New guy with a sleeping commando needs input!

How many miles are on this motorcycle?It sounds like your Dad took care of his stuff?It might not need a total rebuild
now.The 900.00 dollars that you quoted sounds too cheap.You might want to change all fluids,clean the tank,and see
if it fires.If so,get the info and change out the lay-shaft bearing in the gearbox,decide on what kind of ignition you
would like to go with and take it from there.It just seems to me like it was taken care of,so you could get some miles
on it while learning about what you have.These are wonderful machines.Just my two cents.Stay on this forum and you
will be amazed at the information from knowledgable people that you can attain.
Ride safe,
YING

Saving money can be very expensive. When you consider the $900 price is labor only and CNW's price includes parts and upgrades, the overall price becomes much closer. How did you determine you need a complete rebuild? I'd be very wary of someone who is a "motorcycle mechanic" and not a Norton specialist. The difference being information. That's available here for free and sounds like you are a good wrench, already.

Sounds like you want to turn your Dad's bike into a first class restored machine. Not to discourage you, but these Nortons can run into real money. Start rebuilding and upgrading, you can easily get rid of $10,000. That's with doing a lot of the labor yourself.

Waking a bike up from a long time in storage requires planning, depending on what was done to it before it was retired.
You need to remove the carbs to look at inside the float bowls to see if petrol/gas has been left in there which has evaporated over a period of time, ditto the petrol/gas tank, leaving beyond a film of white/grey powder. This will block the carb jets e.t.c.
Engine Oil needs to be changed, an eggcup full of two stroke oil or Redex poured into the spark plug holes and turned over by hand to lube the bore which will be dry.

honestly all i wanted was to get it to be a safe reliable (as reliable as anything british can be) bike that i could ride a bit. i don't need a show piece, and i don't want to sink a ton of cash into it. my dad rode it hard through the 70's and 80's, in 91 he bought a harley and he started riding the norton less and less. at this point i would say it's completely untouched for around 15 years. so my mind in eastern pennsylvania goes to rubber, i start thinking everything rubber is dry rotted and needs replaced. i don't know what kinda shape it was really in when he stopped riding it, how well it ran etc, i know it ran but...? he shut the valves off on the fuel lines, so that might have helped, i might take the tank off, clean up the mess with the sealant there, change all the fluids, check the plugs and points see what kinda shape they're in, and see if i can get it to fire. But end of the day i'm still thinking this thing needs to be torn apart and have all the isostatics replaced, bearings, etc, no?

Hey Kevin,
I am not too far from you. I am out near Collegeville and would be happy to talk to you and share my experiences with my 73 750 Commando with you. The guy out here that helped me is very good with the old Nortons and other bikes as well. He helped me go from several boxes of old dirty parts to a very nice running machine. He does nice work and is not very expensive. His name is Don Kuterbach and has Don's motorcycle restorartions. His phone number is 610-409-9609. He is right in collegeville behind Superior Tube.
Best of Luck