Pictures of your Norton Commandos

what's wrong with brown seats

I'm in the process of getting my '69 model "R" back on the road after storing it for the last 9 years. The frame and trans numbers match but the engine has no number at all. I wonder if the left side case had been damaged and replaced by a previous owner. Any ideas? This bike has the external tach drive gearbox off the camshaft and the conical clutch cover but the frame is not the "widowmaker". I made the rearsets and mounted lower bars to get out of the wind, it's actually comfortable.

oldbeezer said:

what's wrong with brown seats

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Oops!

My 1972 Roadster Combat. Tri-Spark, 13mm Master Cylinder, XS650 breather, Clubman bars, and an eBay cafe fairing...

IMG_1075 by michael delage, on Flickr

It's been posted here before (some years ago) but at that time it had a Production racer alloy tank and a Manx seat.

I recently had the head off for new valves, guides, seats etc and decided to Roadsterize the bike since Mrs Petersen now expressed wishes to share some of those Norton vibes.

Kept the rear sets and low bars, though. I also relaced the rear hub on an old ´60's Akront rim that I found on my neighbours attic. (!) Never done it before but after watching a few Youtube tutorials I decided to have a go at it. Not that hard really...

Petersen said:

It's been posted here before

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That's a good look!

Thanks!

Just got this as a gift from a great friend who just passed from cancer

dougmatson said:

Just got this as a gift from a great friend who just passed from cancer

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Sorry to hear of your friend's passing, he handed you a very beautiful and rather rare classic Commando.

A more recent view of my bike, now sporting a Givi A210 screen as used by Fross – I fitted it in early March, I've ridden behind it now for a few hundred miles and I'm very pleased with it. One day I might even try to get it exactly central ... No idea why it's off-centre, I suppose I'll have to give the brackets a bit of bias. In the meantime it's fine. The bike sees 90mph occasionally (shhh!) and the handling seems unaffected.

The bike's also sporting scruffy silencers, as the preferred items are back at the platers for fixing, again. I'm not dissing the platers yet though, it's a slow process but they've been responsive enough to my concerns so far. Otherwise you might notice I spend more time riding and maintaining the bike than polishing it, but I won't apologise for that.

NortonMKIIA850 said:

A more recent view of my bike, now sporting a Givi A210 screen as used by Fross –

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Looks good to me, well done for finding the right screen, it does look the same as mine.
Fross.

Had my 74 out today. The yard behind the bike is not mine. It is kept way too nice to be mine!

Beautiful bike, Dave!

Regarding the Givi A210 screen pictured above: I mounted one the other day, and found the noise and buffeting in my helmet much increased.
So I want to make it shorter, see if I can get some wind off my chest but not directly hitting me in the head either. Jig (saber) saw sound right? Do I need a special blade to cut acrylic?

An angle grinder with a thin cutting disc has always worked for me when trimming fairing screens etc.

I think that anything that uses a sawing motion is more likely to cause cracking.

It might help to put masking tape on the screen so you can use a marker pen to mark out your cut line and cut through the tape and screen at the same time.

Ensure the screen is warm ish. So, do it on a warm day, or keep the screen in the house overnight etc. Cold Perspex is far more likely to crack.

Great ideas, Nigel, thanks! Maybe I can find a Dremel cutter that wd work. My angle grinder is a great heavy thing, tough for fine work.

Mr. Rick said:

Regarding the Givi A210 screen pictured above: I mounted one the other day, and found the noise and buffeting in my helmet much increased.
So I want to make it shorter, see if I can get some wind off my chest but not directly hitting me in the head either. Jig (saber) saw sound right? Do I need a special blade to cut acrylic?

Click to expand...

Mr Rick, of course it's up to you, but I wouldn't bother. I suffer from continual tinnitus, so have done a lot of (as my wife calls it) "Titting about " with screens over the years, i.e. taller, shorter, flipped, Double Bubble, NACA ducts, deflectors etc, and my conclusion is that for a real world naked road bike at normal road speeds the best screen is no screen at all, unless you have one at least level with or above your chin. (Not very stylish). Basically in my experience, all a short screen does is cause airflow disruption & vortexes which spill over the top and straight toward your chin area which in turn causes buffeting and more seriously sustained harmful ear damaging noise. What you need is all that disrupted air to pass above your helmet, so your head is in calm air, but and even that can have other side effects. (e.g. a passenger then gets buffeted). I took an age fitting an almost exact screen to my Yamaha TR1, rode it once and took it straight off again and sold it on. Obviously this all depends on your height compared to the screen and the helmet you wear, but I'm a tad over 6 foot and the only way I can get complete silence on my VFR is to ride flat on the tank tucked in behind the screen like I'm on Sulby straight & that looks a bit stupid at my age and at 60 Kph.

I find that full face helmets and screens are the worst combo. I never ride without earplugs ( especially on an old Brit as it's alarming ).

Sorry to hijack a photo thread.

Cheers,

Cliffa.

Thanks, Cliffa, that's great feedback.
I've had tinnitus since the Altamont concert, and carry ear plugs. Maybe it's time to actually use them?
Not that I have money to burn, but I'm into this thing for less than $100, and if I can't get what I want by cutting it down, I know where to take it.
In the meantime, I had some fun trying to put some Cartesian coordinates on this non-Euclidean surface.


Tomorrow the Dremel comes out, and if 2" shorter doesn't work, I'll accept your analysis, blame it all on Fross, and forget the idea altogether.

You are very welcome.

One suggestion why not use something like a piece of thin plywood temporarily mounted at the same height, lop bits off it until you are happy with the result then cut the screen to the same height. Then If you get the same results as I have experienced you can still sell on the screen

Good luck anyway.

Cheers,

cliffa.

Ok, so there are benefits to being a bit of a short-arse ...

Cut off 2" of height on about a 6.5" radius, to blend in with the edge profile.
Test ride not much difference, as cliffa had testified. Cut off another inch, same radius, not quite as noisy, and getting some relief from the wind blast to the midsection.
So here's the final config, will give it a good trial on Thurs, when we go to the Motomeeto in Clarksburg.