Thanks again all for your help. Making this project doable.
Now for carb options. Should I go with original or are there reputable upgrades?
I’m probably not going crazy with performance mods in the engine. At most a cylinder bore to slightly larger pistons depending on condition. Motor is frozen right now
As I said previously, the knowledge it takes to judge what you should do, might do, or could do is something that comes with many years of norton ownership.... So IMO, see if you can make what you have work before you start pissing your money away on new shit that you may not need... that's where I would start. So, I'd give the carbs a chance before I just bought new ones. Pull them off clean them up,.. you know the drill...
If the engine is stuck, you'll probably take the head off to un-stuck it. At that point, you pull the barrels and give a look at the cam, the followers and the rods. If the big ends feel good and the cam and followers are good, you could just punch out the barrels, buy new pistons and rings and take a chance on a cylinder refresh only. If the cam and followers are damaged then pull the whole bottom apart and inspect the big ends and crank journals and everything. Any ground up metal parts in your engine pretty much asks for the total tear down (IMO)
The freshen up of the cylinders could just turn your bike into what I call "a runner". That means you've spent the minimum of money to get it running, and then you assess the good and bad from short runs followed by longer ones once you feel like things are working..... like the engine and brakes... You ride the runner for a season assessing it and learning about it's systems and design. Then you make your long term plans to spend lots of money ( kidding, but probably true) Obviously, you drain fluids, look for metallic swarf and put new fluids everywhere. Pull the timing cover off, inspect the chain tensioner and chain, replace the oil pump washer,.... the common sense inspection stuff.
Also inspect the valves and the head. If it looks reasonable and everything else looked ugly but workable, try to make it into a runner and go from there...
If I put of list of all the non stock parts on my bike on a single line of text in this post, there would be at least 100 more lines of text from what I have already said. That's why I think creating a runner first will give you an idea of the character of what a british parallel twin is like. Most people like the feel and the fact that you are riding a dinosaur design that easily flows along with modern traffic is pretty cool... Once you are hooked, you'll figure out what paths of improvement you want to travel and in what order...
www.classicbritishspares.com
Is this too short of time, and I should have more patience, or am I in other words screwed?
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