Production race rep advice, input, etc

Fast Eddie said:

I am kinda toying with the idea of a proddie race rep makeover.

Been an itch that needs scratching ever since I built a model kit when I was about 12 !

I’m not aiming for a full on conkers correct replica, but do want the full on yellow peril experience. My bike is a ‘74 (well some of it is at least).

Any advice from those who have trodden this path ?

Norvil seem to have all the parts available, will they fit ??

If anyone in Blighty has gone the opposite way and has a PR kit (in good nick) that they want to off load, let me know.

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theres a nice one here on classified. Ron Fraterelli built it. he has built 40-50 custom commandos in his life. he was a dealer in MA for years and has a great reputation. He lives in Arizona and has numerous Norton bits for sale on ebay, including bodywork and PR items. check his stuff out..

If you aren't going for a PR Replica but still want Cafe Racer styling, ( I think we all do!) , the nicest looking fairing I've ever seen is the Thruxton 1200 quarter fairing. The Triumph stylists got it perfect. The solo seat and cowl are lovely too. These are well designed well made items. The seat and cowl unit clicks off with a key and has a little hinged compartment built into the underside (good for snacks and insurance papers).
These items look great on a Thruxton r or on Commando.
Worth a look if you are going that route.

I did look at the Glass from the Past items for the Commando. A friend has one that he still hasn't installed on anything. They are a little too rustic for my liking. Glass from the Past are upfront about this on their website. They tell you that additional fine work is needed before painting and that you are on your own for the mounting system. I suppose if you are a talented bodyworker and painter a good end product is possible.
I'm not good at body filler work or painting, so the perfect prepainted Thruxton fairing appealed. I feel it has a nicer shape as well.
Finally, the beautifully made Aluminium mounting skeleton and all fasteners ( something like 200 pieces) are included. I had to fab a couple of simple mounting points and the rest was easy peasy.
It's nice to have a fairing that is pretty on the inside as well as outside. I spend a lot more time looking at the inside surface than the outside!

o0norton0o said:

You could always buy the fairing and paint it your bike's current color and save a lot of money. The sporty commando fairing from Glass from the past comes in 2 styles. One has a clear cap up front for the headlight and the other has no provision for your headlight (so race track use only) but they are both the same shape. Bear in mind that both of those fairings need clip on handlebars or clubman bars. I would bet even flat bars would be too high to work with that fairing.
On my bike, I mounted the honda-dunstall fairing which is bigger than the commando sport fairing and I use low rise BMW short bars on a 1" rise/1"pull back bracket and my hand space is tight. I even made spacers for the steering stops to keep my hands from getting smashed. I wanted that fairing because I didn't want to ride the public roads with my body in a road race position. (but to each their own of course) I could make it more streamlined looking by cutting down the screen again, but I'm a large person who likes to fly down the highway when I go into town and the coverage from the wind is nice. Of course my fairing is not a race fairing, nor is it a touring fairing. It's kind of somewhere in between.
I got the headstock fairing mounting bracket with it when I bought the fairing. (I bought it from Grandpaul actually) I test mounted the fairing, didn't like the fairing position so I cut up the "unicorn style" bracket and made it into a forked pair of arms so the headlight would fit between the mounting bracket. You should investigate the bracket that you buy (or make) so you can leave your headlight in place. (or else you are rewiring the bike too) I also made a bracket to hold the lower fairing arms that have these rubberized clamps that bolt onto the down tubes of the frame with welded 1/2 x 1/2 square steel tube arms that bolt under the fairing lower arms. My mount is very solidly mounted to the bike.
If you are interested I'll load you up some pictures of my bracket work... I probably have to take a few since I'm not much on documentation...

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I would love to see your bracket photos. I have Yves slightly scratched "Big Spender" fairing sitting in the workshop, waiting for me to have some time to play with it....

SteveBorland said:

I would love to see your bracket photos. I have Yves slightly scratched "Big Spender" fairing sitting in the workshop, waiting for me to have some time to play with it....

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I have a few not so great photos but I'll take some better ones and start another dedicated thread in a few days, rather than hijack Nigel's thread with my bullshit..

o0norton0o said:

I have a few not so great photos but I'll take some better ones and start another dedicated thread in a few days, rather than hijack Nigel's thread with my bullshit..

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Please do post them here, they’ll be useful to people.

So,.. the best things seem to evolve. I am both extremely capable, and never get anything right the first time... The fairing originally had a unicorn arm coming off the motorcycle frame's headstock. Then it had a "T" at the end of the single arm with bolts on either ends of the horizontal "T" member to level the dashboard of the fairing. The single arm bracket made the headlight location problematic, so it got changed into the forked version in the pictures. Now I can see my ammeter and the headlight mounted switch.

Here's the naked frame with no fairing. Originally, the headlight was attached to the fairing without the arms to the bolts on the side of the headlight shell. That proved to be a total pain in the ass because when you wanted to look inside the headlight you removed the fairing bolts and the headlight was swinging on the electrical harness while you were undoing the rest of the fairing. I added the arms to the headlight with a slotted hole so I can adjust it up and down, but also to fix it in place on the frame, so I can just remove the bolts for the fairing, disconnect the directional wires and everything remains in it's exact place. It takes 20 minutes to get the fairing on or off, rather than 2 hours now.



Here's the view from above the clocks. You can see how the headlight can be moved up or down. I found that there wasn't all that much room and having a little adjustability allowed me to move the headlight up, down, forward or back to keep it from rattling against the fairing.



here's a side picture.. I used an old piece of rubber tire tube under the headstock mount which uses one of those exhaust pipe clamps to pinch the bracket to the headstock



The best part of my mount is the lower arm support that bolts to the dual down tubes. The stock brackets I've seen are flat horizontal metal strips that bolt under the fuel tank somewhere. They just kind of hold the fairing from wobbling from side to side but can not support the arms in any way. They count on the dashboard bolts to carry the fairing.. I didn't want to do a shabby structural job, no matter how shabby my commando is compared to some of the bikes that are spotless and perfect in every way,... so I made the bracket you see below



the rubberized clamps pinch the downtubes without crushing them and hold the plate of steel that has the 1/2" x 1/2" square steel tube arms welded to it. I always had the intention to skeletonize the plate after I installed it and made the necessary adjustments, but in true procrastinator's fashion, it never got done.

Below shows how I triangulated the whole support system so it's very solid . I have a dual 3.0 ohm Dyna coil that I used long bolts to fasten through the wings that hold the fuel tank, down through the holes in the dyna coil and drilled 2 holes in a return tab in the fairing support plate to bolt the whole mess together. So the wings of the fuel tank support the fairing support bracket and visa versa. It makes for a bracket that you could do chin ups on.



That's pretty much it... I'd like to submit my bike for the prize of the most innovati.... um, sorry I mean "dirtiest norton commando" on the site.. but I have to go for a ride now... no time for that...