I wouldn not take a Commando I don't know across the country. It's up to you how much you believe the current owner about it's road worthiness. Is he a member of a Norton owners club?
I think that you're a braver man than me, I don't think that I would want to do that sort of mileage on a bike that I hadn't seen the insides of. I suppose it depends on how much adventure you're looking for. What sort of tools and facilities are you going to have available to you before you leave ?
By European standards, the bike is not expensive. Is it the best that you want to afford? Conventional wisdom would suggest that an 850 Interstate might be a better proposition, preferably one where the owner can document what has been done to it and show that it has been regularly used.
I can afford to pay more than that, but the choice of Nortons is not especially broad. I had been looking for a 74 850, and am still looking, but they are few and far between. Most of what I have seen falls under the "too nice to ride" category.
I am going to contact the SoCal Norton Owners Assoc. to try and track down something with better documentation. I will see what I can do about learning more about this bike, but I am not sure that it is right for me. If anybody has any leads, please shoot me an email at "pypgb AT mindspring.com"
I met Bill Bibianni of that club two weekends ago when my northern california club met the socal people in Carmel and rode down Hwy 1 to Cambria.
I agree with 79x100 about recommending an 850 Interstate for your trip back to Boston. Just don't take his model (79x100). That's about the slowest motorcycle I've owned. ('61 ES2).
I agree with 79x100 about recommending an 850 Interstate for your trip back to Boston. Just don't take his model (79x100). That's about the slowest motorcycle I've owned. ('61 ES2).
I bet my 79x100 is slower than yours ! It's a 16H 8)
Seriously though if I had to choose between an unsorted, unknown Commando and a sv single, I think I'd prefer the 500. Much less likely to suffer a catastophic failure
EXACTLY sorry no can do. Have found them under the head study. If your luckey you will find it near the exhast rocker covers near the top so you would need to remove the tank.
Both my early combats (201xxx) have the "C" stamped as NORBSA said in the center under the head steady. Someone else mentioned the narrow space between the lower combat head fin and the top cylinder fin. The photos you provided show this.
Head steady is a metal bracket bolted to the top of the head and also bolted to the frame via 2 triangular side plates. Most btritish bikes have these.
the pictures say "someone loved this machine" it has improvements and is clean.. if your mechanical at all, with this groups help, you should be able to get back home..
$3,200 is a fair price for a PRETTY (nice triple tree!) Commando with
mis-matching numbers NOWADAYS... Seen American Choppers or Keanu Reeves lately?
That bike in OZ would fetch between 8 to10 gorillas as is, so even with the exchange rate it's still cheap at under 4,500 OZ, it's a sweet looking bike, even if you have to do some remedial work on it, it wouldn't still be for sale here, someone would have snapped it up, it would be considered a steal.
Mike.
From a European perspective, price is certainly not the issue. You could pay getting on for that for a non - runner.
My only problem is that if I was buying a bike "unheard", I would want to treat it as a project bike until I knew better. However, if you can't get to see the bike before committing, then this probably isn't a bad one.
Is there no-one local to the machine who can give it a once-over ?
Unfortunately not. The owner seemed like a pretty straightforward fellow and was willing to truck the bike up to meet me when I arrive in LA, but there is no way I can look it over in advance....think I might go through with it, though.
Go for it man, i would, actually, i did, that's how i bought mine, over the net, the bloke checked out, he was a genuine fellow, i think if your man is prepared to ship it to you he too must be pretty genuine.
Mike
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