The TRUTH Behind the Boxed 1975 Norton 

What mechanics are concerned about is the lack of respect for a Commando. There is a difference between using a bike and ruining a bike. After 50 years in a crate a machine needs extra special care to bring it back to life. A person who is knowledgeable about Commandos, would do many things to ensure you gave it all the care in prep a 1975 Commando needs and requires. Running a bike that needs to be broken in , has to be tuned well and oiled up so you don't start it dry. It is kind of like giving some one a nice gift and they go out and destroy in a few days. And by the way I am a very well known Commando mechanic.

​@Carl Hokanson sweet as mate, but maybe behind the scenes he spent an hour kicking it through to oil her up, we all appreciate some lubrication before a great ride 😊 he doesn't sound like a cowboy, run in time is very important but a Norton loves a good hammering otherwise they carbon up

@@infidel202 I seen other videos he has done, They have a lot to learn about the care and feeding of motorcycles like a Commando. Most people would do research and get a shop manual to read . Even the owner's booklet that comes with the bike has good info in it. Running a bike with a choke on is NO way to break in a bike. I can already hear that the motor is very noisy and there is a good chance the cam and lifters that are known to fail in MK3s are on the way out. Also there is a transmission bearing that need to be replaced as they also are defective. And tork specs on the parts they installed need to be used. It needs a couple of days or more work by a Commando mechanic. Well, he certainly did hammer it, but in the wrong way.

@@CHRnorton how about letting him know what was defective from the factory, unless you know what is wrong you can't fix it,especially if the cam's weren't hardened properly or the pushrods were originally soft, just as the previous owner of my bike put the wrong oil pump on it when he rebuild it, I found out after pulling the Head and barrels off to fix the cross threaded exhaust nut and noticed the rocker arms were bluish from just getting enough oil and the cam had a 60 thou lip at one end, good way to find out the bike you just bought that came with receipts for parts used in a rebuild was put together by a chimpanzee using half a brick and a cold chisel, I didn't hear the cross threaded exhaust until after I had put 500 miles on it and was checking the speedo against a mates gsxr on the highway at night, the monkey had used locktight to cover it up, that was my introduction to the bike I had wanted for years, if you have knowledge about factory faults then instead of criticism offer information as there are a lot of so called experts out there who know F all, I met one in particular who knew everything according to him, I asked a mate about his experiences with the said expert and the truth was he was a total F Witt, unfortunately there are lots of these clowns out there, I could take two weeks to tell you stories about two brothers who are according to them experts in vw beetles but in reality are the most useless pair of monkeys to ever hold a spanner, the older one even pretended to know motorcycles

@@CHRnorton it a motorcycle, pretty much like every other bike of its time! Never understood the special mechanic BS when it comes to British bikes. Is this particular bike so exceptionally crappy that it needs a voodoo priestess 😂😂😂😂😂

Great post, Dennis. Cheers - Mark Brush

The Mk lll is more likely max 40 bhp at the wheel. It never made 58 bhp in standard form. It was dog slow and any Norton 750 would leave it for dead.

Hello from Bridgend mid Glamorgan 😊

@@kasperkjrsgaard1447 40 bhp? Erm.... no. Ps.... Isn't bhp measured at the engine, not the wheel?

​@@kasperkjrsgaard1447 Not every 750 could beat the 850, but the better tuned versions could. Norton dropped the compression after the "Combat" main bearing fiasco and changed some other things as they realized the design was as over-stressed as could be gotten away with.

@@oldbatwit5102 The truth is close to 40 than 60. Everybody overtestimated HP on bikes back then.

Maybe it is just English humour , after all we allowed a English citizen by the name of George Washington to Change a flag and call the country whatever he liked . The money people of course stayed the same . Joe Biden thinks it was a war for freedom ,by Irish freedom fighters. Now there's a real.comedian ..

Yep, I agree= Phuck'em

Amazing who has the right to say who is worthy or not. You brought these beautiful nortons more sunlight than those old snobs ever will !

As someone who grew up in the UK during the70s , the Commando was a BIG bike. An 850 twin was something we were in awe of at the time when most of us aspired to a BSA 500 single pot!

Appreciate that, Troy. Cheers - Mark

yep imp, one word.

@@mej6519 I had two Imps as my first cars after learning to drive in one, so remember them with both fondness and frustration, as they weren’t the most reliable!

@@missogyny4921 a mates dad used to have a full race preped one, remarkabley rapid wee beasty, but yeah engines wernt thier strong suit.

@@mej6519 Warped heads, blown gaskets - ah yes!

They are just jealous because he got the bike they always dreamed of. A Commando in the CRATE for F sakes!

I think the reason for the hate is that so many of these old twins ended up as choppers, and as you know a chopper has no afterlife and is effectively lost to the world. This is a problem when the spares availability from your long dead manufacturer is minimal to say the least. This unboxed beauty is far away from the threat of choppering, and since it's appeared at the peak of the retro boom I'm sure it will live a long and happy life wherever it ends up showing Enfields how it was really done.

92?! 😂😂😂😂

More like 50hp

@@Spargowombat can't debate the matter. They'll do 120 mph tho.

Sorry Jack, but there's no way they had that much HP. Somewhere in the 50-60 range would be more accurate. Plenty of torque though and the gearing would let them do about 120 MPH.

In the later years, Sonny was more interested in socializing with people and telling his story....and less interested in selling motorcycles. He was notorious for overpricing everything. Glad he passed along his legacy in those later years, enjoyed what he built and who came to see/learn about it.

@@sonnyangelarchives2052: Yes. He loved "holding court." I really liked all three of them. Do you remember my South African friend, Andreas "George" Georgeades? He built a few motorcycles around Ferrari engines. Also a V-12 from two CBX engines. I think he bummed some parts from Sonny. I'll have to check out your videos!

@@KutWrite that I do. Have several photos of the Ferrari powered machine in Sonny's collection. May post soon!

@@sonnyangelarchives2052 Cool! I didn't know Sonny had one, too... probably predates George's.

@@KutWrite no, I mean Sonny took pictures of George's machine.....

20W non-detergent in the primary. You won't find any but 20W HD does good. I think still have 2 quarts in the old paperboard cans. There was either a teflon or nylon coated clutch cable made- damn well worth having. I might even have anew one laying around but I don't remember. Bad health has taken my riding days away and going to be getting rid of everything soon but they can't take the memories away 😎

did he drive a norton also, that was a great show

@@Srkcycles yes sir a commando and his name was shawn

@Homie it might not have been comfort for some but at least you knew where you were on the road, me I prefer the solid ride

@Homie yes our bikes have come along leaps and bounds from the sixties and seventies and my old ass is so much more thankful with the new gel seats 😂 😂

Stock? 142? Lol

There is no way a Norton would go 142 stock it wouldn't go that fast even if you threw it out the side of an airplane ✈️ the early bikes made 65 horsepower but the later bikes were choked by the early pollution requirements and their horsepower was down to 57. You cannot rely on a Smith speedometer to tell you the truth they are always an accurate or they are not working at all. I cannot understand about guys bragging about horsepower and speed the bikes are not capable of doing in real life. Cycleworld with the best magazine in the old days because they would put it on a dynamometer and they would touch it on the road and you would see in reality how fast he would go and how much horsepower it would really make. They did not accept manufacturer's inflated claims about their performance.

@@frankmarkovcijr5459 Guinness book of world records fastest production motorcycle built in 1973. I rode Norton from 1974 until 1990 I took mine to a speed Above 140 according to it’s speedo. No way to prove it, I believe it was stock at that time, By 90 it had seen a lot changes,

If it runs better with the choke on it's because the fuel mixture is not set correctly.

Tell him the story of the prodigal son.