Killing the bike that killed mine
- Thread starter Blue noser
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Dance puppets, dance.
Ha, aha, booha ha ha ha. :twisted:
Ha, aha, booha ha ha ha. :twisted:
CB 750/4s are dead boring, ugly lumps, painting them matt black tends to disguise some of the lumpen look, but does not make them cool...
Back in the day I had a workmate who was a Honda fan, he was so proud of his newly purchased 4, `til he had a stoplight showdown with what he thought was a shitty old Brit-bike [Commmando] which slaughtered him from 3 consecutive sets of lights..
Back in the day I had a workmate who was a Honda fan, he was so proud of his newly purchased 4, `til he had a stoplight showdown with what he thought was a shitty old Brit-bike [Commmando] which slaughtered him from 3 consecutive sets of lights..
So..... J.A.W.,
can we take it that you don't like CB750's?
Your posts kinda reminds me of a guy who started coming around us at various motorcycle gatherings in the mid 90's.
He got a 1957 Panhead from his dad or uncle or somebody and was a 100% "panhead guy" from that moment on.
He even got a tattoo that said "Panhead till I'm dead" on his arm. Everything else was crap to him.
One time while in Sedona Arizona, it started raining and of course he couldn't get his bike to start.
We offered to help - NO! was his reply.
We offered to give him a ride - HELL NO!, there was no way he was riding on any P.O.S. Jap bike.
We left him standing right there next to (In his eyes), the greatest motorcycle in the world.
........He didn't come around much after that.
I think you and him might get along pretty good together.
can we take it that you don't like CB750's?
Your posts kinda reminds me of a guy who started coming around us at various motorcycle gatherings in the mid 90's.
He got a 1957 Panhead from his dad or uncle or somebody and was a 100% "panhead guy" from that moment on.
He even got a tattoo that said "Panhead till I'm dead" on his arm. Everything else was crap to him.
One time while in Sedona Arizona, it started raining and of course he couldn't get his bike to start.
We offered to help - NO! was his reply.
We offered to give him a ride - HELL NO!, there was no way he was riding on any P.O.S. Jap bike.
We left him standing right there next to (In his eyes), the greatest motorcycle in the world.
........He didn't come around much after that.
I think you and him might get along pretty good together.
I cannot accept that it is possible to have fun on anything other than my Norton.
Except maybe a Vincent. Or a Maico. Ossas are nice too. i have a couple of the trialers but would really like a Desert Phantom.
I wouldnt mind a Goldstar some day. A Rocket Goldstar would be exceptionally nice!
Montesa made a bike called the Cappra 414, a real mx rocket, Im in the market. I love the look of the Royal Enfield Interceptor engine. And any preunit BSA is pretty interesting stuff. The new Norton Commando is another one on the list.
And Ducatis, dont let me get started on those. Then tere is the Henderson KJ and KL. Beautiful old bikes and nothing could stay with them in the late twenties early thirties.
I guess there are one or two bikes besides the old Commando that would be worth having.
Yeah I SUPPOSE it is possible that someone out there could be having fun with even a cb 750
Glen
Except maybe a Vincent. Or a Maico. Ossas are nice too. i have a couple of the trialers but would really like a Desert Phantom.
I wouldnt mind a Goldstar some day. A Rocket Goldstar would be exceptionally nice!
Montesa made a bike called the Cappra 414, a real mx rocket, Im in the market. I love the look of the Royal Enfield Interceptor engine. And any preunit BSA is pretty interesting stuff. The new Norton Commando is another one on the list.
And Ducatis, dont let me get started on those. Then tere is the Henderson KJ and KL. Beautiful old bikes and nothing could stay with them in the late twenties early thirties.
I guess there are one or two bikes besides the old Commando that would be worth having.
Yeah I SUPPOSE it is possible that someone out there could be having fun with even a cb 750
Glen
NO, I dont find much that is likeable in a CB750/4, & I have ridden them & worked on them [my workmate hilariously bent the valves on his , over-revving it] & find them boring, I do like all kinds of interesting motorcycles, especially those that are inspiring, to look at, lust after, thrash, or fettle...
The CB 750/4 is anodyne/tedious & a victim of its own success, since almost every other 750 inline 4 since has been a better bike..
I note that Honda is selling a long stroke parallel twin today, but not a CB 750/4.
The CB 750/4 is anodyne/tedious & a victim of its own success, since almost every other 750 inline 4 since has been a better bike..
I note that Honda is selling a long stroke parallel twin today, but not a CB 750/4.
Just reread the various cycleworld tests from back in the day, 69to 74. The Norton may have been a dinosaur to some, but it was never a "weak dynosaur" as Mark suggested.. It had the best 1/4 mile time of the five bikes tested in 69, handling was always good and braking was quite decent. The cb 750 was a pretty lacklustre performer by comparison.
The Norton was (and still is) a great bike. It sold very well and had the potential to do even better.
The financial mess that the companies put themselves in had nothing to do with the Commando.
If Norton had been producing some other bike, say a cheaper but slower and more awkward handling bike such as the CB 750, it would not have changed the outcome, the companies were doomed by financial mismanagement.
It reminds me of the takeovers done by the Canadian Campeau. Campeau took over a group of longstanding very sucessful US retailers. He leveraged these companies to get even more companies and ended up bankrupting them all.
They did not go bankrupt because the product was suddenly poor, these previously very profitable businesses were operating the same as ever, but Campeau had so loaded them with debt, in his greed for more, that they could not survive.
Glen
The Norton was (and still is) a great bike. It sold very well and had the potential to do even better.
The financial mess that the companies put themselves in had nothing to do with the Commando.
If Norton had been producing some other bike, say a cheaper but slower and more awkward handling bike such as the CB 750, it would not have changed the outcome, the companies were doomed by financial mismanagement.
It reminds me of the takeovers done by the Canadian Campeau. Campeau took over a group of longstanding very sucessful US retailers. He leveraged these companies to get even more companies and ended up bankrupting them all.
They did not go bankrupt because the product was suddenly poor, these previously very profitable businesses were operating the same as ever, but Campeau had so loaded them with debt, in his greed for more, that they could not survive.
Glen
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2010
- Messages
- 5,947
There is some devision as to what exactly we term ' progress ' .
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... sch&itbs=1
While in Tokyo, Honda had built some racing cars, one of them being a machine powered by a 90 hp Curtis aero engine, which won a number of races. From his own workshop in Hamamatsu, Honda built and entered cars for the All-Japan Automobile Speed Championship.
In his early thirties, Honda turned his talents to producing piston rings. The results were disastrous, for he knew nothing of metallurgy and most of his first production batches were useless. It was only after studying metals and casting that Honda began to turn out usable products.
Theyre Multiplying .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcowsggJ ... re=related
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... sch&itbs=1
While in Tokyo, Honda had built some racing cars, one of them being a machine powered by a 90 hp Curtis aero engine, which won a number of races. From his own workshop in Hamamatsu, Honda built and entered cars for the All-Japan Automobile Speed Championship.
In his early thirties, Honda turned his talents to producing piston rings. The results were disastrous, for he knew nothing of metallurgy and most of his first production batches were useless. It was only after studying metals and casting that Honda began to turn out usable products.
Theyre Multiplying .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcowsggJ ... re=related
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2010
- Messages
- 5,947
worntorn said:not one for heavy long wheelbase touring bikes either- this is my favourite two up tourer, like a Commando with some extra torque! 30,000 miles and counting, mostly long trips 2,000 mile +, no issues to date except a broken speedo cable and lots of worn our tires.
Are you serious??????
What a poser. How many people here really have the capital to purchase a vinnie or four and casually add... This is my favorite tourer? Along with my Bugatti for Sunday's and the db5 just to toddle on into work Monday through Wednesday.
I'm sorry in advance but from where I'm from, people who say that crap are known as dolphin slappers
So you dont like me because I ride a Vincent and a Norton or is it just the Vincent? Should I keep the Vincent hidden or locked away in a museum?
I didn't realize that anyone would find a photo of it offensive. Its an example of an old aircooled brit bike that has done a lot of miles. No need to get fussed about the value, values go up and down, yes right now they are high. Perhaps in the future they will crash when demographics change, then would it be Ok for you to look at a photo of a Vincent without getting angry?
A little further along in the thread there is a photo of a bike I built using the engine from the bike in the first photo. I fabricated the frame, fenders,seatpan and cowl, fuel tank and so on. Is that being a poser too?
My car is an old Mazda 3, no Bugatti in the plans.
Glen
I didn't realize that anyone would find a photo of it offensive. Its an example of an old aircooled brit bike that has done a lot of miles. No need to get fussed about the value, values go up and down, yes right now they are high. Perhaps in the future they will crash when demographics change, then would it be Ok for you to look at a photo of a Vincent without getting angry?
A little further along in the thread there is a photo of a bike I built using the engine from the bike in the first photo. I fabricated the frame, fenders,seatpan and cowl, fuel tank and so on. Is that being a poser too?
My car is an old Mazda 3, no Bugatti in the plans.
Glen
I have just waded through 6 pages of mostly nonsense....so I guess I'll add my own nonsense if for no other reason than to change the tone from the usual bickering of how nortons are better than x bike.
When I was 16 I bought a 1973 Norton Commando. A yellow one. From an australian who I could barely understand. This was the early 1990s, and these bikes were kinda worthless at the time but it was british and what I could afford and wanted it badly. I affectionatly refer to it as the bike that ruined motorcycling for me. At parties I always tell the same joke "I was never in better shape in my life when I owned that bike because I pushed that mf'er everywhere". I sold that bike to someone who gave me a lift after seeing me broken down on the side of the Long Island expressway pushing it to an exit. I didn't touch another motorcycle for 4 years after that. It taught me every non bike specific hard lesson there is to learn about motorcycles all at once.
when I was about 21, I bought a 1975 cb750K. It was blue, and pretty, and was sitting at a shop, under a tarp, forgotton. I paid exactly half of what I paid for the norton and was riding it that weekend. Ironically it taught me almost the same lessons that the norton taught me but from the positive side of the coin. I still own that bike and I personally have put over 50K miles on it. Other than regular oil, brake, and tire service I have rebuilt the brake once, replaced the fuse box twice (once after I accidently set fire to it under a freak set of circumstances), put 3 batteries in it, and replaced one plastic side cover after the old one decided it wanted to liberate itself at extra-legal speeds on the highway.
What are these lessons I speak of?
1) Maintenance Matters Most. Despite sitting for 6 months the honda was well maintained and virtually stock when I bought it. Anything not stock was either not mechanical (seat) or a pretty good substitute replacement part (speedo from a different year/model honda). The Commando on the otherhand had been mostly maintained by a mad aussie who as near as I could tell couldn't afford to maintain a british bike and cut corners everywhere (more on that in a moment).
2) Previous owners are either your own worst enemy or your best friend. In the case of the Honda, I had been delivering radiators to the shop I bought it from for over a month. I saw the mechanics and how they worked on stuff, and kept their areas clean and put their tools away and were very professional. The bike's owner was forthcoming about everything and even told me exactly the reason he didn't ride the honda any more was he bought another bike and even let me ride his "new" bike (an airhead beemer). When I went to buy the norton the owner was lying on his back in the dirt, outside, under an alfa romeo montreal that was up on 4 jack stands. His tools were everywhere. They were dirty. This was a "professional" classic car shop and he is out working on a car in the parking lot on jack stands. That should have been an alarm ringing in my head. When the Honda previous owner serviced the bike he used factory parts because he could get them, or reasonably aftermarket parts. This is how he was used to working on cars (even old ones as he drove a 1975 2 door wagoneer everyday). The norton previous owner was used to having to bodge things because of lack of parts or lack of time to wait for parts, or lack of patience. The bike's wiring was all 3m connectors, badly crimped barrel connectors, and bits of what I can only assume was land rover wiring to replace broken sections of the original norton wiring. some switches didn't work and the tach and the norton owner seemed pretty causal about it like "oh well, it is to be expected". The front brake was sticking on the honda and the honda owner took the time to show me exactly how to service it both on the bike and in the manual. The real lesson I learned? interview the previous owner like you are hiring him for a job. It is ok to buy a crappy bike, but it is bad if misleads you to expect a good one when it is clearly not.
3) New Parts are always better than old parts, and aftermarket is not necessarily a bad thing. When I bought the norton the internet was not quite a thing yet. My local motorcycle shop was Ghost Motorcycles in Port Washington (I can hear the collective cringe already). They had been a norton dealer and had tons of spares in the back room. Old spares. Old lucas electrical spares. Old lucas electrical spares with potting that now resembled chalk. Thanks to brit cycle and other parts houses modern electrical bits were available for these bikes, but my only connection to them was through this shop that had a lot of old stock to sell me and no real incentive to hip me to the new stuff. So I replaced the wiring with an NOS loom, and two stators because the potting failed on the first one, and god knows how many other bits and bobs (including 3 lucas headlight bulbs, WTF was I thinking). My cb750? the dealer could get me every service item, my local indi shop could get me any aftermarket parts I needed and some used stuff as well.
4) Don't bandaid the problem fix it. What I should have done with the norton is rewire it completely. from scratch. with new solid state components. And taken the time to understand how to upgrade stuff. What I did instead was just replace the thing that was causing the immediate problem so I could get back to riding. This meant something else would burn up and I would be back to pushing the norton down the side of the road. I tried doing this with the honda but because it was in better shape it was readily apparent where most problems were and then it made sense to fix it.
5) If you don't know anything about what you are looking at, don't let your eyes and your heart make the decisions. A yellow norton is a cracking good looking bike. seriously, way good looking. Much better than my buddy's 1970 brg bonneville. And this one looked amazing. The chrome was nice, the paint was glossy and bright. All the evil was buried in the guts and I didn't even want to see it, I mean it glowed in the sun, how could I not buy it? I think I actually turned my pocket inside out pulling the money out because i could not get to it fast enough. The honda? by then I had learned my lesson and went over it with a fine tooth comb. it was pretty enough, but I thought an uncut loom with no 3m connectors was the most beautiful sight to see on a bike at the time.
there are other lessons, many of which I should just write into a book. Good stories too, esp the one about the famous journalist who kinda stole the norton rode it over a median and then abandoned it later on (a story I only tell when we are drinking out of honor and respect for said journalist). The moral? I am getting there......
for a long time I said I would never own another norton. I went on to own at one point 10 cb750 SOHCs. I still own about 5 plus real 970 CR750 race kit parts. But it was never the bike. At the end of the day these are all machines and the thing that makes them brilliant or suck is the people who touch them, use them, work on them. For anyone who says the cb750 is boring I say sometimes boring is nice. Sometimes it is nice to have a bike that works. Sometimes doing exactly what it was meant to do can be boring because there is no excitement and challenge of having to find a bike friendly gas station or fix god knows what. All this bull about the norton being faster or better handling or less reliable etc....it is bull, and it is old bull, and it is boring bull. The british motorcycle industry killed itself, the japanese just helped by making a marginally better product. and besides which, who cares? ancient history.
Unfortunaly I never learned my lesson, I have two nortons now, both projects, and am actually willing to forgive the original sinner '73 for coloring my opinion so negativley. But I will say this, it is nice to own other bikes to ride while I do these right this time. Besides, I have been lazy and could use the exercise....
there are no "bad" bikes, but there are lots of bad owners.
When I was 16 I bought a 1973 Norton Commando. A yellow one. From an australian who I could barely understand. This was the early 1990s, and these bikes were kinda worthless at the time but it was british and what I could afford and wanted it badly. I affectionatly refer to it as the bike that ruined motorcycling for me. At parties I always tell the same joke "I was never in better shape in my life when I owned that bike because I pushed that mf'er everywhere". I sold that bike to someone who gave me a lift after seeing me broken down on the side of the Long Island expressway pushing it to an exit. I didn't touch another motorcycle for 4 years after that. It taught me every non bike specific hard lesson there is to learn about motorcycles all at once.
when I was about 21, I bought a 1975 cb750K. It was blue, and pretty, and was sitting at a shop, under a tarp, forgotton. I paid exactly half of what I paid for the norton and was riding it that weekend. Ironically it taught me almost the same lessons that the norton taught me but from the positive side of the coin. I still own that bike and I personally have put over 50K miles on it. Other than regular oil, brake, and tire service I have rebuilt the brake once, replaced the fuse box twice (once after I accidently set fire to it under a freak set of circumstances), put 3 batteries in it, and replaced one plastic side cover after the old one decided it wanted to liberate itself at extra-legal speeds on the highway.
What are these lessons I speak of?
1) Maintenance Matters Most. Despite sitting for 6 months the honda was well maintained and virtually stock when I bought it. Anything not stock was either not mechanical (seat) or a pretty good substitute replacement part (speedo from a different year/model honda). The Commando on the otherhand had been mostly maintained by a mad aussie who as near as I could tell couldn't afford to maintain a british bike and cut corners everywhere (more on that in a moment).
2) Previous owners are either your own worst enemy or your best friend. In the case of the Honda, I had been delivering radiators to the shop I bought it from for over a month. I saw the mechanics and how they worked on stuff, and kept their areas clean and put their tools away and were very professional. The bike's owner was forthcoming about everything and even told me exactly the reason he didn't ride the honda any more was he bought another bike and even let me ride his "new" bike (an airhead beemer). When I went to buy the norton the owner was lying on his back in the dirt, outside, under an alfa romeo montreal that was up on 4 jack stands. His tools were everywhere. They were dirty. This was a "professional" classic car shop and he is out working on a car in the parking lot on jack stands. That should have been an alarm ringing in my head. When the Honda previous owner serviced the bike he used factory parts because he could get them, or reasonably aftermarket parts. This is how he was used to working on cars (even old ones as he drove a 1975 2 door wagoneer everyday). The norton previous owner was used to having to bodge things because of lack of parts or lack of time to wait for parts, or lack of patience. The bike's wiring was all 3m connectors, badly crimped barrel connectors, and bits of what I can only assume was land rover wiring to replace broken sections of the original norton wiring. some switches didn't work and the tach and the norton owner seemed pretty causal about it like "oh well, it is to be expected". The front brake was sticking on the honda and the honda owner took the time to show me exactly how to service it both on the bike and in the manual. The real lesson I learned? interview the previous owner like you are hiring him for a job. It is ok to buy a crappy bike, but it is bad if misleads you to expect a good one when it is clearly not.
3) New Parts are always better than old parts, and aftermarket is not necessarily a bad thing. When I bought the norton the internet was not quite a thing yet. My local motorcycle shop was Ghost Motorcycles in Port Washington (I can hear the collective cringe already). They had been a norton dealer and had tons of spares in the back room. Old spares. Old lucas electrical spares. Old lucas electrical spares with potting that now resembled chalk. Thanks to brit cycle and other parts houses modern electrical bits were available for these bikes, but my only connection to them was through this shop that had a lot of old stock to sell me and no real incentive to hip me to the new stuff. So I replaced the wiring with an NOS loom, and two stators because the potting failed on the first one, and god knows how many other bits and bobs (including 3 lucas headlight bulbs, WTF was I thinking). My cb750? the dealer could get me every service item, my local indi shop could get me any aftermarket parts I needed and some used stuff as well.
4) Don't bandaid the problem fix it. What I should have done with the norton is rewire it completely. from scratch. with new solid state components. And taken the time to understand how to upgrade stuff. What I did instead was just replace the thing that was causing the immediate problem so I could get back to riding. This meant something else would burn up and I would be back to pushing the norton down the side of the road. I tried doing this with the honda but because it was in better shape it was readily apparent where most problems were and then it made sense to fix it.
5) If you don't know anything about what you are looking at, don't let your eyes and your heart make the decisions. A yellow norton is a cracking good looking bike. seriously, way good looking. Much better than my buddy's 1970 brg bonneville. And this one looked amazing. The chrome was nice, the paint was glossy and bright. All the evil was buried in the guts and I didn't even want to see it, I mean it glowed in the sun, how could I not buy it? I think I actually turned my pocket inside out pulling the money out because i could not get to it fast enough. The honda? by then I had learned my lesson and went over it with a fine tooth comb. it was pretty enough, but I thought an uncut loom with no 3m connectors was the most beautiful sight to see on a bike at the time.
there are other lessons, many of which I should just write into a book. Good stories too, esp the one about the famous journalist who kinda stole the norton rode it over a median and then abandoned it later on (a story I only tell when we are drinking out of honor and respect for said journalist). The moral? I am getting there......
for a long time I said I would never own another norton. I went on to own at one point 10 cb750 SOHCs. I still own about 5 plus real 970 CR750 race kit parts. But it was never the bike. At the end of the day these are all machines and the thing that makes them brilliant or suck is the people who touch them, use them, work on them. For anyone who says the cb750 is boring I say sometimes boring is nice. Sometimes it is nice to have a bike that works. Sometimes doing exactly what it was meant to do can be boring because there is no excitement and challenge of having to find a bike friendly gas station or fix god knows what. All this bull about the norton being faster or better handling or less reliable etc....it is bull, and it is old bull, and it is boring bull. The british motorcycle industry killed itself, the japanese just helped by making a marginally better product. and besides which, who cares? ancient history.
Unfortunaly I never learned my lesson, I have two nortons now, both projects, and am actually willing to forgive the original sinner '73 for coloring my opinion so negativley. But I will say this, it is nice to own other bikes to ride while I do these right this time. Besides, I have been lazy and could use the exercise....
there are no "bad" bikes, but there are lots of bad owners.
Bravo! Well said.
I had a 1984 Honda Night Hawk 450 and a 1984 Kawasaki LTD 1100 for many years, aside from oil, tires and batteries, I did nothing to it Just rode them. It was great, but not exciting.
I didn't sit in the garage and stare at them like I do with the Nortons. No one came up to me to talk about it, it just blended in.
My 1975 XS 650 was mostly maintenance free, until I messed with it and installed a 750 kit. It took a little while to shake out the bugs, but it's back to being utterly reliable.
No one bike or brand is any better than another.
They all have their faults, problems, highs and lows.
They all have management issues and all suffer economic shifts.
And if you dig for a while,
They all have a band of people who are nuts for their brand and or specific model.
It just happens that this forum is for Norton nuts.
So shake the tree and join the pile.
I had a 1984 Honda Night Hawk 450 and a 1984 Kawasaki LTD 1100 for many years, aside from oil, tires and batteries, I did nothing to it Just rode them. It was great, but not exciting.
I didn't sit in the garage and stare at them like I do with the Nortons. No one came up to me to talk about it, it just blended in.
My 1975 XS 650 was mostly maintenance free, until I messed with it and installed a 750 kit. It took a little while to shake out the bugs, but it's back to being utterly reliable.
No one bike or brand is any better than another.
They all have their faults, problems, highs and lows.
They all have management issues and all suffer economic shifts.
And if you dig for a while,
They all have a band of people who are nuts for their brand and or specific model.
It just happens that this forum is for Norton nuts.
So shake the tree and join the pile.
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- Jun 30, 2012
- Messages
- 14,917
I've had most of a s pare motor as well as spare gearboxes for years. I've looked at the commando frame and walked away without buying it. My Seeley is quite fast, but the motor is a horror. Early on I decided to opt for the torquey pathway - keep the revs down. I rebalanced the crank to a factor more like the early Triumphs and Nortons and mounted it rigidly in the frame. I suggest that the command design is ridiculous, it is trying t o be something it cannot be. If you want something which is lovely and smooth to ride slowly - buy a BMW or Japanese. If you want something which makes you feel the hair growing on your chest when you ride it - buy a hot British bike and suffer the unreliability. Two bikes I would never buy - a cb750, or a BSA Gold Flash - the soul of the BSA was transplanted into the CB750. But I never ride a motorcycle on public roads these days, so what would I know ? (And I've still got my license ! ! ! ) My feeling is still, that if you ride a motorcycle, you should always wring its neck - unfortunately the cops don't agree. That is why I sometimes race to get that out of my system. I'm sure floating down thosands of miles of freeway on a Gold Wing must do something for people - I just cannot imagine what.
Whenever I work on my Norton, I am always prepared to re-engineer it to what it should have been - I maintain that mindset religously.
Whenever I work on my Norton, I am always prepared to re-engineer it to what it should have been - I maintain that mindset religously.
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