Norton Break Downs?

Big_Jim59

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I live in fear of breaking any of my motorcycles. This is actually quite funny because I have the ability and the facility to fix what breaks. It got me thinking, "what is the worst thing that has happened to your Norton while out on a ride?" (And lets exclude racing mishaps like holes in the crankcases and exploded gear boxes.) Did it keep you from getting home?

I'll start. I have two. The first happened while I was on a group ride with my '73 750. The seal on the oil filter let go (I still don't know why) and it oiled the back of my bike. I let it cool down, reset the oil filter & gasket, checked the oil level, cleaned it up as best I could and rode it very carefully home.

The second issue occurred with the same bike. I was riding with Bert on the way to the Lake Of The Pines Norton rally. Bert was on his BMW GS. We had just passed a line of slow moving cars and when I pulled back in the lane I could hear a jingling noise. It sounded like a washer dancing around on a stud. Sure enough, my middle engine mounting bolt, on the back of the engine, had broken. It was sticking out, captured by the primary case, and a washer was jingling back and forth on it. Do I know my sounds or what? I called the wife to bring the truck because I didn't want to ride it with that bouncing around in the hole. She has never let me forget it.
 
Worst I’ve had is trying to nurse home a very bad carb problem, missing, popping and banging, etc.

I succeeded in nursing it home.

The bad carb problem was later traced to the well known problem of broken Boyer wires !
 
My 73 850 has never let me down to the point that I couldn't ride home after a roadside fix. 44 years of ownership.
My relatively new to me 75 hasn't been as nice. It came home on the trailer this summer after the right carb started spewing gas everywhere. I spent a scary 2 minutes getting the bike off the road before switching it off. The bike has new Premiers now so problem solved.
 
Two - 1) Plug vibrated out of the carb bowl (probably my fault). I plugged with a scrap of wood and a bit of rubber I found on the roadside. Got home. 2) Early TriSpark failure, left me on the side of the road. Had to have the wife bring a spare. Not too bad, but several hours of sitting in the hot sun. However I don't venture more than a couple of hours away from home, so I can usually get home before anything bad happens.
 
Worst I’ve had is trying to nurse home a very bad carb problem, missing, popping and banging, etc.

I succeeded in nursing it home.

The bad carb problem was later traced to the well known problem of broken Boyer wires !
Aha yes, the old bad wire carb problem because it's always the carb.

I actually took the 850 out this morning for a meandering back roads ride. It's not that I am afraid to take it far from home but I did have house guests that would be invaluable in loading if I did have to call for the truck. It was very fun and zero issues. I even killed it once and it fired off again no problem.
 
Twice, poor running and popping. Both times, loose coil wire.
 
Boyer wires. Intermittent so jiggled it and made it home. This was on the Hansen Dam ride. Very embarrassing, but everyone was very helpful.
 
I had a rear blinker bolt work loose and so had a turn signal hanging from its wire at a gas stop. That was the only "failure" of a stock Norton system on both my original Commando (back in the day) and my current one (since '06). I did run out of gas once but it gave me the opportunity to learn that "reserve" on my Roadster tank was about one cup of fuel... ;)
 
I live in fear of breaking any of my motorcycles. This is actually quite funny because I have the ability and the facility to fix what breaks. It got me thinking, "what is the worst thing that has happened to your Norton while out on a ride?" (And lets exclude racing mishaps like holes in the crankcases and exploded gear boxes.) Did it keep you from getting home?
Norton Break Downs?


Yes it kept me from getting home.
 
I've had a few. But in 47 years it's not much.

Broken hairpin spring in the gearbox. This was on the way home from a Brit bike show where I had taken the Best Norton trophy. So imagine an immaculate shiny Commando strapped to a flatbed truck with a trophy strapped to the seat. I got cheers from passersby.

Ignition module failure due to overcharging regulator. EI didn't like 16 volts.

Idiot move: A clogged gas cap vent once left me stranded about 30 miles from home. While on the roadside, I was convinced that the problem was electrical... silly me.
 
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The gearbox top bolt fell out. There was lots of clunking and banging on acceleration. After stopping and finding the problem I was able to gently coax the bike home, only a few miles away. No damage other than the need for a new bolt.
On one other occasion the discharge light came on about 450 miles from home. It stayed on and about 100 miles down the road the bike started to misfire due to low voltage.
I thought, no problem I'll just install a new fully charged 18ah Lithium battery I had brought along " just in case"
That only got me another 20 miles before it died. At that time I still thought that 18ah was 18ah. It turns out that with Li batteries 18ah pbeq is actually 6 ah realtime.
Fortunately the second stoppage was just over a summit. I was able to coast engine off for many miles right into the town of Osoyoos BC where a lawn tractor battery was purchased. That got us home running dead loss all the way.
The charging problem was later found to be just a corroded bullet connection.

Glen
 
I once dropped an old bike on a very slippery road and the magneto died. With Commandos, you don't get that. I like electronic ignition systems much better. If they bugger-up, they are more easily fixed. With most magnetos, the capacitor is in with the windings, so you need to send it away to get fixed. When I raced Triumphs, the magneto often made me lose my money, when they died at race meetings. The Boyer never does that. It is simple and effective.
A Norton Commando is probably as good as an old British bike ever gets. Years ago, one of my mates told me they are good - I never believed him. The 850 motor is perfect. I cannot believe that something so strange can be so good. What kills the Commando is the gearbox. The Japanese would never use something so archaic.
I would like to get a near original Commando 850 and fit a 6 speed TTI gearbox to it. I think it would be very impressive.
 
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Crankshaft broke on the drive side at the bob weight, left me in the mountains of Santa Cruz. Oil tank split and the engine froze 125 miles from home. All other problems the Commando got me home. This is over 50 years of owning Nortons. A ‘57 Model 50, ‘61 ES2 and ‘74 850 JPN never caused any problems.
 
Drive for the speedo walked out of the rear hub into the speedo and things came to a grinding halt eventually. Had to call the wife to bring some bigger tools for investigating whether or not I could ride it home. Turned out I was not going to be able to ride it home. So I left her to watch the Norton and drove her car back home to get my hotrod '65 El Camino to put the Norton in the back of. She was not impressed, nor particularly happy. I was about 25 miles from home when this took place.

That problem in my instance was an axle shimming error that I have since corrected. I do still think about it on rides. I watch the speedometer needle a lot. It has a tell.

The magneto took a crap when I first put the bike together in the 70's I was fortunately not that far from home, and pushed it back.

Had the beginnings of an intermittent short in one of the alternator wires (didn't know the actual cause at the time) that killed the motor about 9 miles from home and I pushed it 8 miles back to the bottom of a hill I knew I could not push it up where I sat for 45 minutes wishing I'd remembered to bring my phone. Hey, it was just a short test ride. Ha, what a lesson that was. I had just put FCRs on the motor and thought that was the problem. Figured I might as well see if it will start cuz it was getting late. Fired up and I thrashed it up that hill sputtering and farting all the rest of the way home. Next time I went out to start the bike, it started nicely and then smoke came up from under my carburetors. That nice stinky burning electric wire shielding smoke. Turned off the motor and found the shorted wire. Really obvious with the melted wire still smoking. Got lucky and did not burn up the stator, but lost a leg on the PODtronics regulator/rectifier. Short was actually inside the primary case. All fixed now.

I do think about something breaking every time I ride it. Doesn't keep me from riding the old thing though.
 
I was riding my Triton home from Sussex to Hertfordshire one summer evening (visiting the girlfriend) & decided I could make it to Amersham for last orders at the cricket club. Ran through London & then jumped on the M1 at Staples Corner & gave it the biz up the motorway & watched as the daylight dimmed & my headlamp followed suit! Nearly proper dark I dropped in between a couple of fast Jags to try & get there before the lights went out & I became invisible. I got there & had a beer for my nerves. Ran home between my brother & my mates cars, a Mk2 Ford Cortina & Ford Capri. No alternator left, pre encapsulated type, loose fast engine built out of secondhand parts. Bit of flex in the crank & worn bearings. Still got it.
 
FWIW, it's not fair to blame "Norton" for any aftermarket part failure or for a failure on the part of an owner/mechanic to perform proper maintenance or correctly install/fit/adjust any parts.
 
Throttle cable broke at the twist grip. I wrapped the cable around my thumb, then I had to kickstart it, and rode about a mile and a half to get home. Very risky, hard to control the throttle, and it was cutting into my flesh.
 
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