After finishing the partial restoration on my beloved 850 I couldn’t wait to get out and ride. My first outing was to a local bike night. The steak place up the road was the local hangout for bikers every Tuesday night. My wife and I tried to make a habit of showing up. I had ridden my BMW several times to lavish praise from the attendees. I didn’t feel I deserved it though. The Beemer was all original. It wasn’t my doing. All I did was buy it. How could anyone take credit for a bike they didn’t help create? Oh, are you still reading this Mr. Lawyer Harley guy?

The Norton on the other hand was my project.

The first bike night was a huge success. The gawkers were practically lining up to take turns ogling my machine. I was quite the proud Papa. I tried to linger in the background to hear the comments.
“I think it’s British.” “I used to have a Triumph 650 like that.”(You wish!)
“Wow that one looks like its going 100MPH while parked.” What is that? I like it.”

Overhearing the comments I couldn’t resist going over. I pulled out my tire gauge and proceeded to check the tire pressure. Yes, I had done that at home before I left. But they didn’t know that. As soon as I approached my bike the crowd began to move closer. I could tell a few old guys were dying to ask, er, tell me all about my bike. “Do you know what you’re riding?” asked one particularly eager looking old timer. “Not only do I know what it is, I made it what it is.” Came my snotty reply. Seriously, I mean the guy asked like I just found it down the road and decided it would be fun for the evening. I stayed around chatting for a few minutes with some of my new friends and finally made it over to our table. My wife had been waiting for me to come back. This was the night my wife dubbed the Norton, my “Dick Magnet”.

All guys like to think their bike is a “Chick Magnet”. But Nortons are something special. A bike that people “in the know” oooh and ahh over. Muscle car guys, Harley guys, Sport Bike guys. They all love a shiny old Norton. Any time I park the bike I can barely get away before someone starts in about the Norton they owned in college. I swear they must have made at least half a million of them. How else could so many people have owned one? Or is it the same 10,000 Nortons being shuffled from one unworthy owner to the next?

The next chapter in the Maroon Menaces’ life is perhaps the best, and worst, thing that can happen to a beautiful old motorcycle. My wife and I decided to move from Norman Oklahoma up to Longmont Colorado. The altitude totally jacked my bike. The old jets were far from correct for the new area. In order to keep her running I had to keep the revs up all the time. Any thing under 3 grand and it was like an asphyxiating fish. She wanted to die at every stop. Gone were the bone jarring acceleration and effortless cruising. I rode her a few times after we moved. No more than two hundred miles in two years.

The last time we went out was a simple 25 mile commute. I wanted show off for the guys at work. They were growing tired of all the time I spent extolling the virtues of my perfect machine. They wanted to see for themselves. The legendary 1974 Norton Commando 850 was a big hit at the shop. The trip home is where our story takes a turn.

It was perfect weather for riding. I had been looking forward to getting off work early so I could have a nice blast home on one of the roads that skirts the foothills of the Rockies. I peeled out of the parking lot and raced for the mountains. I kept the revs up and flicked the throttle at lights to keep her going until we hit the state highway I planned to take home. Highway 36 from Boulder to Lyons is not a great road. But it will do in a pinch. 65MPH all the way home. After six months or so away from riding it was nice to feel the wind and hear the blatting exhaust. I always keep an ear on the exhaust while I am riding. On this particular day I heard a sudden change in the note. I immediately pulled over to check it out. I noted only a small crack in the left exhaust pipe welds near the crossover. Not a huge deal. Onward I sped like the devil himself was on a Hayabusa trying to find me. During the last 2-3 miles of the trip the problem got worse. I was cruising through town with my left foot against the side of the exhaust header. By this point it was barely attached. SNAP. Make that not attached. The left head pipe keeled over toward the road and almost dug in. It would have launched me like a pole-vaulter. I caught it with my left foot and with a quick right turn I was off the road. Cursing my luck, thanking my lucky stars, and contemplating the expense of replacing my exhaust system I went looking for supplies. The dumpster near my parking spot yielded an old wire coat hanger and some fiberglass insulation. I managed to wrap the head pipe with fiberglass and secure the whole mess with the hanger. It was not a good repair. The pipe fell off as soon as I was moving again. With home only ½ mile away I just pulled the pipe off and went for it.
The sound of my bike roaring along with one pipe on and the other one lying on my lap was nearly enough to make me cry. I was terrified I was going to burn my valves to smithereens. Thankfully it was all over almost as soon as it began. I made it home and limped her into the garage.

After being reminded how she performed, and how she ran, I decided to order a new set of headers the next day. A week or so later the postman left them on my porch. With grand visions of new pipes and new jets I went straight to the garage and began installing my new headers. The first one went on fine. The pipes were not lining up quite right on the second. I have no idea if the pipe is just poor quality and doesn’t match the bike. Or if I got the sequence wrong when installing and tightening the whole works. Anyway, the next thing I knew I had a handful of aluminum shavings that had once been the exhaust threads. My baby was really hurt now! I removed the exhaust and surveyed the damage. The threads were shot. Apparently I had been cross threading them while tightening. Those aluminum threads peeled out easier than a 65 Camaro. !@#$%!!! Now I’ve done it!

I knew I was going to have to pull the head and have it fitted with a new threaded insert to correct the damage I had done. Park the bike in the back of the garage and wait till I find the time and the energy to get back to it. In the mean time I just focused on some of my other non-motorcycle projects.