2 Commandos surface in Hong Kong

I had just recently sold my cafe racer, when out of the blue a fellow phoned me and asked if I knew anyone who wanted to buy two 750 Commandos. One of them is a 1972 Fastback and the other is a 1973 Roadster. (L.A.B. has kindly agreed to post the photo for me). I have let go of 4 Commandos in the last 5 years, but It seems that the universe requires me to have at least 5 Nortons in my possession at any one time or the earth will be sucked into a black hole. Although both bikes are ripe for complete restoration the seller informed me that he had rebuilt the engines and gearboxes some years ago, but never got any further. Having already stripped the Fastback I was pleased to find new pistons, new oil pump gears and new big end shells, although on the negative side there was enough silicone sealer inside the engine to kill a horse, the crank had been ground without separating the cheeks from the flywheel and consequently had a sharp step on the inner end where the radius is meant to be and the main bearings were generic ball bearings of indeterminate origin. Nortons and other British bikes were popular in Hong Kong when it was a British colony, these two bikes were both originally registered here and come with all of the relevant paperwork. I plan to restore one as a Roadster and the other as a Dunstall based cafe racer, since I have most of the relevant components in stock.

Hi Dave,

Congratulations on the find and good luck with your new projects!

I'm sorry to hear you had to sell your cafe Norton - that was a nice looking bike.

Debby

Looks like it was parked at the bottom of Kowloon bay. Lots of chroming, painting and polishing to look forwards to, but I'm sure it can be done probably cheaper there too.

Post pictures of your progress

Jean

Thanks Debby, I had a lot of fun on the cafe racer, but a neighbor made me an offer I couldn't refuse. and within 10 days I had been offered 2 Commandos and a Matchless rolling chassis (photo on 'other classic motorcycles' page under "Commando engine into a P11 Chassis" thread. Astonishingly in the fishing village where I live out in the countryside there are now 8 Nortons between three of us. I am nearly finished with the restoration of my 750 S Type, so I will soon be on the road again.

Jean, the bike is probably worse than it looks in the photo although it does turn over and I'm puzzled as to why the PO actually rebuilt the bikes and then left them for years without even starting them - although I'm very pleased that he did as I suspect that they would not have run for long. The bike also had a top box and panniers bolted to bars welded to the frame. Plating and polishing is indeed very cheap here, although the quality can be variable.

I will post pictures if I come across anything of interest during the restoration process, but there are probably enough well-documented restoration projects already on the site and most of our bikes look almost identical until it comes to the point of attaching things like tank seats or special components.

That looks like a sweet project to me. I hope the day comes along when I find an inexpensive Commando to restore!
I saw your P11 in the other thread, it looks like a number of bikes are coming your way.

Cookie, I suppose all of us are constantly on the lookout for another project, but for 3 to come along in 10 days is bordering on ridiculous, it is very rare now in H.K. for bikes of this age in need of restoration to surface, especially Commandos.

I note that you own one of the products from our glorious motherland, the Chiang Jiang 750 (this means 'Yangtze River' by the way) which as you undoubtedly already know is a Chinese copy of a Russian copy of a 1938 BMW R71. Quite a few members of our classic bike club have them here and they are both wonderful and horrible all at the same time. Consider yourself immediately elected as an honorary member of the 'Gweilo Chiu chow gum kwu tung deen dan che wui' that's 'Pock marked foreign devil's mighty velocipede fraternity' for those of you whose Cantonese is a bit rusty.

I'll consider that an honor and toss back a couple with your mates in mind.
My wife worked in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur and I think I saw my first CJ on the street in Honk Kong owned by an ex pat. I'd ridden an R60 for a while and I was amazed to see the writing on the engine was in Chinese. I also have the CJ's very rare water cooled sister, perhaps the only one in the west.
At one time I saw a number of British bikes in Hong Kong, I guess they all had to go somewhere but I bet a lot were scrapped. Considering how long it has been since Nortons were built you are developing an amazing collection.
Seeing a P11, in what looks like desert sled equipment from here, must be extremely rare, like maybe the only one over there? Where did they find a desert?

This is going slightly off topic, but the Chiang Jiangs were made in a number of different factories and different provinces, mostly run under the auspices of the Peoples Liberation Army, so there are differences of quality and specification depending on where they were made.

The collection so far stands at 5 Nortons, a 450 Ducati Desmo, a 1966 Triumph T100, a 1972 Honda CB 750, a 1929 BMW R57 and a 1927 BSA 500 flat tanker. To my discredit now that my cafe racer has gone I currently have none on the road, although as previously mentioned my S-Type is just a couple of months away at most.

The rolling chassis is a Matchless G50CS that a friend bought on E-bay USA simply for the engine to use in a cafe racer project that he is doing, the rear section is different to the P11 and this will be more like a G15 and in fact more like the bike in the photos on the link in the other classic motorcycles page, that marinatlas posted, Your own link was also very informative and helpful. If you ever come through HK again contact me and I will organise a get together with some other like-minded maniacs.

That's a lovely selection of scoots. I gave it up for years and wish I'd kept a number of ones.
Off topic again for a bit, Chang quality does vary greatly. For engines the Blue label and Black label are best. My red everyday rider is now easily spinning 6,000 RPMs (OHV with Mikunis) and so far has held together for a few years of freeway work.
By more like the G15 do you mean it has the cast lugs with sidecar fittings? My memory is pretty leaky, I only actually owned the G15CSR and it's hard to recall what friend's bikes looked like 30 years ago.
Somebody here is advertising an Atlas engine on Craigslist. It looks like they grabbed the featherbed frame and have everything else left. I think they were asking $1500 for the remainder.

The G15/N15 bikes had a bolt on rear subframe with the top shock mount being a bracket coming off a tube on the subframe, the oil tank is lozenge shaped to fit within the bend of the rear subframe, the P11s had a one piece frame with a triangular arrangement at the rear and a triangular oil tank, although the battery box and toolbox side panel on the right looks pretty similar on both models.

That may make a very interesting bike. Which style are you going to go for on it? those bikes went from cafe racer like my G15CSR to desert sled and a few sort of in between. The one thing most folks usually agree on is that nearly all were beautiful bikes.

I intend it to look very much like the N15CS with Commando-engine link that Marinatlas posted on the 'Commando engine into P11 chassis' thread on the 'Other classic motorcycles' page.

My Commando engined featherbed has the engine at an angle. I imagine you will need to go bolt upright because of clearance issues. I could just barely squeeze the head off my G15 CSR in the frame. If you put a Commando engine in there you might want to look at head bolt length. There are ways you can squeeze out a head like cut off studs, but a bit of thought first might save some cussin' later. There were also a number of spacers on my set up that I've heard mention of, these will probably take a bit of time to make.
I did finally have a nice enough day today to make a little Norton workbench in the area of my garage I extended. I also got time to make most of my coil setup I'm playing with.
I might just get her running next week if the weather holds. I'm not too inspired in the rain and cold. l

Thanks Ludwig, I will do that. I was originally set on building a P11, but the job you have done on your bike has inspired me to go down the same route, It looks fantastic. The fact that I have a spare Commando engine and gearbox, plus the fact that I picked up the rolling chassis for about US$250 means that I can build something similar for a budget price and not have to be too picky about originality.

I reckon if it has already been stripped like that you may as well build it as you like. My rig had been hot rodded way back, I suspect in the 70s, so I'm not even considering going back to stock.
I think folks will be amused by period modifications anyway. It certainly amuses me!