Last Norton made

Madnorton said:

The different things I have noticed are - the wiring loom is different seems to contain extra wires those these may have been for Police bikes and not utilised for public machines, colour coding does not conform to the manual for UK model ties in with the, assimilator connections 1 extra or less can't remember which, ignition wiring connections - found this out the hard way, from the manual it seems it may have been a canadian model that was hastily coverted to the UK spec of the time. Higher bars, orange side reflectors front and rear. The size of the tank is no different - strangely the US use English Gallons, us being English use Imperial ( far eastern gallons ) goes back to the old trade days I suppose.

Click to expand...

U.S. models had headlight on at all times with the key switch, no "off" position! That's a definite difference.

Madnorton said:

The different things I have noticed are - the wiring loom is different seems to contain extra wires those these may have been for Police bikes and not utilised for public machines, colour coding does not conform to the manual for UK model ties in with the, assimilator connections 1 extra or less can't remember which, ignition wiring connections - found this out the hard way, from the manual it seems it may have been a canadian model that was hastily coverted to the UK spec of the time.

Click to expand...

I think perhaps the MkIII harness evolved over time (as I believe the early MkIIIs had the old type three-wire silver can assimilator under the fuel tank) as there was only one harness (in three sections = Main, Ignition & Headlamp) listed for all MkIIIs.

The Canadian MkIIIs had a different assimilator (and a different ignition switch-according to the wiring diagram) so it was just a matter of connecting the correct four wires to suit the particular assimilator and the extra Blue and Brown/Green Canadian assimilator wires are simply marked as "Not Used" (for non-Canadian models) on the wiring diagram (along with a White/Pink electronic tacho wire also "Not Used"). My MkIII harness also includes those extra wires.

I knew the Canadian bikes were "headlight on at all times" and assumed this was through their different relay near the battery (part#06-6392 against all other markets 06-6393). Wiring harnesses are identical for all, integrating many unused cables for Police or other applications. Headlamp reflector/glass is obviously different, but that is it not something that establishs a "US" specification- continental Europe and many other marlkets had the same headlight for r.h. traffic.
The build book makes no mention of anything after 336537, so neither 538 nor 539 are in it. If they were built inside the Wolverhampton factory this is odd. #538 may not exist at all, and #539 may have been assembled in the Pedley garden shed after some back-door part relocation.
What auctioneer's catalogues tell about bikes is not always the real history of the machine. It is often amusing to read the freshly invented "history" of bikes the birth of which one has whitnessed from a collection of parts that have all of a sudden turned into an authentic, very special !, motorcycle with a highly prestigious past often involving the likes of Mike Hailwood, Steve McQueen and others who now can't comment any more. The bikes are always "reputed to be", "said to", "kown as" etc, saving the auctioneer from being acused of fraud later.

ZFD said:

Headlamp reflector/glass is obviously different, but that is it not something that establishs a "US" specification- continental Europe and many other marlkets had the same headlight for r.h. traffic.

Click to expand...

I think you will find that the 850 MkIII Continental SS700P 06-8053 reflector unit was different to both the UK 06-8052 and US 99-1249 MkIII headlamp reflector units (bulbs are also different).
Also it doesn't necessarily follow that the lamp units were different between previous UK and US Commando models, at least not before the introduction of the quartz halogen units as British motorcycles usually had symmetrical "flat dip" lamp units, so the same lamp unit could be used for both L/H and R/H markets (not just Norton but also Triumph, BSA etc. did this) and no specific UK or US lamp units are listed in the Commando parts books prior to 850 MkIII, only the French/Continental units and bulbs differ.

Yes, I know- the French headlamp bulbs were yellow and in case somebody needs them we have several hundred NOS yellow headlamp bulbs still in the Andover Norton bins. Somebody buy them, please!

Sold for £18,975 inclusive of Buyer's Premium