A Good Ride Spoiled

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Tornado said:
Did a great bit of riding out to Squamish (about 75 KMs) and along the river in perfect weather, as you can see:

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On the return trip, not more than ten mintues along, just passing a big truck on a hill, asked the old girl for bit more power and something gave up, sputtered and dropped a lot of power. No or little power on tap. Pulled over and a blipped throttle showed lots of smoke, most on left side and lumpy sounding. Shut her down and sorted a flatbed to get her home. Since drivers wont take passengers had to take a $95 taxi to next town where I could take a bus rest of way to Vancouver. Did try waving down lots of passing bikes. One did stop and offered a ride but since hauler hadnt arriveds yet and expected anywhere upto two hours to arrive, he couldnt hang about so long.

Anyway, im guessing maybe a ring or valve has gone? Maybe headgasket? Will do a compression check and inspect plugs tomorrow.

Real shame, she was going so nicely all day. Was only reving around 3-4k when this happened.
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Love Squamish. Caught and released 4 kinds of Salmons there last season. How about getting CAA Plus insurance for these situations ? That said , I've never used mine in 6 years ! My guess is a failed head gasket too , which is labour and a new gasket.
 
Torontonian said:
Love Squamish. Caught and released 4 kinds of Salmons there last season. How about getting CAA Plus insurance for these situations ? That said , I've never used mine in 6 years ! My guess is a failed head gasket too , which is labour and a new gasket.
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I have BCAA (BC's version of CAA), so the flatbed was no added cost. In fact, it's the second time I've needed them in recent years....both in the past 6 weeks. Other time was for the Classic Mini after its fuel line fractured and leaked some litres in my parking garage. Had it hauled to a local specialist to get all the old rubber lines renewed.

Biggest annoyance of yesterdays rescue was the current policy of not permitting passengers in the cab of the truck. Being quite a distance out, limited options to get myself home. Taxi full distance would have been almost $200. A car rental one-way would have run $150...but they were closing before the tow truck got there. Settled for taxi to the nearest village (Horse shoe bay) where public transit became an option.
 
Fast Eddie said:
You shudda sat on the bike whilst on the flatbed and enjoyed the ride home...
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I did jokingly ask if they let car drivers sit inside the car and answer was no way! I've seen recent vids of this happening in the UK though.
 
Sorry to read this Tornado, hopefully it's just the "ed" gasket as baz said. (he must be a Londoner). :)
 
Head gasket can be a smoky deal as can a broken ring.
Sometimes you get lucky with broken rings and they stay in the groove, don't damage the cylinder. Other times it's....crunchy.

Glen
 
Whatever it was, it blew your chain guard off the bike too. Looking forward to seeing what it is and hearing about how nice it runs when you are done sorting it out.
 
I had a similar situation near the end of a 100 mile ride. I was heading up the Okaihau hill and lost power. No noise so after listening carefully I decided to keep the thing going up the hill to the village. After mucking around a bit, one of my customers saw me and offered a lift. Got the bike back to Kerikeri and stripped it that Sunday night and found the rings had broken on both pistons but the left hand side had flogged there way through to the oil ring. Its quite funny that the bike had kept going for the 3 -4 years after I bought it. The only evident problem was oil leaks. There was never a blow by smell that British cars used to do when they were worn. Anyway, after ordering new Emgo pistons for it on the Monday, I had it going on the Wednesday evening,. Been going like a train since, and far better than it had ever gone before. There was barely a mark in the bores and the pistons went back in without degalzing.
 
Nice spot for a pic. Must have been fun right up until that happened. The Covid conundrum makes it far worse than it should be. Thanks for the heads up. I hadn't even considered the no riders policy when I take off on my Norton. I am not a fan of the this is what's good for you life style. I'm probably a closet sociopath though.

Maybe I'll just stick to starting my bike and revving it up in the driveway for 15 minutes until the motor is nice and warmed up, then pull it back into the garage.

Sadly, I spend at least 80% of every ride I take on my Norton wondering when it's going to break, and if it locks up whether I'll make to the side of the road before I get hit from behind. I miss being young when I was invincible, and thought the Norton was bullet proof.

Might want to get the head surfaced, or at least checked before bolting it back down.
 
You are invincible and they are bullet proof..... It's just that sometimes things don't go according to plan.
 
jbruney said:
You are invincible and they are bullet proof..... It's just that sometimes things don't go according to plan.
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Tell my right shoulder and left leg. They both seem to be confused about that invincible part.

I agree, the Norton is surprisingly resilient.
 
That's the sometimes don't part. The machines age better than we do.
 
Well, Commandos CAN be essentially trouble-free! My Commando has been totally bulletproof as far as reliability - has never left me stranded. The only two things that ever went "wrong" on rides was: 1. A failure of an Alton alternator rotor which exploded 40 miles from home but bike operated fine on the Shorai battery back to the house. Certainly can't blame Norton for the failure of aftermarket "upgrades," which seems to be a pretty common story! ;) 2. Stopping at a gas station on a long ride, I found that one of the rear turn signal attachment nuts had vibrated loose/was hanging from the wire. That's been it.

Frankly, I believe that many problems arise from so-called "improvements..." ;)
 
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