The '68 Rebuild Begins - Slowly

DogT said:

It looks like the 'S' and the Porsche is relegated to the dustbins of history?

What is it about these early bikes we like?

Dave
69S

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I can never decide if I like the high exhaust or not. I love everything else about the earlier models--the headlight ears, the TLS, the chainguard, the halo headlight ring, the taillight..

I'm really anxious to work on my '70 Roadster and it just gets worse every time I see another early Commando being put back together!

The 'S' exhaust is for effect. The standard roadster system is much more stable and longer lasting. The shields on the 'S' last maybe 4K miles and if you don't keep things tight, the exhaust starts beating up the LS iso nut and the LS panel. I just did it because I could. If I wanted a real long term rider, I would probably do a Roadster model.

Dave
69S

DogT said:

The 'S' exhaust is for effect. The standard roadster system is much more stable and longer lasting. The shields on the 'S' last maybe 4K miles and if you don't keep things tight, the exhaust starts beating up the LS iso nut and the LS panel. I just did it because I could. If I wanted a real long term rider, I would probably do a Roadster model.

Dave
69S

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I guess I should be happy that mine is a Roadster and not an S! I've found that a lot of the parts I looked at and went "what the hell is that?!?!?!" actually appear to be original, though, so I may have to re-evaluate how I will be doing that restoration. With it having so many original parts, I'm seriously considering redoing it to look as close to the original look as possible--even if I do think it's kinda dorky.



Ah crap, I've derailed this thread. How about some more pictures of your '68 rebuild to get this thing back on track?!

-Jordan

I don't think it's dorky. I really like the lines compared to the 71 up. The early ones look so straight foreword to me. Just personal preference I guess. I really like the FB.

Dave
69S

DogT said:

I don't think it's dorky. I really like the lines compared to the 71 up. The early ones look so straight foreword to me. Just personal preference I guess. I really like the FB.

Dave
69S

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The only things I don't like are the seat, the side covers, and the handlebars. The side covers are OK, but the seat and the handlebars bug me quite a bit. I don't know why. The fast backs are definitely cool!

I like the seat because it has a straight flow and width, don't like the hump in the later ones. I like the side covers because they don't look like oil tanks. And the handle bars, agreed, the Euro bars would look tons better, but I can't deal with them at my age. I just find the early bikes have easier lines to look at for me. We can agree to disagree. No problemo, we all have our likes and dislikes.

Dave
69S

DogT said:

I like the seat because it has a straight flow and width, don't like the hump in the later ones. I like the side covers because they don't look like oil tanks. And the handle bars, agreed, the Euro bars would look tons better, but I can't deal with them at my age. I just find the early bikes have easier lines to look at for me. We can agree to disagree. No problemo, we all have our likes and dislikes.

Dave
69S

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I think we agree on more than we disagree on! When it all boils down to it, though.. All Commandos are cool for different reasons. :mrgreen:

Yes, Back to the '68 restoration.

Dave
69S

Agreed. Max, it's been several hours now..It's time for more pictures of this gorgeous bike in the making!

I am currently in the process of restoring my 68 fastback so this thread is of great interest to me. Thanks.

Note: NOS Lucas rubberband.

maximini said:

Well I had three entire days to do nothing but work on

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Maximini,

Your bike is really looking great, my favorite part is how nice all of your nuts and bolt are. They all look like chrome! Did you buy all new nuts and bolts, or did you just polish them up? And, if it's alright, how much did re chroming the rim cost you, I'm quite interested in doing that to mine.

Matt

Matt -

All of the nuts, bolts and fixings that were originally cad plated were re-plated. They look a little shinier than cad plate would have been originally, but some of that is just the camera flash. They are not too shiny. I have tried to use each and every bolt that was salvageable as they were the original bolts. Luckily, I only had to replace a few.

The re-chroming of the rims could probably be used as a case study in waste in business school. The original rims were not in wonderful shape - but they were original. They needed to be stripped, blocked and re-plated without filling in the original "Dunlop", "Made in England" and other stampings. For some reason that I have yet to ascertain (or am just unwilling to explore) I was hell-bent on restoring the original rims rather than finding some NOS rims or just buying some good replacements. Long story short - $800.00 for the pair! You do need to factor in that my metal worker/plater is local and he is not inexpensive by any means, however his prices have always been justified in the final analysis when compared to his workmanship.

Your attention to detail is outstanding. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this bike turns out.

-Jordan

I wish I had sent out my nuts and bolts for plating, however, lots of them really needed some extensive hand work to get the pits out. I used the Caswell CopyChrome and it is ok if you follow the instructions and get a good plate on it, but it is real shiny, which I didn't mind since I replaced all the UNF/C with SS and nylock nuts anyhow. The last ones I plated, seem to not be holding up so good, like the head and barrel nuts/bolts, so I replaced them with SS from RGM. The copychrome does tarnish, but polishes up real easy.

Wow, I guess that's why I didn't use my original rims. The front one had a bit of a warf in it but you couldn't feel it on the road. I got a pair that look exactly the same except for the Dunlop markings, but they are still made in UK for $240 the pair from Walridge back in 08. I had the front fender rechromed at Carolina Chroming per Nelson's recommendation and it looks good. I think the fender, stays and gas cap was about $300. I'm thinking about re-doing the rear fender, I bought a chrome 71 rear fender from OB, it is a bit different.

Dave
69S

maximini said:

Matt -

All of the nuts, bolts and fixings that were originally cad plated were re-plated. They look a little shinier than cad plate would have been originally, but some of that is just the camera flash. They are not too shiny. I have tried to use each and every bolt that was salvageable as they were the original bolts. Luckily, I only had to replace a few.

The re-chroming of the rims could probably be used as a case study in waste in business school. The original rims were not in wonderful shape - but they were original. They needed to be stripped, blocked and re-plated without filling in the original "Dunlop", "Made in England" and other stampings. For some reason that I have yet to ascertain (or am just unwilling to explore) I was hell-bent on restoring the original rims rather than finding some NOS rims or just buying some good replacements. Long story short - $800.00 for the pair! You do need to factor in that my metal worker/plater is local and he is not inexpensive by any means, however his prices have always been justified in the final analysis when compared to his workmanship.

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Thanks for the help, I think I will re-plate the hardware as well. Did you re-plate using cadmium?

Matt

I'm not sure what they plated it in. I'll check and see when I am at the plater's place next week. If I remember correctly he sent it out to a guy who does aviation stuff. Like I said, it came out a little shinier than the cad plated parts from back in the day which were kind of a dull gray. These look like halfway between the dull gray and a dull silver. If you buy any fasteners from Andover (zinc plated, I think) they are sort of a dull silver - these match those pretty well.

I didn't want the dull gray finish and did not want stainless. I am happy with a little more brightness.

Progress has been slowed as I had to wait for for some paint to cure, so I decided to tackle a job that I had been avoiding successfully up to this point. Sitting in the corner of my workshop was the dreaded fastback seat. The seat cover was original and in pretty good shape, except for the hole that some idiot drilled through the top cover and the dozen or so holes that were drilled into the bottom for reasons I can't even imagine. I knew this part of the rebuild was going to be a giant PITA, and it did not disappoint.

I carefully removed the cover by drilling out all the pop rivets and removing the couple of small places where the factory had used a dab of upholstery glue. The back side of the cover was stamped "2-68".

The seat pan was pretty rusty and had been hammered in on one side to clear the top lip of the oil tank. Since you can't move the oil tank, I can only assume that the factory did the hammering. I did some hammer and dolly work to make it more presentable and then welded up all the holes. After sandblasting, painting and baking and about five hours of work the pan looked good.

I had bought a seat foam and cover from R. K. Leighton. Top quality stuff. The cover is so much better than others I have seen. After I did some light shaving to get a good foam to pan fit I glued the foam to the pan. On the fastbacks there is a second 1/4" layer of foam which forms a top cover and wraps around the back and knee pads. Since I had the original 1/4" top cover and had removed it carefully, I used it a a pattern for a new thin top cover. Once I had shaved, sanded and shaved some more the shape was perfect as I could get it so I installed the thin top cover and on went the vinyl cover. After four hours of test fitting, stretching and riveting the seat is finally done.

Very nice. Better than I expected.

I have an interest in this one.

Pics during the restoration of the seat pan? Before/after? During?

UGH, just when I think I've learned to handle everything about a Cdo, stuff like your seat shows up and I feel properly competition again. Will keep in mind the riveting method for a nice factory Combat seat with a screw snag in the middle.

Norton projects that grind on so slowly, finish up oh so finely!