd February 1968.
The engine have P11 12454X stamped with any "A".
The frame on the left had only the number 12454X stamped.
Please, what model my P11 is?
The tank must have the pinstrips or only the badges?
But, the Matchless G80 G80CS tank is the same of P11?.
Thank you.
Ciao
Piero
Click to expand...

The tank would be about 3 US gal capacity, have the buttons on the back for the O-ring attachment, and have two pins inside the filler neck to engage the quick-release gas cap.

AMC had been making this tank for a while, and was built in several variations - with or without the 'bump' at the badge location, with or without the pins in the filler neck, small or large filler neck, with the buttons for the elastic band, or with a tab at the rear to bolt to the frame. It was also built in two capacities - about 3 us gallon and about 3 3/4 gallon.
Click to expand...

Hi.
Please, why my tank has those "bump" at the badges location?
Can i fit badges?.
Thank you.
Piero
 
Ron L said:
Hello Piero,

Since P11A numbers start at 124372, your serial # 12454X would be within the range of P11A (P11A Ranger beginning at 128646). If we take these dates to be somewhat accurate, then your bike would not have stripes, but would have the plastic badge only. However, if you prefer to stripe it, here are the dimensions.

1968 Tank Design/Striping
Click to expand...
Hi Ron,
Please, what is the distance eye to eye of the two holes threaded of the badges?
Thank you
Piero
 
Hello Piero,
I have just incidentally been stripping a G15 CS tank which did not have badges fitted but when the paint was removed there were cut off screws in the holes which I carefully drilled and used easy outs (Thread extractors) to remove them.
The distance between the hole centres is exactly 70mm. The thread size is 3BA.
If you shine a torch inside the tank if it has badges fitted previously then you will see two brazed top hat fittings.
Hope this helps,
Regards,
Paul.
 
Paul W said:
Hello Piero,
I have just incidentally been stripping a G15 CS tank which did not have badges fitted but when the paint was removed there were cut off screws in the holes which I carefully drilled and used easy outs (Thread extractors) to remove them.
The distance between the hole centres is exactly 70mm. The thread size is 3BA.
If you shine a torch inside the tank if it has badges fitted previously then you will see two brazed top hat fittings.
Hope this helps,
Regards,
Paul.
Click to expand...
Hi Paul,
70 mm for the Norton P11 badges too?
Ciao
Piero
 
Yes Piero, the same centres for Norton and Matchless badges. They were interchangeable which proved the case when Matchless G15CS's were shipped to the States the distributors just changed the badges over as the Americans preferred Norton to Matchless.

Regards,
Paul.
 
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