Steel flywheel for Commando

Alan L said:

Hi all,
All very interesting.
it’s just so hard to get my head around the fact that a brand as famous as Norton couldn’t afford to retool and redesign the engine, i don’t doubt it’s true But where did the profits go? After all, there were many others manufacturers across the world who designed and built modern machines, presumably without the historical wealth of expertise available to Norton. As Commandos were Bike of the Year (whatever that means) you would think that would provide sales and profits to enable them to recapitalise.
I find BSA even more confusing. Having supplied millions of Lee Enfields, Lewis Guns, Bren Guns and numerous other armaments to the Empire through two world wars, you think they would have been swimming in money.

On another matter, how does the Triumph T140 bottom end compare to the Norton. For that matter, how does the late Bonneville motors compare in general to the Commando in reliability, power, torque and general ease of living with.
regards
al
ps please don’t take my questions as criticism of Norton, I’m just really interested on how such an antique (in the seventies) was such a lovely bike to ride and still remained competitive in the face of extremely modern opposition.

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Having been brought up in the British Motor Industry, I guess we never anticipated the need to evolve as the competition did, so R&D budgets were inadequate. Add the fact that engineering was always an undervalued profession so a lot of numerate graduates went elsewhere (often into the financial sector) to get rich, keeping the gene pool nice and shallow!
Government backing is also important for any industry.....

The Triumph crank is a one-piece forging with the - yes, cast iron - flywheel a shrink-fit over the centre, retained by 3 radial bolts.

I've had T140s for much longer than I've had Commandos and the Triumph has a far superior gearbox, but inferior clutch. Engine-wise the Triumph pushrod tube/seal arrangement is a bit of a pain, but separate rocker boxes make them easier to work on.
Power-wise there's not much to choose between them, but the Commando is my preference; the Triumph feels like it's being thrashed at motorway speeds, but is a better back-lane scratcher. Commandos feel more long-legged, especially 850s.
Reliability-wise I don't think there's really anything to separate them; they both depend on an owner with mechanical sympathy to keep them sweet.
Add the Isolastics and the Commando has the definite edge - all IMHO of course....

Both are fundamentally pre-WW2 designs, but then again, so is my BMW R1200GS

Alan L said:

Hi all,
All very interesting.
it’s just so hard to get my head around the fact that a brand as famous as Norton couldn’t afford to retool and redesign the engine, i don’t doubt it’s true But where did the profits go? After all, there were many others manufacturers across the world who designed and built modern machines, presumably without the historical wealth of expertise available to Norton. As Commandos were Bike of the Year (whatever that means) you would think that would provide sales and profits to enable them to recapitalise.
I find BSA even more confusing. Having supplied millions of Lee Enfields, Lewis Guns, Bren Guns and numerous other armaments to the Empire through two world wars, you think they would have been swimming in money.

On another matter, how does the Triumph T140 bottom end compare to the Norton. For that matter, how does the late Bonneville motors compare in general to the Commando in reliability, power, torque and general ease of living with.
regards
al
ps please don’t take my questions as criticism of Norton, I’m just really interested on how such an antique (in the seventies) was such a lovely bike to ride and still remained competitive in the face of extremely modern opposition.

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Don't forget just how small a company Norton were and how massive BSA and triumph for example were

baz said:

Don't forget just how small a company Norton were and how massive BSA and triumph for example were

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Norton were reasonably profitable (at times anyway), but the surplus capital was syphoned off to support the other ailing branches of AMS. The lack of investment also meant that it was not possible to reduce production costs by for example, using modern machine tools, which as also part of the problem at BSA (although the BSA group seem to have paid out dividends to the shareholders instead of investing in the business). The very difficult labour situation in the late 60's / 70's did not exactly help either.

Yes, it surprises me just how well these bikes go in comparison to their overseas competition, who obviously spent huge amounts on development and tooling.
even as a lifelong pommie bike tragic I’m surprised that Commando received Bike of the Year Award for years in a row in the face of Japanese competition. I don’t know what the criteria was but obviously the buying public didn’t agree.
Al

Back when I was racing - I saw my cranks begin to crack - I started radiusing the PTO shafts and never had a problem after that - but I was also using lighter pistons.

When I built my Seeley 850, I never believed in it. I had about ten 650 Triumphs when I was a kid. I raced a 500cc short stroke Triton and I have ridden my mate's 650cc Triton. The Seeley 850 is much better than any of those. I have never had another engine which has pulled so hard and responded so well to methanol fuel. The Commando 850 engine is excellent. The only thing which is really needed to get one really going, is a decent gearbox. You need to climb up through the gearbox near the top of the torque curve while keeping the crank spinning high, and choose the terrain to suit the bike. When I ride at Winton, I am much faster around the slower parts of the circuit, so the other guys need much more horsepower for the faster parts. The MK3 Seeley frame is very light and it's geometry causes a lot of oversteer in the correct direction if you accelerate through corners. As soon as it squats, it steers. So you brake into the corners, then gas it hard. With most other bikes, there is usually part of any corner where you are rolling at constant speed. With the Seeley, it is either stop or go.

Hi Allen
You need to read a bit about the man & the company R T Shelley. He brought Norton from bankruptcy (1913) formed the new Norton company with Pa Norton. The R T Shelley factory in Birmingham produced tools, parts for aircraft, car, motorcycles etc etc. At one time in the late 60s R T Shelley profits carried the parent company AMC. I've read it returned six times the profit of Norton motorcycles as well as producing a lot of their parts.
So of course! What did they do? Sell it ! AMC raised money by the sale of assets & promptly had to pay more for the parts from a company they once owned!

Norton did not really capitalise much on their intellectual property. The reason a lot of guys were able to build Tritons was you could not buy a Manx motor from Norton. So the Formula 500 car guys used to buy a complete bike, just to get the motor. It was an unfulfilled market opportunity. Lack of vision, eventually led to Formula 500 car racing becoming defunct. It was a cheap way into car racing and could have grown like topsy. I like the mentality of Norton - if I developed a Manx motor, I would hate to see it in a racing car. However that mentality is not realistic - it is very British and you have to love them for it. You should not cast pearls before swine ?

A genuine 500cc Manx Norton with a 6 speed close ratio TTI gearbox, would be a force to be reckoned with in certain race classes. You could really do some good with that. If we all had them, we would really have some fun.

Chris said:

Hi Allen
You need to read a bit about the man & the company R T Shelley. He brought Norton from bankruptcy (1913) formed the new Norton company with Pa Norton. The R T Shelley factory in Birmingham produced tools, parts for aircraft, car, motorcycles etc etc. At one time in the late 60s R T Shelley profits carried the parent company AMC. I've read it returned six times the profit of Norton motorcycles as well as producing a lot of their parts.
So of course! What did they do? Sell it ! AMC raised money by the sale of assets & promptly had to pay more for the parts from a company they once owned!

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Rubbish. R.T. Shelley remained in the AMC fold after the Villiers takeover. It wasn't until 1969 NV sold off the Shelley subsidiary. It was bought by another car jack company located in Birmingham, Tangye, and the company was renamed Tangye-Shelley Limited, located in Gough Road, Greet, Birmingham B11 2NG.
While Norton relied on Shelley for machining engine and transmission parts up to 1963, their work assignments decreased rapidly thereafter. The Plumstead factory had a fairly modern machine shop at this time and there was ample capacity due to introduction of semi-automatic tools. As manufacture switched to the large and equally well-equipped Villiers factory in 1969, there was no need for Shelley's services, and because NV was a cash-strapped business, it made sense to sell off R.T. Shelley. NV was certainly able to buy the toolkit items from other companies, maybe cheaper as well.

-Knut

there is or was a web site called working at amc.... it shows not only an early Commando production line but how astonishingly modern and well equiped the Plumpstead factory was.. to come back to an earlier discussion. Steve Maney initially offered a service ensuring the bolted up fly wheels were aligned. Many were not . Yet whatever the shortfalls -and there were many- Motorcycle sport said of the Commando-that it was the first motorcycle of any description they had had on an extended road test on which it was unecessary to get the spanners out to tighten stuff up

oldmikew said:

there is or was a web site called working at amc.... it shows not only an early Commando production line but how astonishingly modern and well equiped the Plumpstead factory was.. to come back to an earlier discussion. Steve Maney initially offered a service ensuring the bolted up fly wheels were aligned. Many were not . Yet whatever the shortfalls -and there were many- Motorcycle sport said of the Commando-that it was the first motorcycle of any description they had had on an extended road test on which it was unecessary to get the spanners out to tighten stuff up

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