When Gary first went to look at this bike, he knew it would need a little work, but it was all there and seemed to ride fine. A lover of fine English machinery, Gary made the deal and took it home. It wasn't until he got it on the road that it started acting up. It rarely started, and when it did, it would only run on one cylinder. After some preliminary troubleshooting, the compression test found almost no compression in one cylinder. As ol' King Henry VIII would say, "off with 'er 'ead".

Gary figured wrong. The bike still wouldn't run reliably. Thinking it was some quirky Norton thing; Gary enlisted the help of local Norton guru, Derek Wilson, to help out so he could get it running and resell it. Gary had always been a BSA and Triumph guy, and had never had trouble getting a bike to run. He'd had enough of this Norton crap and he wanted out.

Derek got it running almost immediately and pointed out that, with a little bit of work, it could be made into a decent bike. At least Gary could then get his money back out of the deal. The bike came with a Suzuki front end which was replaced with the correct Norton hardware. Then came the first of many calls from Derek. With the bike on the bench, and the tank and seat removed, it was obvious that the frame was bent. Since the headstock was 'modified', it was quickly determined that a new frame was needed. Just as with the valve train fiasco, the tear down revealed many more 'shortcuts' from the previous owners. Gary had a dilemma: to continue spending money and keep the bike for himself, or cut his losses and sell it as a basket case.

Gary had enough cash into the bike that he couldn't turn back now, so he managed to find a frame; a modified '71 that had the rear loop hacked off. No problem; they just cut the rear loop off of the original frame and welded it to the new one. The frame, along with a box full of parts, were sent out for silver powder coating, another box of parts was sent out for black powder, while a third box was sent out for chroming.

Gary was concerned with the bike's stopping ability with a drum on the front, so he made a deal with his friend, Rob Lees, to trade the original drum front end for the disk setup and a pair of Hagon rear shocks. A local vintage Norton racer was interested in the spare Suzuki front end so a trade was made, for a pair of Akronts rims that were laced to late model hubs with stainless spokes.

With the help of a couple of local Nortoneers, the reconstruction began. Gary was a little worried about their frequent use of the phrase "it's not my bike" whenever something bad happened. He was always taught to say "sorry" when he broke the other kids toys.

As the build progressed, they installed one of Derek's Nissin caliper front brake upgrades, stainless oil and fuel lines, a 520 O-ring chain conversion, stainless muffler brackets and many other changes to improve handling, reliability, safety and esthetics.

Finally, after almost three years in his possession, it was together and almost ready to go. Derek and his father had been working on the finishing touches one night in order to have it ready for the annual Norton Owners Elephant Run. Just when Gary thought all was good, he got another one of 'those calls'.

It seems the bike started up OK and ran well, but then there was a sudden "clack-clack-clack", and it quit. Out came the motor, one more time, and it was discovered that the cam followers were hanging up inside their barrels. At some point in the past, a cam follower had disintegrated, and chunks of hardened steel had caused havoc inside the running engine. There was damage to the camshaft, the connecting rods and the inside of the cases. The previous owner, in typical fashion, replaced the broken cam follower, ignoring all the other damage. Obviously, a complete engine rebuild was now necessary.

The original bores were intact and only in need of honing; the crank and the crank journals were still in good shape. They ended up replacing the pistons, rings, connecting rods, and big end shells with stock parts. New Superblend crankshaft bearings, a 2S cam and mushroom head tappet adjusters were installed. The original timed crank breathing setup was ditched, in favour of a system that keeps crank pressure at a slight vacuum, thus eliminating oil leaks. With the engine together, back in the frame it went. The whole engine build ended up taking less than a day, with everything going strangely smooth.

Now it's done, well, almost done. OK, so it will never really be finished, Gary admits, but at least he can ride it now. MMM