Classic Motorcycle Company

Hello there, my name's P It's a Norton Framed BSA, fondly known locally as Franks Norbzer. He built it many years ago, kept it in A friend of mine told me it was for sale, so we made a purchase. Always wanted a Caffe Racer, un The frame, as you can see, is a Norton featherbed with a bolt on subframe and the engine's out of a BSA Rocket 3. Frame and the pipes all fit nicely. It's had a Norville front forks put on it, same as on a Commando with a disc brake. The tank we had made in a firm from Wales and the seat we built from Dave Deegan's, funnily enough, who still trades up in Surrey. Shuckles over the Hageons, newsoilancers, little bit noisier than the original that were on it. Had all the carburetors cleaned and repaste. Our friend Dave, who we'll speak to in a minute, various changes that we made. He's put a gel battery on it, w The original parts that Frank made was the oil tank w The engine mountings were all homemade. The clock brackets were all made all out of stainless steel, nicely done. When we put it all back together, we had the clocks refurbed by a guy. They're as new. New tyres, all of chrome polished up, everyt It's made it a very nice, rideable bike. You have to ride t You fight it round corners at speed and you've got to give it a good 100 yard start before you pull the brakes because it just doesn't stop. But it's nice to ride. It puts you in the feeling of the old days. Some it always wanted when I was a 16 year old but couldn't afford. Now we're old and I only ride it because of the arthritis. But it's nice to look at and sits in the shed prior to place. It's very much the race of position. You've bent right down, you're wrist after a half an hour, your back hurts because you've got your bucket seat. It's not the easiest to operate the levers on because they're all put together tight to give you t It makes a lovely noise. When you go through a town and that, people will look up and you can see they know what t It's not for sale. It'somet Fours and against for old enough classic bike. Well, they are very nice to ride. Everyone stops and has a look when you park up at the cafe or pub. Downsides are they're right to start. You need to lock them away with chains and covers and not let anyone know where they live. Otherwise someone will steal it. I t You have to clean it regularly. You have to maintain it. You have to check that it's, British bikes are renowned to have oil leaks. No oil leaks. Put together properly. Anyone can throw somet But unless you do the job properly, it will leak. Playing with the fuel, if you keep fresh fuel in it, don't ride it once a year and then say it don't start because you need to put fresh fuel in it. Clean it out nice. Take the tank off and wash it out occasionally if it's not going to be used very often. Better to look at it than ride it I that's why I've got it. For I do the tours on by a modern bike to look at, take to a show, talk about it by yourself a classic bike. Well, when I got the bike, it hadn't been ridden very much at all. And the friend of mine, Dave, he'd come and had a look at it for me and suggested we have a bit of a tidy up. There's a few parts on it that weren't nice to look at the tank and the seat before the glass. Basically, when he pulled into bits, tidying up new parts that were needed, fresh oil, carburettor stripped and clean. And Dave's a man to do that because that's what he does. The bike was in a bit of a state where it was Basically, what we've done with t Front of my guard was a full length. What we decided to do just chop it down. It's quite nice actually because it gives it a more sporty appearance. Forks are commando, Norton commando. They work very well. Norton Forks rode holders in the past, extremely good forks. If you're going to do a build, commando, rode holders on dominators, good front ends to use. The brake disc assembly is a commando but it is the big brake conversion. They've done this, it'slightly bigger so it should be a more efficient brake but it'still, The back wheel, that's all commando. Obviously, at the time when t But that's a good brake. It works very well. It's easy to put in there. They do have conical hubs sometimes. If you were to look at the bike when it had the Manx Norton engine in, when they raced it, you have conical hubs and to build a bike up with conical hubs is so expensive. So t As far as the engine goes, you had to have new carburetors because with age, these carbs, once they get t We tried using a sonic cleaner. Couldn't get the carburetion right so we required three new carburetors w Got it to run a lot better. It's got a nice tick over to it now. We decided to put the h Whereas normally when you build these sort of bikes and t So we put the battery in a tray underneath the h So we have electronic ignition and that's We have a tag out the back for Optimate so you can charge a battery as you need to. The clutch in these as everyone knows is the DARF-RAM clutch. It's either in or it's out. It's quite positive and that can be a little bit of a ham for at times. Typical 70s sort of style where it's all fiberglass. It has the compartment in the back where you'd have a few tools. But to be honest with you because it has the n It looks cleaner. So we've done away with the fuel tank as everyone knows fiberglass it can delaminate. It's caused by ethanol and fuel. And what happens is it starts breaking down. It goes scabby. The petrol will become literally the tank will become porous. It will leak through from the inside to the outside. I had t So we decided to put a nice al So that really was redundant. As you can see here we have the old silencers. They're megaphones. And because we'd lifted the appearance of the bike and made it look nice and s People really wanted replacing. They just didn't look right. Back mudguard that was on the bike is not the right profile. And it's got so many holes in it. T So wider mudguard now. What we have on the back here this would be off something T It looks right. You're trying to make the lines look tidy. You don't want to over clutter it. And it's We just had a tail breather coming out by the side of the mudguard. We only wanted one breather pipe. We didn't want pipes hanging out all over the place. So it's got a clean line to it really. Shocks the other place though the old ones they lost their damping and We did have a little bit trouble though with the linkage. The rear set linkage is not an easy one. And because the kick starts a long sweep trying to get it to miss a gear lever was a little bit awkward. So we had to compromise a little bit. It's not easy. You find these foot you're trouble getting your toe into it. But that's how you live with these bikes. You have to sort of But hey, t You approach the bike. You've got mechanical things There's two fuel taps because it's got three carburetors. One down one side and one the other side. As you can see being a regular rider I know exactly where it is. Then you do the famous tickling of the carburetors w You do the outer one here until the fuel floods through. Do the other side until the fuel floods through w And you do the middle one w And there hopefully we have it. Nice fire hazard. Put the foot rest up. Kick start out. On board. Turn on the ignition. Pull the clutch in. Get it in your right position and hopefully with a bit of luck it might go. On the other hand it might not. And there it is. P At the moment people just sort of t It should be a Nordster. The tank on t Mount the tank on to the rubber. That works quite well. T You have a clip at the back it just puts tension on there. That's made of stainless steel rubber underneath it. It just pulls down nicely. And the oil tank has the Monza cap central. The main one here as we know is an early wide line feather bed frame with there's a little bit of flex on the back end so I put a horseshoe stiffer in the back w It just stops t So it's a little bit prone to a little bit of it can be a little bit twitchy but I that definitely makes a big improvement. There is a bit of a story about the wide line frames. Fantastic handling and with the Norton 500 engine it was it can beaten really. It was so good in its day and for a w So what was happening was people would want to buy the engines and not the bike and I t A little bit heavy being a triple but the power you get and the sound you get I t Getting back to the featherbed frame the wide line frame was used by many engines other than standard it would have been something like an ES2, a single cylinder 500 originally or it could have been a dominator which would have been the 500 or 600 twin Norton engine but people put all sorts of engines in here Tri It'such a good frame handling from a featherbed need I tell anyone they handle extremely well so to get a triple engine to actually sit in that frame is not bad it's quite tight but it goes in there. If you're going to put an engine into a frame In the old days you would probably get your frame and you have your frame in the workshop on the bench and you put a cardboard box underneath the frame and you would sit your engine on the top you've got a start point from there you probably get bits of cardboard and you draw out what you think would be your engine plates and where you would think it would probably sit probably the best position really they don't want it too far back too far forward obviously it's got a clear the frame you want to make sure the engine sits as low as possible in the frame you don't miss too high it's a big old l The swing arm which holds the back wheel the alignment is going to be right so when you build this you've got to make sure that your chain run is straight you don't want the sprockets being out of line or the back wheel out of line as it won't handle that is a bit of takes a bit of time to sort that out you had straight edges and If you enjoy our videos please subscribe to our YouTube channel click the notifications bell and give the video a We value every one of our subscribers and your support really does help us make more videos. 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