New Commando owner

Hello everyone. Ive been a member of this forum for a few months now. Never posted anything until now. Just sitting back taking it all in and waiting for my Commando to arrive from Ohio. I bought this bike in january on ebay and it itook till June to arrive in Perth Western Australia. Sure did test my patience I can tell you. All I wanted to do was get my mits on it and get it running. Oh yeah I bought it as a non runner. But thats O.K. means it was a pretty good deal. The previous owner had ridden it from Ohio to Washington where it would not restart after a fuel stop. Very low compression. That was about 18 months ago. Since then it had just sat in his shed until he decided to sell it.
So here she is folks. It's a '74 Mk 2 850. All pretty original apart from the color I think.




I pulled the head and barrels off it and found badly burnt exhaust valves a broken piston ring on the right hand side and a head gasket that was partially over the pushrod tunnels causing the pushrods to scrape against the gasket gouging it out! Ouch!
So I've got the head out being vapor blasted, the barrels are off tomorrow to get measured for possible rebore.
The head will get valve guide liners, unleaded exhaust valve seats and problably bronze exhaust thread inserts.
Can anyone recommend a brand of piston? Was just thinking of getting a pair from RGM along with a heap of other stuff.
But don't know weather anything else better available(apart from Jim Schmidt liteweights that I can't afford!)
Fantastic forum here by the way but I can't seem to see the right hand side of pictures posted and the back button doesn't work. Always comes up with expired webpage message. I'm using windows explorer.

Nice, pretty straight bike. Orange is a 750 colour and tank pin stripes wrong but you know that. Are you going to restore or fix and ride?

RGM pistons are AE which are fine, I had one the other week as the guy honing my barrel lost a piston...

Welcome!

Yeah the pinstripes look a little weird when compared to how they should look but I won't get too hung up on that.
Just want a good rider at the moment and will worry about cosmetics later but a little elbow grease should improve it.
I've used GPM pistons in my A65 and they seem o.k. What is AE?

From Ohio to Perth! That must be pretty close to as far away as physically possible. Glad you were able to close the gap. Congrats.

I was noticing the pin stripes and was thinking how clean it looked. I don't think we will have any trouble picking you out of the rally videos.

Russ

That paint job doesn't take long to grow on you.

It was a fair hike alright Russ. Plenty of opportunity for things to go pear shaped. Couldn't have done it without a very helpfull seller.
It is a bit different isn't it Dave. Was tangerine listed as a color option for '74?

AE = Hepolite

Welcome and congrates on your new 850! After you shine up the aluminum casings to a chrome shine, you will be astounded at the cosmetic difference. Best of luck on the restoration effort and hope to see “the after restoration pictures”, Steve

Fantastic forum here by the way but I can't seem to see the right hand side of pictures posted and the back button doesn't work. Always comes up with expired webpage message. I'm using windows explorer.Mark F

If you have just posted, click on Norton Commando Motorcycles at the top after you have submitted your post.
Don't woryy, I have never seen the right side of the pictures either & have tried allsorts. (even liquorish ones).

I have same IT issue Flo re the pictures. I always have to click retry when I go back.

Thanks for the advice and welcome everyone.
Hepolite pistons. Hard to get aren't they? Do you have a source please? Not the ones with the gap around them I hope or was that only with the 750's?
Yes Steve lots of aluminium polishing to come!

There is a company in Adeliade, JP pistons, I have their pistons in my BSA, they are working well.

Not sure how well connected you are in Perth with who to use and who not to use in the motorcycle world, my number is 0428 241 105, was in Perth up until 18 months ago.

http://www.jp.com.au/MCN.html

If you can't see the whole picture it means you need a bigger screen. :roll:

To make the pictures larger or smaller, press control and + or -, or if your mouse has a wheel, control wheel up and down, you have to have the cursor in the picture or on the page. Then you should be able to see the whole picture, but the typeface will get smaller. Windoze item. You can also post smaller pictures, like 640 wide.

Dave
69S

Mark F said:

I can't seem to see the right hand side of pictures posted

Click to expand...

If images are too large then they are auto-cropped from the right to fit the forum page. The actual amount of crop depends on screen size and/or screen resolution so some people may see more of an image than others. Anyone who wants to see the complete image can use the zoom (bottom right of the IE page) or the image can be dragged and dropped on the page tag which opens the photo full size in its own window. However the answer is to post smaller images.

Mark F said:

and the back button doesn't work. Always comes up with expired webpage message. I'm using windows explorer.

Click to expand...

I know the back button won't work if a message has been posted, otherwise the back button should work normally?

What's an IE page?
Seems very fustrating to me & others, being more interested in their bikes, so they come on here to communicate with like minded owners & find they must be IT experts to do it. A lot of us are more interested in the bikes & banter.
I resize mine to fit on this forum only because I know I or a lot of others can only see part of it otherwise.

Flo said:

What's an IE page?

Click to expand...

IE = Internet Explorer (IE7, IE8, IE9 etc.)

Flo said:

Seems very fustrating to me & others, being more interested in their bikes, so they come on here to communicate with like minded owners & find they must be IT experts to do it. A lot of us are more interested in the bikes & banter.

Click to expand...

I'm sure we all are, but is losing maybe 5%-10% off the right hand side of the photo really such a problem (and if I maximize the forum page to full screen I can see complete images at the 1024 size)?
Using this website shouldn't really be beyond the capability of anyone with a fairly basic computer knowledge but perhaps you could remind us all exactly what fee you and the "others" have to pay to use this frustrating website?

Welcome aboard Mark.
She looks good.
Leave no stone unturned while it's apart.

This digital complexity kept me off all but plain text lists for my first decade of Norton hand holding. Its much more simplified nowadays but still a dead end to do various things until hand held the first time or two. Commandos are for analog mind sets for gosh sakes.

L.A.B. said:

Mark F said:

I can't seem to see the right hand side of pictures posted

Click to expand...

If images are too large then they are auto-cropped from the right to fit the forum page. The actual amount of crop depends on screen size and/or screen resolution so some people may see more of an image than others. Anyone who wants to see the complete image can use the zoom (bottom right of the IE page) or the image can be dragged and dropped on the page tag which opens the photo full size in its own window. However the answer is to post smaller images.

Mark F said:

and the back button doesn't work. Always comes up with expired webpage message. I'm using windows explorer.

Click to expand...

I know the back button won't work if a message has been posted, otherwise the back button should work normally?

Click to expand...

It seems to happen when I have read a post and want to go back to the Norton Commando Motorcycles page or if I am doing a search I can't go back to the search results. I usually end up just clicking on the button at the bottom right of the page.
No compalints though just a bit frustrating.