After 20+ years the Commando returns home (2016)

Back in the 80's my best friend had a 1974 850 Commando & I had a 1969 Triumph. Unfortunately he passed mid 90's & his brother inherited.the bike. Well now just a couple days ago he contacted me & said come get it. He said it had fallen over in the shed & was frozen in a puddle of ice & had to be chipped out. He said he had removed some pieces & was over his head so just left it tucked away. He said he has all the parts. I was pretty worried what it would look like after that story. Well not to bad considering. Even the exhaust looks good. Ran a bore scope down the spark plug hole & all we could see was a spider web. So all is looking promising. Gas tank is full of black powder & the tail light lens is gone.

I remember riding it back in the day & it was pretty fast. Will wash it tomorrow & post more
Update
Cleaned her up a little today. Some good news, some bad. Muffler/silencers I had thought were good are toast, & header pipes will eventually need replaced or chromed. Front wheel has 1 spot of chrome chipped off. Can't wait for the rest of the parts to arrive, hopefully today so I can kick her over. Parts didn't show so I tried a wrench on the rotor nut, shes seized but I think it will break free easily. The oil looked moisture free.
Not sure what is up with the sticker on the neck but it says 1972. Gonna have a lot of Q but want to wait until I have everything including the title.

Sweet!! good looking bike you've got there Wolfman. thanks for posting and I will be looking forward to your progress :mrgreen:

Look for a big C stamped on the front top of head, a 72 with disc brake and small gap between barrel and head is likely a Combat.

Wolfman said:

Back in the 80's my best friend had a 1974 850 Commando & I had a 1969 Triumph. Unfortunately he passed mid 90's & his brother inherited.the bike. Well now just a couple days ago he contacted me & said come get it.

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That's a 750 not an 850.

Wolfman said:

Not sure what is up with the sticker on the neck but it says 1972.

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It appears to be a '73 spec. 750 (750 MkV) probably manufactured late '72.

kommando said:

Look for a big C stamped on the front top of head, a 72 with disc brake and small gap between barrel and head is likely a Combat.

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Tail lamp, instrument pods suggest it's post-Combat (RH5 or RH6 head?). All Commandos tend to have a smaller gap between the fins at the head-barrel joint so that information isn't reliable.

Condolences on the passing of your friend.

Looks like you've got a fun project, and you'll get all the help you need here on this forum.

Srayed a bunch of PB Blaster in the spark plug holes last night. This morn broke free so I poured ATF in the cylinders & cranked it over a few times. 1st revolution sounded a little rough but quickly went away.

I looked closer @ the neck today & it says 1972 Nov, so must be a 73. Also SN engine & frame match. Not much more to do until the rest of the parts arrive

Yeah, Nov. 72 is likely to be after the Combat engines. (Probably a good thing, all being equal.) Norton never set a "Model Year" but your local DMV probably assigned one at first registration so the title probably has it listed that way.
That's a true find and likely quite original. Any idea of the first dealer when it was new (and which state that was - guessing US, or province if in Canada)?

nice some WD40 and rustoleum glass black spray paint and some elbow grease it be good as gnu

Congrats. My 73 750 has an October build date per headstock plate. LAB is correct, as usual.

Please note this thread is from 2016 and the bike has been running since then.

So easy to look right past that fact. It's happened to me often enough to borrow money on.

I've done that before.