Forty years ago.......(2013)

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That was 5 years or so after I left N-V to go work for Boeing, around Easter 1968. The Wolverhampton guys had turned the Commando program over to Plumstead and I spent the last 6 months of my N-V career on the AJS Stormer program, ending up with the '68 ISDT bikes for the Royal Air Force Motorsports Association.

I got a lot of fun riding those bikes around town. On one occasion, someone in the Competition Department had been fiddling with ignition timing. I went on an errand across town and as I was rolling to a stop at a traffic light, the engne died. I did a quick clutch drop and got it running, but it sounded a bit odd. When the light changed, I opened the throttle and dropped the clutch, only to find the back wheel trying to climb the radiator grill of a double-decker bus behnd me. The engine had restarted running backwards.

You can bet I had words with the mechanic who'd been messing with the timing.

It's odd that it doesn't seem that long ago!
 
JRD said:
I think they used the DiFazio steering hub on another bike they build later on, known as "Nessie" , with Laverda or Kawa engine never on the B50.

I stand corrected. :shock:
 
Hello ZFD and hopefully Tom Watterer do either of you
Recall my dad Harvey Porter? Norton privatier? Of the West Midlands?

Best regards
Jules Millar

Nee Porter
 
Taken today, 24th July 2021
Pete Lovell pictured with the bike, which has a lot of the parts of the original machine.
 

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" The 750 crank was standard apart from roll-peened fillet radii at the mainshafts and did over 6,000 racing miles that year."

Interesting and important.

Others including JS motosport have recorded that this was critical for racing the Commando. And in my experience street as well.
 
"but at least he finished on a very under-powered bike at an average of only 88 mph"

Which is probably faster than I could average around the IOM on a V4 Panigali! :)
 
Very interesting for me, I bought an 850 MkIII engine, actually a collection of new parts with a Short Stroke head and Thruxton cam (stamped TX) from Mike Sadler in late '75 as the experimental shop was closed....it was him that told me to use the 33t front sprocket.....what length were those 1.75" (OD?) pipes? 28" or 32"

He went off to mechanic for Alex George, I didn't know Mike, I was sent to him after talking to Dave Rawlins and Griff Roberts about needing an engine for my Rickman project, guess what I was doing at the weekend, yep, nearly 40 years on I am working with the same frame.....

BTW, who was the ex BRM guy? Baker did the ports for my head, Dave told me he was the only guy he knew who could mike a set of barrels under his coat!
Just read back through the thread and saw my own comment, and a significant error. It wasn't Dave Sadler as I had written (now corrected), but Mike Sadler. I made contact with Mike on Facebook a year or two back. Sadly I can also report that he died either late last year or early this.
 
I remember Nessie the M&T Laverda, as a local racer called if I remember correctly Andy Caldwell owned it, & would ride it down to the Eagle & child pub near Weeton army camp on a Friday evening. Interesting it was but beautiful it wasn't. I often wonder what happened to it.
 
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