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Keep your Norasaki as is. Does it run?

There was a guy here in Michigan, many years ago now, an experienced road racer, who replaced his Manx motor with a Honda 750. Did a nice job. He was, besides a very good racer, a real craftsman. I never saw it raced because I wasn’t going to all of the races back then. Don’t know what happened to the bike. It was for sale a long time ago for $1,200.

A good friend still has the beautiful Manx with full fairing he extensively raced back in the early 60’s and also has a spare motor. I have a Manx which I haven’t ridden in almost 40 years. Another friend had for a long time an ex Mike Duff Norton factory Manx racer. That friend and Manx are gone now. A long time ago, the three of us took our Manxes to a track weekend at Grattan Raceway in Michigan with the Ducati Owners of Canada, always a fun event. It was open to European and British bikes. No Japanese stuff. We really got a lot of attention. We ran in the 500cc and under group, which was mostly 450 Ducatis. So, we were three Manx 500 ridden by expert road racers, out with Ducati 250 and 450 racers. Easy pickin’. A fun weekend. The DOCC were a great group. In later years I bought and raced Ducatis, and went to their rallys at Grattan and Mosport Raceway in Canada. Mosport is a beautiful track. Many good times there. Love those Canadians and their beer.

Moving forward, a current project of mine is a cafe bike with a 750 Atlas motor in a Honda CB750A frame. Surprisingly, this frame, stripped of all it’s now un-needed brackets is pretty decent looking and the Atlas motor a good fit. Kind of a modern featherbed. Most people will not recognize that it’s a Honda frame. I’m using a Yamaha TX750 front end and rear wheel. The TX750 had beautiful shoulder alloy rims. The seat and tank are cafe stuff from the 60’s, found in the back of my shop. Bike will be a real junk yard dog.
 
Keep your Norasaki as is. Does it run?

There was a guy here in Michigan, many years ago now, an experienced road racer, who replaced his Manx motor with a Honda 750. Did a nice job. He was, besides a very good racer, a real craftsman. I never saw it raced because I wasn’t going to all of the races back then. Don’t know what happened to the bike. It was for sale a long time ago for $1,200.

A good friend still has the beautiful Manx with full fairing he extensively raced back in the early 60’s and also has a spare motor. I have a Manx which I haven’t ridden in almost 40 years. Another friend had for a long time an ex Mike Duff Norton factory Manx racer. That friend and Manx are gone now. A long time ago, the three of us took our Manxes to a track weekend at Grattan Raceway in Michigan with the Ducati Owners of Canada, always a fun event. It was open to European and British bikes. No Japanese stuff. We really got a lot of attention. We ran in the 500cc and under group, which was mostly 450 Ducatis. So, we were three Manx 500 ridden by expert road racers, out with Ducati 250 and 450 racers. Easy pickin’. A fun weekend. The DOCC were a great group. In later years I bought and raced Ducatis, and went to their rallys at Grattan and Mosport Raceway in Canada. Mosport is a beautiful track. Many good times there. Love those Canadians and their beer.

Moving forward, a current project of mine is a cafe bike with a 750 Atlas motor in a Honda CB750A frame. Surprisingly, this frame, stripped of all it’s now un-needed brackets is pretty decent looking and the Atlas motor a good fit. Kind of a modern featherbed. Most people will not recognize that it’s a Honda frame. I’m using a Yamaha TX750 front end and rear wheel. The TX750 had beautiful shoulder alloy rims. The seat and tank are cafe stuff from the 60’s, found in the back of my shop. Bike will be a real junk yard dog.
wot, How about some pics of the build. It sounds interesting !!
 
Turns out, the bike in this thread came up before
(scroll down a tad}
 
To avoid confusion, I was asking for pics of this build by @wot

I quote: "Moving forward, a current project of mine is a cafe bike with a 750 Atlas motor in a Honda CB750A frame. Surprisingly, this frame, stripped of all it’s now un-needed brackets is pretty decent looking and the Atlas motor a good fit. Kind of a modern featherbed. Most people will not recognize that it’s a Honda frame. I’m using a Yamaha TX750 front end and rear wheel. The TX750 had beautiful shoulder alloy rims. The seat and tank are cafe stuff from the 60’s, found in the back of my shop. Bike will be a real junk yard dog."
 
just for the record, there is a commando framed Honda CB750 sohc
 
FWIW, this is the Reg Pridmore Trisaki referred to in the kneeslider article at the top of this thread. I think I posted this picture and some of my history with the bike here on the forum some years back, but haven't been able to find it. I owned the bike for a good number of years, and started the restoration back to the original Manx configuration. The Kawasaki engine had been removed by then, and a Commando engine installed. I bought it without the Commando engine, and with lots of parts in boxes. The most difficult part was the frame. Reg had cut and spread the lower tubes, as well as narrowing the rear seat support tubes. I took it to Rob North for the repair to the down tubes, and repaired the seat frame myself. A friend loaned me a stock Manx frame to make the jigs from. I eventually decided I wasn't ever going to finish the restoration, so I sold everything I had accumulated to Ben Gradler, who is restoring it back to the configuration it was in when Reg raced it back in 1969. You can read Ben's comments on it at the bottom of the kneeslider article.

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Ken
 
from KS
Benjamin Gradler says
October 7, 2010 at 5:53 pm

"In 1968 Reg Pridmore won the 500cc AFM championship with his Norton Manx. For 1969 he took the Manx engine out and put a h1 500cc Kawasaki triple in it’s place. The engine was wide and the expansion chambers were bulky and he had ground clearance problems with it. The bike was not a success in that configuration.

I have the bike now and am putting it back together with the Manx engine as close to how it was when it won in the AFM in 68′ as possible.

Anyway, Pridmore called his the Trisaki, mixing the words Triton and Kawasaki. if he was not the first one to do this he had to be almost the first……"
 
yeah I saw that too and did a double take. I thought the one in the Facebook ad was a Triton with at T150. Was a listing that had like an ES2, an Atlas, and some Velocette?
 
yeah I saw that too and did a double take. I thought the one in the Facebook ad was a Triton with at T150. Was a listing that had like an ES2, an Atlas, and some Velocette?
Yes, and as I think about it, you’re right, it was a Velo. Last I checked he had only the Atlas listed. Hard to miss that bike.
 
The only Japanese part on my Seeley is the tacho. It is off an RG 250 Suzuki. It is a dead ringer for an Italian one of the 1950s
 
just for the record, there is a commando framed Honda CB750 sohc
I saw this back in the 80s
It has a hilman imp engine fitted
 

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