The Story of “Strunzo”: The rebirth of my 1971 Norton Commando

My name is Karl Hoyt and I am a Guitar Building /Woodworking teacher at Nauset Regional High School on Cape Cod, Mass. I’ve been doing that work since 2000. Prior to that, I was a psychotherapist working with troubled children and families. I’m 57, I’ve been married for 34 years to Marilyn, I have three grown children, three grandchildren , a pug and a couple of cats. I’m still a  part-time working musician .

“You can’t have a motorcycle!” seems to be the story of my life.  It’s what my parents told me when I was a teen. It’s what my wife has told me for 30 or so years.  When I went into the Navy in 1970, the first thing I did when I  got to the USS Chicago in Long beach, Ca. was buy a 1968 BSA lightning (much to mom’s dismay) . It was UGLY  with z bars, a peanut tank, and fork extension.  I was going to bring it back to  stock when the mechanic  told me the motor had some serious problems.  So I sold it to a redneck navy buddy and bought a ’72 Triumph Daytona.  That bike took me all over southern California. But when I went overseas shortly before my discharge, I  sold it.

I got married in 1975 and tried (in vain) to get a motorcycle. No dice!  As career building and kid raising occurred, I kind of forgot about getting a motorcycle and rode bicycles, hiked, and camped with the family.  For fun (as well as my mental health) I built guitars and played in bands. I came close to getting a Commando in  the mid-80’s until my wife got wind of it (it was my best friend’s)  and put the brakes on  the deal.

In 2000, I changed careers from psychotherapist to woodworking teacher, and the idea of getting out of work (making sawdust) and going home to make more sawdust wasn’t very enticing anymore. One day,  I was talking to my dear friend, Chris Riccottelli about gettingt an old Brit Bike to tinker with. He told me” hey, I know where there’s a Norton Commando… do you want it? ‘YES!!!” I said.  He was down in Virginia and , for 150 bucks and some gas money, Chris hauled it up to me. Chris’ nickname was ‘Strunzo Pazzo” (crazy sh*t). So it only made sense that  I name the bike after my dear friend, who was responsible for introducing me to this beast.

You should have seen my wife when I took the bike off the truck and leaned it against a tree in the back yard: “WHAT the HELL is THAT??????”  she said…(well, groaned)  “This is a CLASSIC  Norton Commando that I’m going to restore, honey” I said with great pride.

ASSESSING THE BIKE: FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

Thank God for Rose Colored Glasses.  I didn’t really see what a wreck the bike was, all I could see/feel was that I FINALLY had my hands on a Brit bike after around 30 years.

The gentleman from whom I got the bike took the spark plugs out of the engine, and leaned it up against a barn for 20+ years.    He had welded REBAR (that’s right, concrete reinforcement bar)  onto the frame  for some ultra-cool highway pegs.

The only intact components were the  hubs , frame , engine, the  fenders,  gas tank, oil tank and foot pegs. The wheel/ rims were rotted, spokes were broken from rust through, the headlight bucket was rotted, the  battery tray was rotted away. At least the frame was straight.

Step 1:  The engine:

The  odometer was frozen and the bezel broken but it was frozen at about 4300 miles. This was  possibly good news, because the starting point of the rebuild was potentially a pretty tight engine.

I pulled the engine apart using my trusty Clymer manual.  Bagged each component group, and kept a running tab of parts that seemed to be o.k. vs. those needing replacement.

• The top end was in pretty good shape. Cylinder  heads did not have massive carbon issues and everything seemed intact… no chipped valves, no missing engine pieces.

• When I got the head off, I was confronted with  a cup of red clay in each cylinder. The pistons were completely frozen into the cylinders.  Using  a 2” circular piece of steel, a LOT of sweat, a medium sized hammer, and a great deal of patience I freed the pistons, only to find a slurry of red clay, ancient oil, and water in the crankcase. All that banging and wrestling scored the heck out of the cylinders….. trash them!

• Once I got the crankcase apart and cleaned out the crud, it was remarkably clean:  bearings all ran smoothly, no scoring or galling of mains and crank bearings……I really do think that the slurry of  clay and oil preserved the internals nicely.

• Even the carbs, that were exposed to the weather for such a long time (with no air filter or covering)  cleaned up  nicely and  really needed only new jets,  a new left tickler valve and a lot of de-crudding of the bloat bowl chamber. I bought a K&N filter rather than try and scrounge up a stock airbox. There was no evidence of scoring  or excessive wear in the slides, and once cleaned up,

Putting it back together was a slow process:  as I got a few bucks I’d buy a part or two.  I  did get new ‘heavy duty ‘ jugs  and stock  pistons  from British cycle supply in  Nova Scotia.   I had the head professionally done by a fellow  on the cape who has lots of motorcycle (and brit bike) experience. Other than that, I put the whole engine together myself. I replaced all the cover fasteners with stainless allen head fasteners that I got locally.  I chased the thread holes with an American tap and used off the shelf hardware.   I know I was chastised for this but everything remains tight .  I only did this to covers etc. no  high torque bolts.

Step 2: Frame and suspension:

FIRST THING I did was to cut off the rebar highway pegs and grind down the nubs to the frame. Then, one of the gas tank mounts was actually rotted, so I dusted off OLD welding skills ( I was a boiler technician in the Navy..  but the last time I welded was 1974)  and fabricated a new tank mount.

I stripped the frame to  bare metal, cleaned up the broken kickstand mount and primed  everything INCLUDING   the fenders, triple trees, gas tank,motor mounts , headlight mounts battery tray and oil tank. Then  I sprayed the whole thing with duplicolor Indigo  Blue (I can hear more gasps) and clear coated  everything with  House of Kolor clear coat.   I rubbed out and polished  all the  ‘showy’ parts.   I got heavy duty shocks, rebuilt the  forks, and cleaned up the hubs. I had to turn the brake surface on the front drum on the metal lathe to get rid of a rusted/corroded area.  There was a lot of work and a lot of new parts needed to get the hubs/brakes working front and rear but they stop WAY better than my triumph ever did. And I think the TLS front drum is sexy and classic looking!

I relaced the wheels myself ( left over  skills from my days in college working in a bicycle shop) using buchanan’s SS spokes and NOS wm3 steel rims.  Avon roadriders are the tires.

Step 3: Electrical

The electrics were the place where I deviated from stock the most . In the frame stripping process, I had cut out all the wiring.  I build electric guitars and basses, so  basic circuitry  as you’d find on these bikes  didn’t’ intimidate me at all.  I used the basic wiring diagram  from the Clymer book.  I used 14 ga. wire for just about all of it, with  shrink tube to  keep the wiring harness  clean looking.   I installed a boyer ignition, a dyno coil,  a Kawasaki switch cluster for the handlebar, new headlight bucket with halogen light and a new tail-light  housing from OldBritts. It has a new sparx rotor and a 2 phase stator (ebay) and the bike is now wired 12v negative ground.

The other big change from stock was that I made a plate that attaches to the battery tray. That plate holds the podtronics regulator, the ignition key, and a 4 circuit fuse block (see pix)  I knew that I wasn’t going to use a stock airbox, so by making the plate I had a sensible solution for mounting all that stuff in  the battery area.  An added benefit is that it keeps the battery compartment pretty nicely protected from the elements.
See battery compartment/plate pix.

Step 4:  Miscellaneous stuff:

FIRING DAY

On Thanksgiving day, 2008,  I had my son and two son in law’s at the house. After ascertaining that they were in fact hungry, I announced nobody  could eat until they got my bike out of the cellar.  About 30 seconds later, it was out in the light. I put a little gas in the tank, tickled the carbs, and it fired on the third kick to great jubilation by the men folk (and, frankly a GREAT deal of amazement by yours truly).  My wife was watching from the kitchen window and as it roared to life, I could see her curse a bit. That piece of junk that she NEVER thought would start again, was purring in the back yard!  I took it around the block, and ate my thanksgiving meal with a ridiculous grin. She had lost the war of wills regarding the bike, and reluctantly had to let me keep it. She has actually expressed some (minor) interest in going for a ride on it, now that it seems it won’t blow up:
Sadly, a few  days after Thanksgiving, I heard that Chris had lost his battle with diabetes and throat cancer……..he never got to hear it come to life or take it for a spin.

EPILOGUE:

Though Stunzo started  on thanksgiving of 2008, I spent from that day until about May getting the bugs worked out of the bike:  brake cable (and stop switch) adjustments, torquing the head, adjusting this and that…… By May of this year, I registered  the bike and ventured out onto the roads of Cape Cod. The only real problem was that it was using a lot of oil and was smoking pretty significantly.  Many of you will remember that long   discussion about why it might be smoking.  Finally, after a day of riding  in August when  I was almost picked off by tourists three different times, I decided to put it up on the stand and figure out once and for all what the smoking was all about. I think it was Les or Cookie that warned me that if the oil rings were misaligned and the  middle helical  oil ring had overlapped itself even just a bit, it would smoke.  So I pulled the jugs off ……. Sure enough: in both cylinders, the helical ring in the  3 piece oil ring was overlapping itself.  I carefully repositioned the rings, re-assembled the engine and fired it up:  Voila! NO smoking, considerably  more  compression (much to the dismay of my somewhat  tweaked right leg) and WAY more power. The  grin has yet to subside.

The only other minor annoyance was trying to keep  the pilot channels in the left carburetor clean:  This car was the most exposed to the elements during the bike’s long dormancy  and I had to rebuild the tickle valve and de-crud the float bowl when I rebuilt it. Twice I’ve had to take it apart to clean out that  idle circuit. But it’s not an annoying enough job  to make me want to go to a single carb setup and the last 500 miles or so have been trouble free. In fact, I’ve never been stranded  on old Strunzo except for  running out of gas.

Up next is a new metal gas tank to replace the weepy fiberglass one, and  a better riding jacket.  I can’t wait for  the riding season to start!  All I know is this bike is staying with me until I can’t ride it any longer! (and then my son is circling like a buzzard to take it over, I’m quite sure)

I estimate that I spent around $3000-3500.00 on this build.  I’m a teacher and my wife is an artisan, so we’re not dripping in doe.  I have good mechanical and electronic skills and because I’m a guitar builder, I have good painting skills, so a lot of what might have had to go out to pros I did myself. The valve job and valve guides I left to a seasoned pro and the wheel truing I had my nephew (a motorcycle mechanic) do simply because he had a proper truing stand.

Unfortunately,  I have the rebuilding bug pretty badly now.  I’m currently working on a $100 honda to use as a commuter, and a BSA lightning is waiting for me to pick it up (and for my wife to not be home so I can sneak it into the cellar: “ no honey, that’s always  been there!!!!”J

I want to thank the entire Commando  Forum for their help, encouragement, and expertise in the many questions I had  while embarking on this build. There are other brit bike forums out there but absolutely none better!

Karl Hoyt