First long'ish trip

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Kevin — great that the bike went well and that your missus gave it the thumbs up! Wales is a grand place to go on a bike trip. Some of the roads in Wales are glorious, snaking ribbons of tarmac. The bike looks good and well kitted out for a two-up trip.

Dave
 
Thumb commencer buttons are known to lower one's IQ, expcept in Commando users.

hobot
 
Reggie said:
click wrote;
Have you had any hassle with your sprag bearing?

Funny you should mention that :!: The sprag turned itself over about a week before this trip that I referred to, and I was in a supermarket car park, and due to my lack of current practice, it took me about 3 attempts to crank 'er up on the kickstart. :oops:

I am aware of what the Norvil site says about replacing the three items at once if the sprag fails, and so not being a very trusting sort of person (not in this case), thought that I would get a second opinion and so rang Mick Hemmings up who said " the tolerances are quite critical, so you would be better buying the set of three, or you are at potential risk of ruining another sprag" and so that emptied my walet nicely. All is well at the moment, and I did chek the dimensions of the new versus old parts, and there was some wear, although IIRC only a few thou.

The sprag that self destructed was about three years old and had started the engine hundreds of times, but I had put that on the original gear wheel and sprocket that came with the bike. Still, I was a bit disaappointed with the failure. :evil:

splatt wrote
Reggie,all your bikes shift on the wrong side



Hi Reggie,

Thanks again for all the info. I've been watching closely the development of other bolt on starter systems, none are for the MK3 yet. I know you can get the OEM starter system to work but by the time you add up all the bits you need to replace, starter motor, sprag, various gears etc. etc. you could be close or at the same price as some of these other starter systems.

Did you have to top up your oil much during your 1000 mile trip?

Kevin
 
daveh said:
Kevin — great that the bike went well and that your missus gave it the thumbs up! Wales is a grand place to go on a bike trip. Some of the roads in Wales are glorious, snaking ribbons of tarmac. The bike looks good and well kitted out for a two-up trip.

Dave

Dave - All from a little help from my Norton friends :D

I found the roads in Wales great, some reminded me of the roads I toured on over the Alps.

Kevin
 
click wrote;
Did you have to top up your oil much during your 1000 mile trip?
No, I didn't use very much oil. The level went down about 1/2" on the stick, so although I'd taken about 50ml spare oil in one of my wifes redundant plastic cosmetic containers which fitted nicely in the tank bag, I didn't need it as I had marginaly overfilled before we left. My engine had just done over 500 miles since a 0.040" rebore when we set off, so I wasn't sure how the oil consumption was going to be.

click wrote;
Thanks again for all the info. I've been watching closely the development of other bolt on starter systems, none are for the MK3 yet.
Yes I don't blame you for considering other options. When I was replacing the three parts I was thinking how *issed off I'll be if it goes again in a couple of years. But, if it does, I have decided that I will only replace the sprag next time assuming that there should be insufficient wear in that period of use on the other two components to warrant changing them, and if this does happen, I will then start using that cranking arm on the end of the gearbox a lot more to spread the wear out on the sprag clutch over a longer period. I will see what happens as I am not kicking it off at all at the moment. Too much like hard work 8)
 
Top Tip - Always pack the pillions stuff in the bottom of the panniers so when they touch the exhaust you burn through somebody else's stuff :D
 
Kevin -

Thanks for sharing. Did you get much oohs and ahhs from onlookers? The Commando tends to draw attention, it's one of the things I love about them.

And do you find the small windscreen useful?
 
hobot said:
Thumb commencer buttons are known to lower one's IQ, expcept in Commando users.

hobot

Hi Hotbot,

Good point, you tend to learn a lot more about how the bike functions just by trying to make the 'thumb commencer' work :mrgreen: :lol: :mrgreen:

Kevin
 
maylar said:
Kevin -

Thanks for sharing. Did you get much oohs and ahhs from onlookers? The Commando tends to draw attention, it's one of the things I love about them.

And do you find the small windscreen useful?

Dave,

Yes had a fair few people making nice comments. One of the B&B's I was in, the owner worked in the Norton factory as a young lad & was telling me stories about the good ole' days.

The small screen was put on for two reasons, protect the GPS from direct windblast, if you look closely you will see the ball mount on the handlebars. The other was to keep some of the wind blast from the tank bag.

I'm 6' 4" tall & the screen did not make any difference regarding wind protection for me.

Kevin
 
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