72 commando resto

Quote to see all of the pictures.

hi lab, i think it was the noc notes that you quoted from in your second to last post, i suggest you read the notes again till you get to the point where it states, the opinions contained in these service notes are entirely those of the authors,they have no endorsement from any norton factory,nvt,norton andover or any such organisation,ask in any norton specialist shop for a pair of super blend main bearings and you will get nj306e if not take a walk

swooshdave said:

Quote to see all of the pictures.

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Thanks for that, and I've edited Jim's post ,so his photos show correctly and I've removed them from your post to save message space.

chris plant said:

ask in any norton specialist shop for a pair of super blend main bearings and you will get nj306e if not take a walk

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Sorry but you do appear to have misunderstood something here?

As I'm not suggesting (and have never done so) that you would expect get anything other than FAG NJ306E (M1?) bearings if you ordered them from a specialist Norton parts supplier?

You appear to be under the impression that the FAG NJ306E bearings are/were the ONLY "Superblends" fitted by the factory? Which simply isn't so.

chris plant said:

i suggest you read the notes again till you get to the point where it states, the opinions contained in these service notes are entirely those of the authors,they have no endorsement from any norton factory,nvt,norton andover or any such organisation

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True...but they would have been wise adding a disclaimer for legal reasons:

However I think the authors were experienced enough to have given the correct information?


Original Text: T. R. Stevens Collation: AI Osborn
These service notes are based on the parts list and are intended to supplement it and the workshop manual. They
were written by Mr. T. R. Stevens for the club magazine Roadholder, and appeared in it from Sept/Oct ’74 to May/
June ’77, he group numbers referring to the groups in the parts list. When collating these notes I have taken the
opportunity to edit and update them where time and experience have dictated improvements. Further assistance from
T.R.S. and Mr L. Emery being used, while not inconsiderable extra notes have been added by our President Mr. J.
Hudson.
Mr T. R. Stevens was Quality Engineer and then Service Engineer at Norton Villiers Andover 1970-74, he is at
present lecturer in Motorcycle Engineering at Merton Technical College.
John Hudson worked with the Norton Development Shop from 23rd January 1955, initially as a fitter tester, finally
leaving the NVT complex in the summer of 1976 at its abolition. Voted as Life Honorary Member of the Club and
President for the second time in Sept 1970.
Les Emery, member of NOC since 1971, rose to National Committee in 1973 as Membership Secretary. He then
took charge of the spares scheme with regard to the twin cylinder machines.
Al Osborn joined the Club in 1970 rising to National Committee level as Assistant Editor in 1972, later becoming
Chairman from 1974-77.

hi lab,maybe i have missunderstood but in my experience nj306e are the superblends and as far as i know the only ones you can buy or are recommended and as i said in another post they were commissioned solely to solve the combat motors appetite for main bearings

chris plant said:

hi lab,maybe i have missunderstood but in my experience nj306e are the superblends and as far as i know the only ones you can buy or are recommended

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= Yes agreed. The FAG bearing did eventually supersede the R&M bearing and was supplied under part 064118 from January 1973 and the 064118 bearing is what is still supplied today.


NORTON SERVICE RELEASE N2/10 (January 1973)

"A new main bearing capable of carrying a much higher load than offered before,has been introduced.

The new bearing, part number 064118, supersedes the old type 063906 [that's the R&M bearing-L.A.B.] and will be supplied in lieu buy our parts division....."

chris plant said:

and as i said in another post they were commissioned solely to solve the combat motors appetite for main bearings

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Sorry, -but that's not correct, is it?

As it was the R&M 6 MRJA30 "Superblend" bearing that was fitted from August 1972 to the 750 models from serial 211891.

The FAG bearing wasn't available until January 1973, and was initially fitted to the 850 models.

January 1973 being some months after Combat production had ceased.

ok lab i surrender lol

I had the bearings he has supplied to me many years ago when I rebuilt my Commando in the just post Combat crisis days. They were about sixty bucks apiece if I recall. I also recall that the Norton racing team may have been asked to help bring back some bearings from Japan when the Combat refit crush was on, I read this in an old magazine I probably still have somewhere. I suspect the factory was getting bearings of that spec whereever they could for a while.
Usually after things settle down one goes back to the regular supplier. I have been involved with fiascos like this in the past, but since it's not about Nortons I'll keep it to myself.

G,day all, the term "SUPER BLEND" was given to the main bearings by Norton, means absolutely nothing to bearing suppliers or manufacturers. The most common bearing used is a FAG NU306E M1, the NU stands for inner race floating & rollers attached to outer race, 3 denotes the series a cylindrical roller, 6 denotes internal size ,multiplied by 5 = 30 mm, E denotes extended service and the M denotes brass cage. Brass has a higher vibration tolerance and heat range rating of 200 deg C. Cheaper FAG bearings are available without the brass cage and its cage is made of polymide which has been reinforced with fibre glass, its temp range is lower at 150 deg C and has less tolerance to dreaded vibrations. Hope this little bit of information is of some help or interest. Regards Foxy

WOW, went to bed with 15 replies (Not physically), woke up with like 30 and a little super blend sword fight :shock: , hahaha cant beat it! The cam has no other marks on it at all! The engine must have been rebuilt at some time due to the oil pump holes have been helicoiled. I'm going to give all the bottom end stuff to my engineer friend and see what he can do with them and in the mean time scour all the bike jumbles and ebay for spares. I'm going to get the cases modified and get the bores checked and honed. Now then i still have the gearbox to remove but that's going to be sent away for a rebuild I expect. Still I was more worried about the condition of the crank after I saw the oil pump had eaten itself lol. Probably worth me getting the crank stripped right down and cleaned. Still onward is the key and I will be back with more pics soon.......

Jim.

Your conrods are not 'D' rods, bt the look.
I would send em to a polisher and tell tim to get any 'nicks' out.
Always difficult to advice on such an item, but If they arn't 'd' rods and you can polish out any nicks or dints then I would use them myself.
I would split the crank and fit superblends though....get the right code...don't be conned!
Good luck with the rebuild.
Stu

It's good to have parts in hand before really deciding to use them or not. Sometimes corrosion can leave divots in aluminum that don't show how deep they are until you clean it up. I recall drilling oil holes to cool the piston in Atlas rods, Commandos had those already didn't they?
By the way, do you guys want to hear the stupidest kid engine rebuilding story dealing with those bearings, or is that appropriate here?

Foxy said:

G,day all, the term "SUPER BLEND" was given to the main bearings by Norton, means absolutely nothing to bearing suppliers or manufacturers. The most common bearing used is a FAG NU306E M1,

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The recommended FAG bearing has always been the NJ306E as far as I'm aware, however, the NU bearing probably works just as well, but it doesn't have the lip on the inner race, so I would expect it could make the inner race slightly more difficult to extract from the crankshaft?

I agree that Superblends probably were not true barrelled roller bearings.

http://www.norvilmotorcycle.co.uk/crankbear.htm BEARING -SUPERBLEND MAIN - TWO REQUIRED - NJ306E-M1

Cookie said:

By the way, do you guys want to hear the stupidest kid engine rebuilding story dealing with those bearings, or is that appropriate here?

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We don't learn from your mistakes unless you tell us.

This was back when I was about 22 and in college. We had a regular parking lot club race for bikes 650cc and over and my Commando was pretty dominant when I had it running well. At the first of the season I broke my hand and moved the throttle and clutch to compensate. In one of the next races I dropped the bike to the left , it went full throttle and blew up shortly after.

I didn't have much money so the rebuild was a winter long painful process marred with error. I saved up and got two new mains which cleaned me out for the month. I was using the trick of heating the case in the oven and the races in the freezer when I got partying with my friends and forgot until the smoke built up. The only thing I had handy to get the case out of the oven was my leather jacket leading to an interesting pattern on that for the next several years until I could replace it. This finally all worked and I got the case together and stored it until I got some more money for rings. Somehow one of my friends spilled beer in my nice case. Being a clever young sport I took it to the car wash and hosed it out.

By the time I had my rings I pulled the case out of storage and found the engine frozen up as my new bearings had rusted solid. Duh.

Back to the dealer with another month's money to buy two more Superblends (as he called them.) He said I was the only person he had ever sold two sets to. This is why I remember that he was selling those bearings for sixty bucks apiece. Don't tell my wife this story.

Why did you did you need to replace the jacket? LOL LOL

It turns out that if you fry a section of a leather jacket eventually the flexing will tear the section you burned. Dont' ask me how I know. Actually it would be better if we all forgot this story.
I see several of the people who attended those parties a couple of times a year and this would be just one more "Cookie was an idiot" story if any of them manage to remember it. Stuff comes up at those parties I've made an effort to forget.

hey cookie i hope they were nj306e that you got

I got some bearings recently,FAG, the box was marked nj306e, the inner race was marked nj306e,but as foxxy said the outer race is marked nu306e??? I have been meaning to question bearing supplier on the number difference.