front end

Hello,
I recently purchased my first commando, it is a 71 frame with a 73 850,
the front and rear are either Suzuki or Kawasaki with disk brakes. the person I bought it from said no mods were made to the front end or frame to get it to fit, and from what I can see he is telling the truth. I am thinking of putting a 73 Norton front end with disk brakes on it. Does anyone know if this will bolt up to the 71 frame with little or no modifications to make it fit?

Thanks

If you use the '73 triple trees it will bolt in to the '71 frame if you use the Norton ball bearings and race spacer. The Jap front end is probably installed with the Japanese triple trees and tapered roller bearings. Proper size tapered rollers can be used, but there is no bearing adjustment on '73 model trees.

Also if your front end is coming from an 850, the rake angle will be off by 1 degree from stock. The triple trees will have the letters ANG embossed on the underside if they are 850.

Pictures would help us know what you have for triple clamps now. Either '72 or '73 750 front end would be correct with your '71 frame.

I recently modified my 70 commando to use yamaha cast wheels. I changed the bearings in the yamaha front wheel to fit the norton front axle, so I could keep my norton front end intact. I had to fabricate an offset to move the lockheed caliper location to work with the yamaha brake rotor, but the entire front end and axle are norton parts with the exception of the wheel and brake rotor,

On the rear end I could have made bushings for the yamaha bearings and used a 1 piece norton axle (like madass sells) to keep everything, but the wheels, stock norton parts,... OR I could just enlarge the norton swingarm slots for the 17mm yamaha axle and use the yamaha wheel and axle unmodified (which is what I did)

So it is possible to just modify the wheels with sleeve bushings in the bearings to swap them for norton wheels without altering the forks or swingarm... but not the easiest way to do it IMO.

The whole yamaha cast wheel adaptation on my bike is easily reversible by just swapping back to the original parts. The only norton part that was altered was the swingarm, but I bought a second swingarm just so I could maintain the ability to swap everything back to stock norton configuration to maintain the bike's potential "stock" value...


My bike's original '70 front drum brake was changed to a later model norton disc brake front end 40 years ago. I think the entire disc brake front end was taken from a later model bike because I had later model electrical switches too, not the '70 stock ones which were different than later models, so it is possible to graft a late model disc brake front end onto an early bike if that answers your question somewhat.... I'm not sure if the swap was made at the fork sliders, the fork tubes, or at the steering head, so... I can't answer that detail of your question, but someone here will know those details for certain.

I'm really interested in seeing a picture of your front and rear wheel modifications if you could link to a picture somwhere...

BTW, my cast aluminum yamaha wheels with new avon roadrider tires handles 1000 times better than my spokes, steel rims, and old dunlop K-81 tires ever did. It's not a stock commando now, but it's undeniably a better handling bike...

Great, thanks for the info, I will post some pics in the next day or so but I am pretty sure it is the jap triple tree. He did say they had to do some slight modification for the rear axle, I am just going to leave it as is for now.

tried to post pics but do not know how, pics are in photobucket. can someone help please

Sure thing. On a separate tab, go to your Photobucket account and bring up the picture you want. Then, along the right side of the window, click on the "IMG" cell. It should momentarily flash "Copied". Once that's done, go back to your Access Norton posting edit window and "Ctrl-V" (paste), and you should then have a link to your picture. Click "Preview" at the bottom to verify proper action.

Nathan

thanks for the help.

To ME, your bike looks fine. I bet those dual disc front brakes stop your bike better than any norton commando out there... ( :lol: ) I'm not really a purist, obviously. One look at my bike with cast yamaha wheels will confirm that. My tripple tree, forks, slider and brakes are all stock norton. The wheels and front brake rotor are yamaha. The rear wheel is yamaha on a modified stock norton swingarm It looks nortony enough for me.... More important to me, it handles much better than it did previously.



One of the things I like about the yamaha wheels is the rubber cush hub. My 70 norton had no cush in the hub at all, like all the early commando hubs. when I would shift into 1st gear whle standing still the gear box made a loud audible "click". Now with the cush hub I hear no click when I put it into gear. Anyway, it's up to you to chose what you like. In my case, I wanted a better handling bike and I got that. I saved all the stock parts of course so I'll always have the option to go back to stock.

Thanks, I probably will leave it as is for now, it does look pretty good with the mags. I am a bit of a purest so deep inside it bug me a bit. But it will never be an original bike, and I still would have to find a front end. Maybe some day but not in the near future.

looks like kaw, prob u have an 18" rear wheel & another option would be 16"

info on rear shocks maybe? mufflers? (maybe sportsers..)

69triguy said:

Hello,
I recently purchased my first commando, it is a 71 frame with a 73 850,
the front and rear are either Suzuki or Kawasaki with disk brakes. the person I bought it from said no mods were made to the front end or frame to get it to fit, and from what I can see he is telling the truth. I am thinking of putting a 73 Norton front end with disk brakes on it. Does anyone know if this will bolt up to the 71 frame with little or no modifications to make it fit?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Yep it looks like Kawasaki wheels/forks,does it handle ok? Generally Japanese bikes have less offset on the fork yokes than a commando ,but you can re instate some offset if needed by using sliders from an LTD model , bike looks the nuts btw cheers

baz said:

Yep it looks like Kawasaki wheels/forks,does it handle ok? Generally Japanese bikes have less offset on the fork yokes than a commando ,but you can re instate some offset if needed by using sliders from an LTD model , bike looks the nuts btw cheers

Click to expand...

I think so, too. The gauges tell the tale. Z1 or KZ 900 or 1000.

In the third pic you can see the parting line between the top of the Norton headstock and a top spacer, no doubt the stem was longer and nothing wrong with the solution.

i always liked the original kaw 900 front fender that prob bolts right up, it was also one piece with no supporting brackets for a cleaner look,

as well, the ltd variants had shorter smaller front fenders for a diff look & the cast wheels likely run tubeless tires

they also offered leading axle front forks that was standard on BMWs at that time & highly praised by then bike rags

finally, prob a ton of cheap drilled out brake discs out there if preferring that over the plain solid disc look

Love those 7 spoke Morris style mags that Kawa's came with.
I wish I could find similar units for my MK3, and wider ones for my 961.

actually I haven't got to ride it yet. tore my rotator cuff this summer and bought this a week before surgery. was not looking for a bike but saw this at a swap meet and the price was too good to pass up, especially since i knew a commando was going to be the next bike i wanted
to buy. It kills me that i will not be able to ride it until spring.
Guages are definitely kawasaki. do not know about shocks or exhaust. rear brakes have a suzuki mounting bracket

Danno said:

baz said:

Yep it looks like Kawasaki wheels/forks,does it handle ok? Generally Japanese bikes have less offset on the fork yokes than a commando ,but you can re instate some offset if needed by using sliders from an LTD model , bike looks the nuts btw cheers

Click to expand...

I think so, too. The gauges tell the tale. Z1 or KZ 900 or 1000.

Click to expand...

just to cover the bases in case someone else goes there & is interested in mixing bolt on parts, my recollection is that both KZ900 & 1000 used a 1 piece front fender with no brackets/brace, pretty sure the 650/4 for just 1 other used a supporting bracket/brace at the bottom rear as in the pix,

so i'd confirm what exactly is going on with the front end before spending money on other parts that may not work

could just be a 650/4 fender mounted to a z1 front end or could actually be a 650/4 (or even some other kaw model) front end that may differ from the z1 etc