22 year old and my first norton 650 ss :) from england

frankdamp said:

... From Penrith down to Scotch Corner, ...

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Isn't Scotch corner immortalized in a Jethro Tull song "Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die" about an old rocker on his bike?

If you've never done it, my favorite ride when I was testing the Commando was to go up the old A6through Lancaster and Carnforth, then head west on the A590 from Levens Bridge to Newby Bridge. From Newby Bridge, head over to Broughton-in-Furness then towards Ravenglass. Just before Ravenglass, there's a single track road that heads over the fells to Ambleside. It goes over both the Hardknott Pass and Wrynose Pass - great riding country on a good bike.

For a fairly easy day out from Manchester, you could head back from Ambleside, through Windermere and back to Levens Bridge for the A6 (or the M6!)

I used to take another "white" road out of Ambleside that joined the A592 to Penrith. From Penrith down to Scotch Corner, then the A6108 through Richmond. Since I was headed back to Wolverhampton, I'd take the A684 to just shy of Aysgarth, then head south through Kettlewell to Skipton. From Skipton, I usually took the main roads through Burnley, Rawtenstall, Ramsbottom, then round Bolton to Wigan and back south on A49 to Shrewsbury, A5 to Telford and then through Shifnal and Boningale to Wolverhampton. That was "all in a day's work", about nine hours altogether and about 490 miles, I think. Great fun, and I was getting paid to do it and getting the petrol to do it on paid for.

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Man, I want to ride these rides on MY norton. You make me miss a place I have never been!!! How much more can I add to my bucket list?
Cheers and happy riding.

grandpaul said:

frankdamp said:

... From Penrith down to Scotch Corner, ...

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Isn't Scotch corner immortalized in a Jethro Tull song "Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die" about an old rocker on his bike?

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Scotch Corner and the A66 Brough road are fairly immortal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_Corner

Just to clarify, I didn't recreate thet ride from memory. I have a pretty good 2002 UK road atlas! Those white roads and B-roads are the greatest. Motorways suck, unless you wnt to get to a place very quickly.

I used to start my road rides at 04:00 out of Wolverhampton. There was a truck stop at Levens Bridge that opened at 05:00. Levens Bridge is 97 miles from the factory. I tried to get there before they opened and made it about 60% of the time. It was all motorway after the first 10 miles.

Exciting times - but a wife and two young children made it unsuitable - hence the emigration to a job with Boeing.

Some cracking roads there frank really appreciate you working out the routes for me been down a few of them but a few I haven't think I know where Im playing out as soon as this awful weather brakes

bit of an update on the tank theres no way those screws are coming out, so after a bit of head scratching... Decided to grind them down flush then im going to inset a shallow nut into the cut out in the tank above where the actually thread bit is for a new screw to go into should do the job nicely well thats the plan anyway. Hopefully getting the tank professionally painted to seems the general consensus paint wise is ford silver fox metallic any other opinions?

Thanks,

Hi Tom a belated welcome to the site (not been on for a while!) That is a great project bike you have, and I'm sure you will turn it into a very usable machine and not a museum piece, build it and ride it!
Those tank screws could be VERY carefully drilled out starting with a small dia drill and getting bigger until the threads loosen up, got to guess at the depth though, and it's a good chance to practice your engineering skills too .

Silver is always a good choice for a Norton. My MK3 is BMW Titan Silver, have a look at my rebuild thread for piccies. And I can recommend Runcorn Motor Bodies for the paint job, not too far from you, call Steve at RMB and he will do a fantastic job for a reasonable price, somewhere around £250 for tank and side panels.

A good road to blow the cobwebs off is the A49 mainly from the Oulton Park area down to Whitchurch, get a cuppa from Lynns Raven Cafe then onto Telford, no speed cameras, I think the police use the road for playing on

Need to crack on with mine now I've seen yours

This ones Cool Bannanas .



Ditto



The old Ford ' Blue Mink ' is the other period comparable one , pale met. blue . Mk4s
and suchlike. 2000Es even .then theres 1600Es . ANY metalic needs clear topcoat , or
they go matte with age .So 20 coats of clear please . nice and thin. one per day. :wink:

Stock or cafe'd , the 650SS is a great looking bike. The bikes came from the factory looking very minimalist, perhaps that is why I like them.

This one came to me in this shape. It is stock except that Herb Becker couldn't resist reshaping the ports as he does on the Daytona Commandos. Herb rescued the bike from a wrecking yard.

Glen

http://s402.photobucket.com/pbwidget.sw ... c9333b.pbw

Hey everyone finally a bit of progress been a hard 2 years dosh wise but scraped a bit of cash together to spend on the 650 ss and got the bike at my fathers works now so got lots of room to work on it finally haha

painted the barells was amazing the rubish that came out from inbetween the fins miles better now

so got some new exhausts for it, back to standard

mocked up the carb manifolds out of the box of bits, thinking of putting the new mk1 concentric premier carbs on just cant decide between 930's? or 928?'s any opinions everyone help haha

also got some new tank badges to go one and pete lovel did the spark erosion for to remove the trashed screw in the tank going to paint it up this week

Tom, looks as if you are making progress. Nice work on the barrel and the new zorsts look good. I hope the knowledgeable ones will keep chiming in to steer you in the right direction.

Dave

Thanks Dave really glad to be getting it back to how it should be cant wait to be flying around on her in a month or so,

Gotta mess with the forks next as theres no rebound what so ever haha most likley no oil in them

Then tweak the mag and check the timing and fingers crossed should be good to go

Deffo new levers and bars though the fulcrum measurement is totally wrong

Tom Steele said:

Thanks Dave really glad to be getting it back to how it should be cant wait to be flying around on her in a month or so,

Gotta mess with the forks next as theres no rebound what so ever haha most likley no oil in them

Then tweak the mag and check the timing and fingers crossed should be good to go

Deffo new levers and bars though the fulcrum measurement is totally wrong

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Tom, since you are going to this much trouble to get the old girl running sweetly, you might consider getting a set of Lansdowne dampers. This kit allows the forks to work as they should and it is not mad money. Even if you leave the forks standard, they need to be nice and clean inside. With the dampers and springs out, the stanchions should slide smoothly in the fork legs with no play. The dampers will most likely have worn and may have water, rust and debris that have built up over the years. You can do a search here or post questions when you get to that stage.

Venhill sells some quite nice levers and perches: http://www.venhill.co.uk/Controls_and_L ... ROL_LEVERS

When you say 'fulcrum measurement', do you mean the distance between the cable nipple and the lever pivot?

Ahh yup me being half asleep haha on a 18 hour shift haha

the 7/8 pivot distance thing plus the brake lever is an upside down clutch one lol by looks od it

Ever used the Lansdowne kit mate? Been drooling over it for a bit got k-tech stuff in my race bike mind blowing gear ) I always tend to spend on suspension the engine tuning now

Thanks

Tom Steele said:

Ahh yup me being half asleep haha on a 18 hour shift haha

the 7/8 pivot distance thing plus the brake lever is an upside down clutch one lol by looks od it

Ever used the Lansdowne kit mate? Been drooling over it for a bit got k-tech stuff in my race bike mind blowing gear ) I always tend to spend on suspension the engine tuning now

Thanks

Tom

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Yes, fitted the kit in a Commando and it works but you will need to play around with it to get it right for you. If you appreciate good suspension on your race bike, then you will want to get those forks to work properly. Lansdowne will also sort your fork bushes, which are as important as the dampers themselves if you want a smooth, responsive action.

Before you order any levers, ask the members who have the same brake drums what they have done to them (or not, as the case may be) and what levers they use. As you are no doubt finding out, there are endless opportunities to spend money on these old bikes , but brakes are vital. Get those sorted before you spend on suspension. New linings riveted and bonded and then machined to match the drum, a completely circular and parallel drum, no play in any pivots and a new high quality cable are all essential. Even drums the size of dinner plates will never be as good as a modern disc, so no stoppies but a good brake restoration can make it feel 100 per cent better.

Dave

Tom:

It's good to see your thread reappear. Have you ridden my route on another bike or are you waiting until the SS is ready?

We've gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. We now have a 32-foot Class A motorhome to go wandering around in. It's on a Ford F53 truck chassis )and rides like one!) and has a 6.8 litre V-10 engine. It gets about 7 miles to a US gallon. It can accommodate 6 people for drinks, four for dinner, but only sleeps two (and our two Labradors). We're headed out on Sunday for a three week trip down the coast of Oregon State, then home again up the "concrete compass", otherwise known as Interstate 5. It'll be about a 700 mile trip.

Keep us posted on your progress with the 650.

Hi Frank great to hear of you

wow thats awesome must be brilliant to do some long trips like that, Traveling in style bet that really shifts

I was chatting the other week before my uncles op about a norton for bonneville, be Nice to do it before I get the right licence to race at the TT and on the raods as Ill be that focused on that i wont have chance for a bit so many things on the go at the moment makes a nice change

saving it for the SS really can't wait my uncles just has his op on his knee so soon as I have the carbs going to spend a day in work with the SS going over the mag etc and timing, been tuning tz 250 gp bikes over the past year so picked up quite a bit more experience 2 strokes mind but been pretty awesome

prepped the tank last night and dad picked it up to put it back in our workshop at work ( litho printers but got a mezmin floor now for the bikes finally must admit though think my future definatly lies in the motorcycle industry obsessed is an understatment ) and it was like glass smooth haha and he nearly dropped it I said some very choice language as hes running up part of the press room juggling it, some how managed to catch it thank god haha

so tonight prime, paint tomorrow, then laqur it

and fit the new badges can't wait to see how shee looks

Hi everyone fair bit of progress with the 650 ss have to excuse the rubbish pics was using my bust camera phone haha my main system is in for a service,

any way on to the interesting bit decided to have a crack at painting my tank with rattle cans got some ford silver fox mixed up 2 x 300ml tins 2 x 600ml tins of primer and one 300ml tin of petrol resistant clear coat on hindsite id get a second tin of clear next time

Hi Tom

Its unreal what you can do with a few rattle cans, looks OK to me, no one will know unless you tell them

Ashley

Thanks Ashley ^_^ just can't wait to get the new carbs love the look of monoblocs but fancy the premier concentrics haha

Tom, how is life with the 650?