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Last March 2016 I acquired a really scruffy, tired, 1989 ex-police Norton Commander thathad been laid in a damp garage for 10 plus years, and decided to transform this uglyduckling into a practical sports tourer.

Transformation of a Norton Commanderwww.britishclassicmotorbikes.co.uk

April 2017

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One of the first jobswas to remove allbodywork, and aYamaha box sectionswinging arm wasmodified and fitted. A4.5J Yamaha rearwheel was added witha one-off axle and alarge piece ofaluminium was orderedto enable me to make aone-off cush drive.

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The front end came from a Triumph Tiger 1050 with a Yamaha FJ1200 frontwheel. The front axle is a one-off, machined from high grade stainless steel.

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Bodywork. Andover Norton, after a lot of searching, found the original mouldfor the Krauser rear end and a new rear end was produced. The front fairing isa fibreglass Honda fairing that was modified and carefully blended in to theoriginal tank cover and side panels. I painted it in pearl white, Jaguar blue, andMazda red. Norton decals were sprayed in and all bodywork topped off with sixcoats of clear lacquer.

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The engine was stripped and rebuilt, and I owe a big thank you to RichardNegus for all his knowledge and help. Both Rotor housings wereunserviceable, so a big thank you also to Graham of Startright for finding areplacement pair. Due to the reworked body work, the bike is now 7 inchesnarrower leaving no room for the water pump and alternator housing. Richardhad already done a conversion with a belt driven alternator and this seemed agood solution, so I set about making new alternator mounting, fly wheelhousing, alternator drive and belt cover. The fly wheel housing and belt coverwas machined from two large pieces of aluminium. An electronic water pumpwas then fitted to the right-hand side of the engine to take care of the coolingand a one-off radiator was designed and made.

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A good friend of mine kindly loaned me the seat off of his Commander so Iwas able to take a mould for the seat base.

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The original Lucas starter motor was very tired and after a lot of headscratching I modified one of my Norton Commando starter motors. This unithas a nine-tooth pinion instead the original Lucas unit of ten teeth, it draws lesscurrent and turns the engine over faster. This was a win win.

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Finishing off. The bike was rewired using a modern digital ignition system andan ECU for the cooling. It was discovered that the wing mirrors were notsatisfactory as all I could see from them were my arms, so I set about makingnew longer aluminium mirror arms. I decided to convert the bike to hydraulicclutch making my own clutch slave cylinder from a Richard Negus design.

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The bike has now covered over 1,000 miles, the handling and performance isexcellent and I’m really looking forward to touring the continent this summer.

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April 2017