Fresh Powder

I had the frame powder coated about a month ago. I got some recommendations from club members about where to go and paid a visit to a couple of the shops. I selected Powder Coating Specialties of Golden for the job. They do a lot of motorcycle frames and obviously knew what they were doing. So I drove the parts down, selected High Gloss Black for the color, and one week later the job was done. Total cost for all the parts shown was $265, including the prep work. Can't beat that!

The parts look great and clean up was minimal, mainly some light dremel work on bolt holes and such. They did an excellent job of masking things like the steering head bore. I really didn't have to do much to get the parts ready, just a basic cleaning.

There is a some controversy in the community over powder coating vs repainting. Some people don't like powder coating because that's not how the factory did it in 1972. Others have various criticisms of powder - they say it's hard to touch up, it may peel away from motor mounts, over time it may dull, etc.

The criticisms don't seem convincing to me though, and I don't feel a need to keep the bike one hundred percent original like the "resto nazis" do. I think sensible improvements are a good thing. And the previous paint job certainly didn't hold up very well. So I think this is the way to go.

The Teardown

I rode The Norton to quite a few of the club events when the 2005 riding season started. It had problems though - heavy smoking and oil consumption, a knocking sound coming from somewhere in the engine on startup, and severe wetsumping. These bikes all wetsump (oil drainage from the oil tank to the crankcase when parked), but this one would empty the oil tank in just a few days. Definitely not normal.

In July, I bought an oil pressure gauge kit from my favorite parts supplier, OldBritts. I hooked it up and went for a test ride. The results were discouraging. The bike had decent oil pressure at startup, but when the engine warmed up the oil pressure went to zero.

So I decided to do a top end rebuild and to service or replace the oil pump. I had planned to do that work in the winter, but based on the gauge readings I felt the bike might not last that long. When I opened up the oil pump I found ground-up bearing fragments inside. That, of course, meant a full tear down and rebuild.

We pulled the motor and tore it down at the next Tech Day in August. The rod bearings were junk, the crank journals scored, the pistons had seizure marks, and the exhaust valves were burned and leaking. The oil consumption turned out to be caused by a bad hone job, which resulted in the rings not seating. And there was more shrapnel inside the crank's sludge trap. Oh, and the crankcase was cracked at the oil pump mounting area. The motor basically needed new everything.

With the motor out, it was a good time to go through the gearbox. Pulling the gearbox exposed a lot of peeling paint and rust on the frame. And when I removed the forks and triple clamps (the triples had peeling paint) I noticed the steering head bearings were shot. I decided I might as well take the bike down all the way and do a full restoration.

Help Wanted

The club had a website so I surfed over for a look. What I found was both encouraging and intimidating. It sounded like a good group but some of the members looked, well, kind of scruffy! I was actually pretty nervous about making contact but I needed help with the bike.

My fears were unjustified. In spite of their appearance, I found the club members to be friendly, helpful, and actually a great group of people to hang out with. And they had Tech Days, to which you could take your bike and get help. So I started going to club meetings, including of course Tech Days. I started making some real progress with the bike.

By spring 2005 I'd gotten the bike sorted reasonably well with the club's help. It was now a one-kick starter, and the handling was much better after tightening up the isolastics and rebuilding the swingarm pivot. I started riding the bike to club events. It was fun to ride, but obviously still had major problems and I really didn't trust it. So I basically stayed pretty close to home with it.

Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

When I pulled the bike out of its shipping container it looked great. The seller had done a truly impressive job of polishing and detailing it for the sale. It gleamed in the spring sunshine.

Unfortunately, the beauty was only skin deep. Underneath the gleaming alloy and shiny paint lay a multitude of horrors. I was soon to learn that the seller's statements had all been gross misrepresentations. The "few little drips" was an oil slick under the bike. The "occasional puffs of white smoke" was a heavy cloud of blue smoke coming out of the right exhaust. The "little pinhole leak" in the gas tank was a crack an inch long. The bike burned almost as much oil as gas. The brake lights didn't work. The headlight blew out the first time I started the bike. And so on.

For the rest of 2004, I struggled to get the bike running and roadworthy. I was living in an apartment complex at the time so I had to keep the bike in a storage unit. I started spending my weekends at the storage unit, going through the bike. I fixed the leaks, I rebuilt the carbs, I replaced the bent fork tubes, I fitted new plug wires and points. And so much more. Everywhere I looked I found problems. It seemed endless.

I was in over my head and I knew it. So I sought help. The bike came to me via the internet so I went to the internet for help. I didn't find any local owner's groups but I did find an online support forum. So I signed up and started posting questions.

The guys on the Jerry Doe forum (named after the site owner) were helpful, but there was only so much they could do without actually seeing the bike. It was starting to look hopeless again, but then one of the forum members told me about a local owner's club. He'd seen one of their online newsletters and posted an article from it. So I found out about our local club, Norton Colorado, from an internet friend in Australia!

The Beginning

Why on earth would an otherwise-rational (mostly) middle aged woman buy a 35 year old motorcycle off ebay?

Well, it wasn't just a crazy impulse. I've been involved with motorcycles almost my entire life. I'd previously owned a Norton 850 Commando. My dad bought it new in 1973 then gave it to me a few years later. I loved the bike, but it was hard to maintain and it was unreliable. So it eventually went to a new home.

I always regretted letting it go though, and thought that someday perhaps I'd get another one. I never did, but I never quite gave up hope.

Then I discovered ebay. They had motorcycles for sale. They had Nortons!

Before long I found a 1971 750 Commando in the listings. It looked great in the photos and the owner glibly gave me all the right answers to my questions. So I bought it. It was in Michigan and I'm in Colorado so I had the bike shipped. In April, 2004 I drove down to the ForwardAir terminal in Denver and picked up my Norton. Finally, after all these years, I had fulfilled my dream!

And so my adventures began....