a little help from the Norton gurus please

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Scottyv

Scottyv

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Howdy Folks new guy here, when I was 15 I bought my first street-legal motorcycle , a 71 Norton Commando, when I was 17 I sold it to my uncle and bought a Harley that was 33 years ago and I've been a Harley guy since then, last year my uncle called me up and said that he moved to Nevada and if I wanted my old Norton Commando back it was sitting on the side of his old house in Florida, so I called up a shipping company and had it shipped up here to New Jersey, well over the 33 years my uncle had it punched out 60 over and redone into a half-ass chopper and beat the hell out of it and then lift it sitting on the side of his house in Florida for 10 or 12 years with no spark plugs in it to make a long story short it was all rotted out frame was rotted everything was rotted from the Saltair so I bought beautiful roller off of eBay , had every single piece I needed Wheels tires new Forks frame all that stuff , the guy I bought it from said that it was a brand new build and then it threw a rod, big hole in the side of the block and a lot of damage to prove that, so I took apart the old motor put all new internals in Pistons, Rings , had cylinder honed, and did a bunch of other work to it, now my question is I was going to use the head off of the roller that I bought, because it was supposedly completely redone, but today when I was going through a box of parts, I found the pushrods from the roller and both of the intake pushrods are severely chopped right up by the cups on the top, I'm not sure what caused this damage and I don't know how to tell what caused this damage , I'm not sure if maybe the rocker from the exhaust hit it, maybe something to do with the thrown rod, or if there's something wrong with the head itself, and I'm afraid to put it on this brand new motor, I was wondering if anybody could enlighten me why both of the intake pushrods would have giant gouges out of them ?? Can I just use the head and use the pushrods for my original motor and pray that everything will be okay, there's absolutely no Norton guys around here closest ones about 3 hours away, I would use my original head but then I would have to completely redo it, any help would be great
 
Scottyv said:
Howdy Folks new guy here, when I was 15 I bought my first street-legal motorcycle , a 71 Norton Commando, when I was 17 I sold it to my uncle and bought a Harley that was 33 years ago and I've been a Harley guy since then, last year my uncle called me up and said that he moved to Nevada and if I wanted my old Norton Commando back it was sitting on the side of his old house in Florida, so I called up a shipping company and had it shipped up here to New Jersey, well over the 33 years my uncle had it punched out 60 over and redone into a half-ass chopper and beat the hell out of it and then lift it sitting on the side of his house in Florida for 10 or 12 years with no spark plugs in it to make a long story short it was all rotted out frame was rotted everything was rotted from the Saltair so I bought beautiful roller off of eBay , had every single piece I needed Wheels tires new Forks frame all that stuff , the guy I bought it from said that it was a brand new build and then it threw a rod, big hole in the side of the block and a lot of damage to prove that, so I took apart the old motor put all new internals in Pistons, Rings , had cylinder honed, and did a bunch of other work to it, now my question is I was going to use the head off of the roller that I bought, because it was supposedly completely redone, but today when I was going through a box of parts, I found the pushrods from the roller and both of the intake pushrods are severely chopped right up by the cups on the top, I'm not sure what caused this damage and I don't know how to tell what caused this damage , I'm not sure if maybe the rocker from the exhaust hit it, maybe something to do with the thrown rod, or if there's something wrong with the head itself, and I'm afraid to put it on this brand new motor, I was wondering if anybody could enlighten me why both of the intake pushrods would have giant gouges out of them ?? Can I just use the head and use the pushrods for my original motor and pray that everything will be okay, there's absolutely no Norton guys around here closest ones about 3 hours away, I would use my original head but then I would have to completely redo it, any help would be great
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Trying to put up a picture but it will only let me put one from the URL not upload one from my phone for some weird reason
 
Scottyv said:
Howdy Folks new guy here, when I was 15 I bought my first street-legal motorcycle , a 71 Norton Commando, when I was 17 I sold it to my uncle and bought a Harley that was 33 years ago and I've been a Harley guy since then, last year my uncle called me up and said that he moved to Nevada and if I wanted my old Norton Commando back it was sitting on the side of his old house in Florida, so I called up a shipping company and had it shipped up here to New Jersey, well over the 33 years my uncle had it punched out 60 over and redone into a half-ass chopper and beat the hell out of it and then lift it sitting on the side of his house in Florida for 10 or 12 years with no spark plugs in it to make a long story short it was all rotted out frame was rotted everything was rotted from the Saltair so I bought beautiful roller off of eBay , had every single piece I needed Wheels tires new Forks frame all that stuff , the guy I bought it from said that it was a brand new build and then it threw a rod, big hole in the side of the block and a lot of damage to prove that, so I took apart the old motor put all new internals in Pistons, Rings , had cylinder honed, and did a bunch of other work to it, now my question is I was going to use the head off of the roller that I bought, because it was supposedly completely redone, but today when I was going through a box of parts, I found the pushrods from the roller and both of the intake pushrods are severely chopped right up by the cups on the top, I'm not sure what caused this damage and I don't know how to tell what caused this damage , I'm not sure if maybe the rocker from the exhaust hit it, maybe something to do with the thrown rod, or if there's something wrong with the head itself, and I'm afraid to put it on this brand new motor, I was wondering if anybody could enlighten me why both of the intake pushrods would have giant gouges out of them ?? Can I just use the head and use the pushrods for my original motor and pray that everything will be okay, there's absolutely no Norton guys around here closest ones about 3 hours away, I would use my original head but then I would have to completely redo it, any help would be great
Click to expand...
Okay for some reason it would not let me upload a picture from my phone but I was able to upload the picture from my phone and use it as my avatar so the picture of the two pushrods is my avatar LOL !!!!
 
Sounds like two separate historys of brutality. You need to consult your banker then put it in a reputable shop.
 
In order to fit or remove the head the pushrods are put into the head as far as possible. This means not engaging them with their particular rocker but pushing them up past them. You will find many threads about this novel form of three handed entertainment. It is not unknown for the pushrods to not seat correctly in the rocker and then it all goes wrong when trying to start the motor. This could be the damage you are seeing. Look at the rocker arms an internal area of the head for more evidence.
 
Yeah, I checked inside the head and everything looks brand new and everything looks in really really good condition, I don't see any scraping or anything like that, that I could notice, but it just seems weird that it's both the intake pushrods and the exhaust pushrods on each side are perfect, maybe like you said they didn't seat correctly, Maybe I'll just put the head on with my other pushrods and turn it over by hand a few times, and make sure everything is working correctly before I try and fire it, thanks
 
Sounds like some ham fisted work , which ever head you use overhaul it anyway, don't change the valve guides unless you really know what you are doing etc etc
 
When I fit the head on my commando I engage all the pushrods in the rockers I twist a rubber around all 4 locking them in place,and cut the band and pull it out just before the head meets the barrel,if you are going to fit this head yourself read up on sealents,copper wire around the pushrod tunnels, and how easy it is to strip the threads in cylinder head holding down studs , also make sure the seals are good on the inlet guides, make sure you don't block the oil drain holes ,and don't use the locking rings on the exhaust rose's , you will probably need to grind your spanners down to get some of the bolts, read all you can about this before you pick up a tool cheers
 
Thanks, yeah I have Whitworth tools I bought them when I first got the bike back last year I disassembled my engine completely by myself, and rebuilt it completely by myself, along with about a hundred car engines and several Harley engines, I just didn't want to spend the extra money on rebuilding my head since the other head was supposedly brand new, I guess I'm just going to use my original pushrods and put the new head on and see what happens, and Hope that the other pushrods just weren't seated correctly, and that's what did the damage to the pushrods, I was just wondering if anyone had seen pushrods damaged like this before and if they had what caused there damage
 
I'm also completely assembling the engine on the bench and then putting it in the frame, so it will be much easier to put the head on than trying to force it on while the engine is in the frame
 
Scottyv said:
Thanks, yeah I have Whitworth tools I bought them when I first got the bike back last year I disassembled my engine completely by myself, and rebuilt it completely by myself, along with about a hundred car engines and several Harley engines, I just didn't want to spend the extra money on rebuilding my head since the other head was supposedly brand new, I guess I'm just going to use my original pushrods and put the new head on and see what happens, and Hope that the other pushrods just weren't seated correctly, and that's what did the damage to the pushrods, I was just wondering if anyone had seen pushrods damaged like this before and if they had what caused there damage
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good plan to me. If the head looks good, no reason not to use it. As long as the rocker arms look good and move easily, and the valve heads look like they are seating correctly, you're not taking a lot of risk by using the head. You can use a large screw driver (or small tire iron) as a lever above the rocker arm to open the valves and look at the seat condition, as well as make sure you don't have a bent valve. If you put it all together, and it turns over properly, I can't see any reason not to use it. When the engine threw a rod, do you know if it damaged the camshaft? If so, the pushrods might have come off the rocker ball and been trapped between rocker arm and head while the engine was still turning over, and suffered damage from that.

Ken
 
lcrken said:
Sounds like a good plan to me. If the head looks good, no reason not to use it. As long as the rocker arms look good and move easily, and the valve heads look like they are seating correctly, you're not taking a lot of risk by using the head. You can use a large screw driver (or small tire iron) as a lever above the rocker arm to open the valves and look at the seat condition, as well as make sure you don't have a bent valve. If you put it all together, and it turns over properly, I can't see any reason not to use it. When the engine threw a rod, do you know if it damaged the camshaft? If so, the pushrods might have come off the rocker ball and been trapped between rocker arm and head while the engine was still turning over, and suffered damage from that.

Ken
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I'm not really sure exactly what happened all I know is he said it was a brand new build which it looks like, everything looks in perfect condition on the thing, and he said he ran it for about an hour then shut it off and started it again , and it ran for 5 minutes and it threw a rod, I know it wasn't even on the road yet because it didn't have a clutch in it, he said he was just getting ready to put the clutch in it which he sent with the rest of the bike it's still brand new in the box, I absolutely can't complain and has brand new Wheels brand new tires brand new exhaust brand new seat the frame is in mint condition it came complete with an engine and transmission all lights all blinkers all switches brand new electronic ignition and everything else except for a rod through the block and I paid $1,500 for it, with a clear title, I also have a clear title for my motor which is the title I'll be using, and I'm going to sell the rest as a repairable basket case with a title, the case that was damaged by the rod is not the side that has the VIN number on it, and I'm pretty sure the side with the hole in it could be repaired anyway
 
H
Scottyv said:
I'm not really sure exactly what happened all I know is he said it was a brand new build which it looks like, everything looks in perfect condition on the thing, and he said he ran it for about an hour then shut it off and started it again , and it ran for 5 minutes and it threw a rod, I know it wasn't even on the road yet because it didn't have a clutch in it, he said he was just getting ready to put the clutch in it which he sent with the rest of the bike it's still brand new in the box, I absolutely can't complain and has brand new Wheels brand new tires brand new exhaust brand new seat the frame is in mint condition it came complete with an engine and transmission all lights all blinkers all switches brand new electronic ignition and everything else except for a rod through the block and I paid $1,500 for it, with a clear title, I also have a clear title for my motor which is the title I'll be using, and I'm going to sell the rest as a repairable basket case with a title, the case that was damaged by the rod is not the side that has the VIN number on it, and I'm pretty sure the side with the hole in it could be repaired anyway
Click to expand...
He ran it for an hour!! I hope he didn't let it idle for an hour? A re built Norton engine needs to be immediately revved up when first started ,then ridden in my opinion,how did he start it with out a clutch fitted? Sounds like you got a real bargain for the money you paid , cheers
 
baldy said:
Scotty,

There are plenty of Norton guys in NJ. What area you from.
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Northern New Jersey Sussex County, from what I understand there are only two reliable Norton guys anywhere in this area one is in South Jersey about 3 hours for me and the other one is in Vermont
 
Sorry but it sounds very odd "running the engine for an hour"with out a clutch fitted!!! he must have had some sort of starter that fitted on the crank maybe?? And a big fan to take the heat away,why would you run a rebuilt engine for an hour?
 
I'm sorry I honestly don't know, all I know is what he told me, it was a motorcycle shop in Massachusetts that I bought the thing from, I could tell you that much
 
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