Dreer VR880

Ive been reading everything I could find on the VR880s that Kenny Dreer built. I have to say that I like the styling of all of them but maybe the yellow one off "Super Twin" the most. This is the bike that is for sale right now on Ebay as well as on this site.

I havent really found any riders reports of people doing long distances on these bikes. I found a couple of atricles where the bikes had been used mainly for show or as museum pieces, like the Super twin was for quite awhile.

Now Im wondering if Kenny just created the Combat all over again, only with an even bigger charge ready to detonate.

From a few years back when the 952 was coming along, his explanation of why he stopped building the VR 880s and went about designing a totally new engine with the 952-

"You were buying these high performance exploding bombs and we were losing money on every build"

I read a thread on this forum some years ago where the owner of an 880 had the crank break in half when doing a demo wheelie. There wasnt much left of the engine as I recall.

One other poster that I did find in the search was not thrilled with the ridability of his 880. He was used to his standard 850 and felt that the VR880 combo of lightenedcrank, high compression and whatever other changes were made to his engine resulted in a bike that was difficult to manage in everyday traffic. He complained that it was easy to stall and had to be ridden like a racer to work well. Just about dead opposite our standard Commandos, they are tractors when they need to be.

Those VR 880s sure are pretty tho.

Glen

The 880s suffered from the same problems as the Commando, as you increase the horsepower more things are going to break. That poor engine was originally designed in what, the 1950s?

When Kenny realized that the parts that were failing were the remaining original Norton parts on the 880 that's when he decided that an all new bike was the only way to go.

It's not that he built shit bikes it's that you can only extend the original Commando so far before it's diminishing returns.

Maybe the standard Commando is about it for performance with reasonable longevity, given the design .
I suspect that the mk 3 with its stronger cases could be made to squeak out a bit more power than standard and still hang together.

Perhaps an engine with a twenty percent gain with the strenghtened 850 might hold whereas the Dreer 880s were more like a 50% inrease in max power. He did use his own strengthened case half tho didnt he? He also lightened cranks, wonder if he strengthened them in any way? If so, it wasnt enough apparently.
Perhaps that it not so easy to do with our design.

Glen

"The 880s suffered from the same problems as the Commando, as you increase the horsepower more things are going to break. That poor engine was originally designed in what, the 1950s?"

Dave, I take it you mean the Combat Commandos? The standard 750 and 850 seem to hang together quite well with careful maintenance. In other words, Norton got away with the increase in power to the Atlas level, which I think is pretty close to the standard 750 Commando, but not beyond.
You can see the thinking behind the 850, with extra size squeeze more power out thru the rpm range but with the CR backed off .5, the max hp (where breakage is most likely to occur) is still at the standard 750 level, but achieved at 5900 rpm rather than 6800 for the standard 750 (Haynes) Seems like a safe way to play it after their Combat troubles, and the result is a nice torquey ride.
Even there, it was decided to do some additional reinforcing with the MK3, both to the cases and the crank.
I wonder if Kenny built any VR 880s using the MK3 crankshaft as base?
I see Dreer 880s titled as 1970, 72,73, so far no 75s or later. It is likely used the crank from whatever the donor bike was to build the remanufactured bike, although he was not afraid to make some pretty dramatic changes in the search for a better Commando.

I guess it shouldn't be suprising that things blew apart with the 50% power increase of the VR 880 over standard, given that Norton themselves had such problems with the 750 in producing about ten percent more hp(Combat) out of the old mill.

Glen

..................."He did use his own strengthened case half tho didnt he? ".............well.........maybe not....I had a telephone conversation with Steve Maney a couple of years ago, and I brought this up--about Kenny's bikes and the strengthened case halves and Steve said that those were actually his cases that Kenny was passing off as his own. Cj

Someone told me that the liner used in the 'oil in frame' started coming apart, clogging the oilways. Just a matter of time.

Oil in frame on a Commando after the fact would be a toughie to get right, a bit like cutting a skylight into the roof of the Sistine Chapel. Im not sure why anyone would want to do either?

Glen

cjandme said:

..................."He did use his own strengthened case half tho didnt he? ".............well.........maybe not....I had a telephone conversation with Steve Maney a couple of years ago, and I brought this up--about Kenny's bikes and the strengthened case halves and Steve said that those were actually his cases that Kenny was passing off as his own. Cj

Click to expand...

Of course he did. :roll:

lots of rumours and innuendo eh? I live up the street a few miles from Kenny, I bought out his old shop inventory before he bacame Norton America, and saw him transform from working in a single horse stall to some very well appointed quarters, the story is one of transformation, the bikes evolved, some things worked, some things didnt, and changes were made from the very first C-dos built, the first bike was a black and green C-do (you can see it on the OVM list file photos under "mikes bike" it was built from bits and pieces and used parts, cobbled together under a strict no frills budget, FFWD 15 years later and the VR series bikes were a whole 'nother animal, Most everything was replaced and mostly new parts, the used stuff started approaching a 70 percent reject rate Im told (there is a LOT of ex vintage rebuilds employees) but Kenny said as much as well,.
I was in his shop a number of times when he was building VR series bikes, the cranks were lightened extensively, they revved like a 2 stroke, monsters, but they were built to be hotrods, NOT COMMUTTER bikes,, and stuff broke,, whatta yah want? Honda reliability? buy a fire blade or R1 Zippy. You can only polish a turd so far,. thats why eventually he stopped the whole thing and started with a whole new bike, all new parts,
Kenny was very generous to me with his time over many many years, He did a lot to educate me on what a POS the bikes are straight from the factory, Ive worked in aerospace manufacturing and im a licensed A&P, the part quality of stock Nortons is appalling, much of it defective right off the show room floor, I laugh at people who talk about their all original bikes, grenades,, time bombs, I used to build them doing all the upgrades and blue printing, yet have people turn their noses up and go buy a low mileage stocker instead, good luck with that if you want to ride it,
Kenny really educated me about how any bike, no matter how nice, is just a core, and you pay accordingly (he typically paid $600-1500 for bikes) most everything was replaced, and then look for the defects,.. when you are done, blue printed and with all the upgrades, you have a pretty special machine.
Kenny had his faults and issues, but give credit where its due. One of the other people locally I greatly respect is Sir Edward (Ed Bilton-Smith) A man on a whole different level, if you want to learn perfection and dedication to mechanical genius, few if any can compare with him, a motor or bike built by Sir Eddy is amazing, Which is why he has the trophys and recongnition to back it up, His Motor in Sonny Burres race frame, as well as T.L. Hoaglands bike were fettled by him and made Berliners race bikes look they were standing still, Berliner himself came over and wanted to know what was their secret. Sir Eddy was the secret.

1 Bought a VR 880 from a certain mr dreer it now resides in a museum 3/10 ... did a 100 miles came back on a tow truck big bang
also bought a new 961 now sold it leaked oil 4/10 dissapointing ride and finish and service
also bought a cnw norton 10/10 very happy also service good even from 3000 miles away ..
coming next month a CNW Cafe Racer 11/10 looks the bollocks
i speak from experience as a owner of these bikes.
take my advice if you want a norton pawn your granny
and get on matt's list at cnw norton, after all you would'nt
let the village idiot perform brain surgery on your nearsest
and dearest, so if you have problems with your commando
seek top proffesional help it pays every time
richard

You might be the only person to have owned all three of those bikes. Did you keep your Norlon umbrella? Ha Enjoy that CNW buddy, you've earned it!

"lots of rumours and innuendo eh? "

Cant speak for others but I started the thread with a quote from Kenny Dreer, not rumour or innuendo.
I was thinking very hard about buying the Dreer 880 that was just now for sale on Ebay, but had some concerns after doing some background reading, wanted to see what info others might have. It is clear that Kenny tried very hard to do high quality work, I think most would agree with that.


Basically you are in violent agreement with the general comments in the thread and with Kenny's comments.

One thing I dont agree with you on is that the original bikes are "grenades" unless you are referring only to the Combat spec bikes as they came from the factory.
Commandos have their shortcomings, but a great many of the bikes are still going strong after 35 to 45 years of use without ever having "grenaded".
If they are "time bombs" as you say, the fuse is awfully long!

Glen

.......Swooshdave wrote..."Of course he did. "....Well I don't know what to tell you swoosh except that I didn't make that up. I'd mentioned to Steve about seeing the strengthened engine case half for sale on the vintage rebuilds web site when I came back from overseas and found out about vintage rebuilds in the first place. There was a parts page on the site when I first visited the web site, and the strengthened case half was listed on that page for sale seperately along with some other juicy parts that piqued my intrest. Some time later, I went to the vintage rebuilds site again and the parts page was no longer there and I was upset with myself that I'd missed the chance to get one of those beefed up case halves for my '69 basket case project bike. Then a really long time later (years) when I found out about Steve Maney's products (saw a set of Steve's barrels for sale on ebay for what seemed like a small fortune so I googled Maney and found his web site) and that's when I called his shop, Steve answered, I said that I was glad I had a chance to buy his strengthened engine cases because I'd missed the chance to get one from Kenny and that's when Steve said those were actually his. Maybe Steve sold some to Kenny at some point, I don't know, but that's how that came about. There's no denying the picture that you posted either. I was simply commenting on my experience. I doubt either of these guys would lie as there wouldn't really be any percentage in it. I bought some fork sliders from Kenny and spoke with him on the phone briefly as I suspect that he's a busy guy too (like Steve), but he still took the time to explain the different types to me and made sure that I needed the later "oval" type that he sold me. Anyway that's my stoy and I'm sticking to it.

Cj, I dont doubt that for a minute.
It wouldnt make sense for Kenny to reengineer the work already done by Steve Maney, especially when first getting under way. We have to remember that he started this work in a horse stall and eventually had a pretty nice facility, so there were likely a lot of changes in procedure along the way. He must have found it worthwhile to make his own moulds and have the cases done closer to home at some point. Im assuming the Daves photo is of a Dreer mould.

From a business mans perspective, whether Maney was supplying the cases, or he had others employed doing the work, there is no need or advantage in advertising who the initial supplier is.
That is the way it is with most stuff we buy, there is a middle man or sometimes several middle men involved. Most retailers would prefer to keep their supplier list to themselves.

I dont think any of the pricey Terry Prince hotrod stuff for Vincents is physically made by Terry, but Terry knows which machine shops and foundries will do a proper job of it and is instrumental in getting the products made. The ideas for the designs are Terrys or are borrowed from others with Vincent hotrodding knowledge (Steve Hamel)

Come to think of it, Im sure Steve Maney doesnt have a foundry in the back yard, so it could be said that others provide him with the castings. Im sure it is done to Steves design tho, and its likely the cases are machined on his premises to his specs.

Glen

worntorn said:

"lots of rumours and innuendo eh? "

Cant speak for others but I started the thread with a quote from Kenny Dreer, not rumour or innuendo.
I was thinking very hard about buying the Dreer 880 that was just now for sale on Ebay, but had some concerns after doing some background reading, wanted to see what info others might have. It is clear that Kenny tried very hard to do high quality work, I think most would agree with that.


Glen

Click to expand...

I wouldnt buy that bike unless you inspected it in person and rode it, or had someone you knew well and trusted to do so on your behalf, but thats just me, Not a commentary on Kenny or the DPO, but any expensive toy. It might be one of the best bikes Kenny ever built, i dont pretend to know. I do know that over many many years of knowing him, he worked really hard at this stuff, but while expanding the envelope, there were problems, such as some of the castings kenny had made were defective, ive seen a number of them, they were the wrong alloy or heat treat, came out soft, a local scrap yard ended up with them, A friend was there one day for his Fab business, saw them,,"holy crap"! and took some home,,, makes great display items or mockup motors, A few others are in circulation as well. I know where the molds are. And worked in Aerospace castings, I was briefly tempted to make my own.

Let me make a comparison to put it in context, a local nationally known flat track racer and team owner used to build race bikes each year, he had brand new champion,trackmaster, sonic weld amd redline frames sitting on the shelf,,often bought 5 or 6 at a time, same as other parts, after each season would build another bike, his rider(s) would often complain, one bike was prefect, the next one Shite, same parts, same assy,same builder, one was blessed by the gods, the next cursed, If a bike was good, the riders wanted to keep it on, and were upset when Gary would sell them. In manufacturing people strive to achieve standardization but Bikes are living creatures and seem to have a life of their own. Build enough of them and you will understand. In aircraft you cna have a flightline of 36 high perdcormance aircraft and you will see a few select problem childs will always be hangar queens, others dont give a lick of trouble. Its the nature of the game

Kenny did buy some case halves from Steve in the beginning, but not many. Then Kenny had molds made and had his own cases cast locally. I think there was some sort of conflict between them over what Kenny wanted and what Steve was willing to supply, but I've forgotten the details. Steve was unhappy with Kenny because he believed Kenny had copied a product that Steve had done a lot of development work on, and basically stolen his design. Kenny felt like Steve didn't leave him a choice, so he made his own cases. I have sets of cases from both Kenny and Steve, and Kenny's cases are not exact copies of Steve's. They are fairly similar. After all, how many ways can you make a copy of the Norton crankcase that still looks mostly like the original? Personally, I like the looks of Steve's a little better, and I know that his quality is extremely high. But there's also nothing wrong with the ones Kenny made, and I'd use them to build a race engine with no hesitation.

Worntorn is right. Steve has a local foundry do the castings from his own patterns, and then he machines them totally in-house on his CNC equipment.

Ken

worntorn said:

"lots of rumours and innuendo eh? "

Basically you are in violent agreement with the general comments in the thread and with Kenny's comments.

One thing I dont agree with you on is that the original bikes are "grenades" unless you are referring only to the Combat spec bikes as they came from the factory.
Commandos have their shortcomings, but a great many of the bikes are still going strong after 35 to 45 years of use without ever having "grenaded".
If they are "time bombs" as you say, the fuse is awfully long!

Glen

Click to expand...

You raise 2 issues and I wanted to reply seperatley to each one.. first dont suggest im "in violent agreement" when all I was just trying to do is give some context to commentary. Kenny isnt commenting on here, and while I have known him a long time, and own most of the shops old inventory,. Kenny can speak for himself. He is highly opnionated, and is never shy from expressing himself. Kenny responded to a request I made a few years ago, and gave 2 excellent talks at our NW Vintage Car and Motorcycle Museum at the Antique Powerland facility (look us up, 14 museums on site). We often do classes and seminars and Kenny was generous enough with his time to do these presentations. He went into detail over many hours about his history, and how he got into the business. and ALL the dirty secrets of the motorcycle industry and how to finance it (more than a few comments about F***'ing lawyers too). The long and short of it is, Its an imperfect world, a imperfect process, and the realities is comprimises were made.


Also, I was trying to Illustrate (perhaps poorly) one of the things I learned from Kenny and his business. If you want to rebuild Nortons and put your name behind them, Then after building a number of them you learn quickly most left the factory with serious defects. If you want good results, you blueprint and address those defects. Every part manufactured for any manufacturers has the potential to be defective. Its the job of Quality Control to set and enforce standards. There are a LOT of parts made that are "Close enough". Norton shipped a LOT of bad parts and bikes,and for the most part knew it, mostly for financial reasons and in desperation. My point is that if you rebuild a bike from end to end,correct the defects and optimize it. Nortons are excellent machines. Triumphs and early BSAs got them right most of the time, Are all Nortons time bombs? no, but every Norton has substandard parts. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. I know of a number of one owner bikes (C-do & Atlas) that were great, I call them Wednesday bikes. But I stand by original premise that I learned from Kenny and many other local gurus such as Sir Eddy that until you have gone thru and corrected and "blue printed" a Norton, you are just gambling. Show me one factory original crank for a Norton twin that doesnt have horrendous rocking couple, just one, find me one, i challenge you. I could go on about all the issues but its a lot easier to just point to the multi volumes of the INOA Tech guides (is there a vol 4 out now?) and they detail most of the problems to correct, and break them down into subsections such as frame, forks, engine, trans etc.
Soft 850 cams?? defective valves in sporadic batchs from the 1960s thru the 70s thru the whole range? Weak oil tanks that split? where do we stop? just ponder this, a few years back I supplied several cranks to Sir Eddy, both came from low mileage one owner bikes, the first one when the lock tabs were removed the bolts securing the crank halves to the flywheel were only finger tight (ooops, must have been a Friday 5 oclock Beer thrity bike). The other Crank Eddy cursed, and swore somthin's stinky in Denmark, Ever the perfectionist, and fifty plus years as a tool & die maker Eddy put the crank in the V blocks and checked dimensions (remember what I said about blueprinting?) He found one journal 20 thou higher travel than other, the crank left the factory that way, the holes were machined wrong. factory defective. many Nortons just dont cover enough miles to have reached the critical breaking points. most Nortons I run across have less than 10,000 miles, many less than 5,000, something went bad or some problem happened, and they were set aside in Barns or sheds and forgotten for 30-40 years.

Kenny responded to a request I made a few years ago, and gave 2 excellent talks at our NW Vintage Car and Motorcycle Museum at the Antique Powerland facility (look us up, 14 museums on site). We often do classes and seminars and Kenny was generous enough with his time to do these presentations. He went into detail over many hours about his history, and how he got into the business. and ALL the dirty secrets of the motorcycle industry and how to finance it (more than a few comments about F***'ing lawyers too). The long and short of it is, Its an imperfect world, a imperfect process, and the realities is comprimises were made.

snip>..
I meant to Add,,,,,, We video taped both of those seminars, and a number of ex-employees also attended. We video tape many of our seminars and presentations. At some point we are looking at perhaps releasing these materials. Our goal is to support the museum and education is a important key element of our goals and mission.

We have done classes in gas tank and panel beating with Evan Wilcox,Other are How to restore a triumph, How to do restorations, Fabricating and manufacturing rare and unobtainable parts, Racing a land speed record bike, Traveling the world and long distance touring on a BSA (with the infamous Don Danmeirer and his gal Shirly- does she have a sister?)

While we are always looking to do more seminars and presentations (and there will be some this winter) at some point we are looking at releasing some of these past events on tape or other media. stay tuned, Consider joining or perhaps making a donation to help support this Non Profit so we can provide these events and materials for years to come.,


Northwest Vintage Car and Motorcycle museum, We are on the web, or contact us for your next vintage vehicle event or schedule a tour

" first dont suggest im "in violent agreement" when all I was just trying to do is give some context to commentary."

I dont know what else to call it when someone starts with the comment " lots of rumour and innuendo eh?" then proceeds to tell us how it "really is" in no uncertain terms with information that basically mirrors the general info in the thread, which also lines up with Kenny's own comments.
Seems like violent agreement fits, not a bad thing in any case.

As far as Stock Nortons being ticking time bombs, grenades, pieces of shit, having parts of appalling quality(all your words) or the majority having low miles, meaning untested and still ready to blow if used, I havent noticed this, but I do have a pretty limited exposure. In forty five years of ownership Ive owned just three, all had over thirty thousand miles, two on original bores. When these things were built it was unheard of for Jap bikes to do this kind of mileage on one top end, in fact most of those bikes were in the dumpster long before that mileage.
I had a business rebuilding import bikes back then, at ten thousand miles they were pretty tired, do the top end for another 5-7 k then the bikes were generally scrapped, bottom ends gone and tranny questionable.
So back in the seventies my stocker 59 Es2 with 34,000 on an untouched motor looked pretty good, never considered it a time bomb, a grenade or even a piece of shit. It is amazing how sometimes what you don't know won't hurt you!

Happily my experience with the twins has been good as well, the long fuse time bombs.

Your discussion of the differences in bikes of a common build is something Ive noticed as well. Ill add that sometimes a very standard but "fast" example of a particular model, one where all the parts are in harmony, will outrun the same model with a long bragging list of all the favourite high performance modificiations.


Glen

internetannoyance said:

Show me one factory original crank for a Norton twin that doesnt have horrendous rocking couple, just one, find me one, i challenge you. .

Click to expand...

How far out are we talking about ? Nortons had a central flywheel, where all the balance drilling was done. Doesn't leave too much room for a "tremendous rocking couple", does it ?

Unless you are talking about the 360 degree engine design, in which case your argument turns to sheet, thats not exactly a manufacturing defect in the slightest.

As far as I know, Royal Enfields were one of the few brands that dynamically balanced their big twin cylinder cranks (ie eliminated balance problems side-to-side.). Maybe because they had reportedly horrendous vibrations problems without this ?!

Your arguments turn to water when analysed in detail ??
Not that we'd deny that Nortons did a perfect machining job on everything, when clearly they didn't. But modern CNC can replicate parts with an accuracy that all the old-time manufacturers would have revelled in...