"Big Red" and "The Blues" project

hehe may just not used to Commando compression or the stuff just mentioned or actually a KS ratchet issue behind inner cover. Be very careful of anything crackable in the plug hole as the plug angle means the piston don't push directly in line but mostly sideways so pencil will snap off a piece inside, much stiffer harder can ding piston which moves fast as it nears TDC. I just look in over some bump start action. You don't want to see one piston moving and the other not following ugh. I hear one fella filled jug with gas to float metal eraser end of pencil into reach.

Kick Start only gets 360 degree at the crank .

Make SURE you clean all the SLUDGE out of the Tanks & lines , fuel & oil .

Would pay to swing the engine through with the new oil in & plugs out , for a bit . maybe a drop of Redex or similar in cylinders .

would be auspicious to check points gap & timing , and valve clearances before start up .

Its not a Mac Truck . Dont FORCE the kickstart . Getting to agro with it can knock a corner of the little engagement pawl .
Pushing lever to Engage , THEN applying weight , is how to go .

To get a decent, reliable bike and certainly not a show piece, be prepared to shell out about 5-6 grand per bike based on the condition of the bikes in pictures. This would be for parts and specialist services such as painting, machining, wheel lacing and assumes you do everything else. I just finished one and tracked my costs and even if I had tried to cut costs in few areas, like painting instead of powder coating and fewer new chrome bits, 5 grand would have been a minimum spend in addition to the cost of the bike in the first place. Anything less and you aren't going to have a bike that is ridable on a regular basis.
Here's my build thread. Not trying to scare you off. Just trying to prepare for what lies ahead.
ww.accessnorton.com/mitch-basket-case-t4616.html

I see you're on the Eastern Shore of MD. You might want to contact the Nation's Capital Norton Owners; http://ncno.org/ . They are a good bunch and I know there's at least one member in Annapolis and several in Baltimore.

So I have now removed the horrible front handlebar and replaced with a bar that doesn't have such a high-rise. Removed the rear shocks from "blue", polished the springs and put them onto "Red". It's starting to look more like the Norton that I recognize and like.



While I was cleaning the front caliper from that I had removed from "Red" and "Blue", I noticed that the caliper from "Blue" has a metal scraper-like attachment. It is srewed into the lower part of the caliper and appears that it cleans the disc from debris before it enters into the caliper. I'm not sure if it's factory, aftermarket, or hand-made. Has anyone seen a similar attachment?







I removed the piston from the hand lever and then next step is to reassemble the lever, finsih rebuilsing the caliper and put then put it all back on the handlebar so I can start on the headset/tripple tree, and front end.

Camp6 said:

While I was cleaning the front caliper from that I had removed from "Red" and "Blue", I noticed that the caliper from "Blue" has a metal scraper-like attachment. It is srewed into the lower part of the caliper and appears that it cleans the disc from debris before it enters into the caliper. I'm not sure if it's factory, aftermarket, or hand-made. Has anyone seen a similar attachment?

Click to expand...

It's an original Norton factory part: https://www.accessnorton.com/NortonCommando/identify-this-disc-brake-part.12149/

Finally got back into the garage for a little while over the weekend and got the top off of the motor and found that the left piston was frozen and had a fare amount of gunk/crud in the chamber. After a few hours I was able to free it and have the crank case off and now the pistons move freely as designed. The left piston's rings were/are stuck into place and don't even release from the piston.
I also have a good parts list running as for what is needed and hope to get them over the next month or so I can start putting it together once the crank case and upper is finished getting cleaned.

Hope all have a wonderful holiday and new years.

Good to see it's not totally forgotten.

Still working with it, just waiting for $$$ from owner for parts. It would be much easier if the owner gave the $$$ for parts up front in stead of wanting to be involved with ALL the parts purchasing. I inderstand the want for being involved and over seeing the project/parts, but when your out of the country for 2/3 the year (intermittently) it's hard to orchestrate such purchases. UGHHHH