NORTON COMMANDO Mk3 INTERSTATE...
Norton’s last conventional twin was a fine touring machine with a long range indeed. Frank Westworth finds comfort in familiarity
Norton’s last conventional twin was a fine touring machine with a long range indeed. Frank Westworth finds comfort in familiarity
Preconceptions are wonderful things. Even after 1 million years of riding all manner of motorcycles I still get a little excited whenever the opportunity arises to ride a Norton Commando. Any Commando – apart from the JPS or Production Racer devices, which are simply too uncomfortable for my weary limbs. But the road bikes? The entire range, from Fastback to Hi-Rider? Thrills galore.
But… there is always a But. Commandos are also very variable. In my experience they are rather less consistent in their quality than, say, a contemporary T140 Bonneville. I have ridden a few truly horrible Commandos, although to be fair they were mostly back in the days when old Brits – even Commandos – were decently cheap, so were run by riders like me who had almost no money for maintenance. One possible unexpected benefit of the surge in Commando prices over the last several years is that as the bikes are now worth so much it’s worth spending quite a bit on them. But cheap transport … they are not. Not any more.
Personal stuff time. My very first Commando – back in 1978 or so – was a yellow Interstate. I swapped a T140 for it. It was … remarkable. The Norton, not the Triumph. The Triumph was simply not a machine I enjoyed. Unlike the Norton, which was very very strange. That particular example was easily faster than the Bonnie, leaping along with the great wads of torque for which the bikes were famous. I rode it home to Chester from the Lake District. It was very smooth – mostly. It was mechanically quiet – mostly. It did however produce an alarmingly metallic knocking noise under certain throttle loadings. I used the word ‘certain’ because I can’t remember what those loads were – but it was impossible to produce the knock in neutral at a standstill. A vexatious mystery. I struggled to understand it. Then I changed the colour of the bike from yellow to blue. That had no effect on the increasingly irritating knock. I was bemused.
And of course one of my all-time favourite machines is my own Commando – a 1975 Roadster; a Mk3 like the test victim pictured hereabouts.
At this point, I should of course dive into the Which Commando Is The Best Commando? debate… and in fact it’s very tempting to do so. At one time it was a relevant and possibly important debate, too, because most of the Commandos available for purchase were reasonably as they left the factory, with all the plus and minus points of the various models. I’ve shared several of these conversations down the years and always enjoyed hearing the views of others. For a very long time, the accepted wisdom was that the Mk2A was the best Bendy, but I never actually agreed with that.
For quite a long time – and remember that in my own allegedly professional vale of tears I have been compelled to ride a lot of Commandos – my view was the very best was the very first. The original Fastback – although it wasn’t actually called that at the time. I rode a few actual new ones, too, owned by rather more affluent friends, including a month-old 1971 red Fastback which was such a staggering contrast to my own G12 Matchless that I was briefly lost for words when returning it. ‘What do you think?’ <splutter> That sort of thing. Long after that, Norton introduced the Mk3 and like everyone else I laughed knowingly at the ‘Electric Start’ decal on the side panels. Hohoho and so on. Everyone said they didn’t work, and everyone is never wrong, as we all know only too well in these internetted days, so it must be true. I recall with retrograde amusement the first time I encountered one on the road – while my T140V was parked outside the Ponderosa Café atop the Horseshoe Pass near Llangollen. It hadn’t broken down; I was enjoying a restorative cuppa and maybe a light salad-based huge breakfast or two. I’d parked the Triumph next to a silver Mk3 Interstate and indeed chatted with the owner while we both girded our loins for that entertaining ride back towards England. I made all the standard Mk3 jokes – he grinned amiably and talked about tyres. Strange but true.
And when we left, together, he sat aboard his less-than-clean machine while I went thought the tickle, tickle, priming kick, tickle, ignition on, big kick… another big kick and hurrah procedure. He turned the ignition key, pressed the button, clicked into gear and rode ahead, waving as he left. Commandos
corner as well as T140 Bonnies, you know. That was a lesson learned – until that point I’d firmly believed – because everyone said so and everyone is never wrong – that Commandos wallowed like hippos on rollerskates while oily-frame Triumphs steered finer than a featherbed. Not so. Commandos were plainly ace and I plainly needed to have one. I swapped that very T140 for the yellow 750 Interstate mentioned above … which is where we came in.
One of the many minor crying shames of a long riding life is that for very many years I tended to believe what I read in bike magazines. Why would I not? These guys rode more bikes than I ate Little Chef breakfasts and know their stuff, right? Well…
The Wisdom was that the best Bendy was the Mk2A. I ran several. I also ran a couple of early 750s which were far, far more exciting to ride than the woofly 850, and I knew, Gentle Reader, that the Mk3 was rubbish. I read this a lot. And the very first Mk3 I rode was indeed pretty grim. The electric starter had been removed (‘Didn’t work and was very heavy’) and it weaved like a drunkard when I attempted to push it hard through bends. That was in very early CBG days and in the same week I rode a gloriously original and unrestored drum-braked 1969 Fastback in metal flake blue and loved it. Preconceptions maintained, then.
Shortly afterwards I became unable to kickstart big twins, decided to acquire both a T160 Trident (electric start of course) and a Mk3 Commando (ditto – although I knew they didn’t work of course) and did so. The Commando fooled me, because although it required a fully charged battery its starter motor would almost always start the engine, especially if I helped it a little by easing it past compression before thumbing the button. And that is the red Bendy which still lives in The Shed, rebuilt to perfection by Les Emery at Norvil several years ago. It has a new modern-type starter motor now, and starts easily on the coldest of dawns.
Which brings us, weaving and rattling in that traditional Commando way, around to the feature victim – the somewhat yum some Mk3 you can see here in Chris Dickinson’s excellent photos.
All too often when I go to check out a bike for these only slightly smudgy pages I end up wanting to buy the thing. This happens far more than can be healthy – maybe I need counselling? Who knows? And in this case I was only too aware of this grim possibility – it takes little logical leapery to convince myself that an almost stock Mk3 Interstate would sit very well in The Shed next to my highly modified and not even faintly stock Mk3 Roadster. I mean … the perfect pair or what?
Because this Interstate is remarkably stock. Alloy rims have replaced the original chromed hoops and a pair of peashooters has been fitted in place of the original ‘bean can’ black cap silencers. That’s a shame. Even though my own little red Roadster also boasts a pair of peashooters – and they do sound fabbo to be honest – I prefer the considerable genteel quiet of the bean cans. I also think they look nicer. Each to their own, as we say at RCHQ, where a Honda Grom has apparently taken up residence. Strange … but true.
There’s another common Commando misconception. In fact there are several, but time is short… Everybody knew at one point that converting a Commando Roadster into an Interstate was as easy as converting a US
Bonneville into a UK model. Well… it’s not. On the Triumph the bars and tank (and a few cables and a hose, so forth; let’s not get too hung up in detail here) need to be changed … on the Norton the bars, tank and seat and side panels need changing. The latter are only cosmetic, but the point I’m wobbling slowly towards is that the shift in riding position between Roadster and Interstate is more pronounced than on the Triumph. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing; it is merely a thing. A matter of preference.
I rarely find UK model oily-frame Triumphs to be comfortable. My last one, a Harris, was actually OK for me, and although its bars were as they left the Devon factory, they were not much like those on its predecessor, which was a Royal. I do find that when the stock footrests are used in conjunction with the high and wide US bars the Bonnie becomes a lot more handy. That’s a personal thing.
On Commandos, I find both Interstate and Roadster to be very comfortable. They’re quite surprisingly different, with the tourist Interstate’s epic fuel tank shoving the rider backwards, which eases the knees, while the lower but still wide bars lower that rider’s shoulders and induce a forward slouch. On the Roadster, all is more upright, more
sporting somehow, which is presumably what Norton’s designers were after. Simple stuff, but important when considering a bike to ride. My own preference is the Roadster. A personal thing. Mine has wider bars than most to match my shoulders, which are also wider than most.
Back to the bike in question. Its stockness includes an original Prestolite starter motor, and everybody knows that they don’t work, so I wasn’t expecting much. Except that it worked fine. As with my own machine when it still had its original starter, I eased the pistons over compression before thumbing the thing, but … off it went.
Commando clutches can also be a little temperamental. Several of my own down the years have managed to slip or drag or both. A couple of them have been perfect. If asked, I would suggest that it’s all down to stack height – as is so often the way with multiplate clutches. There have been several varieties of plates available for Commando clutches, and they all work to a greater or lesser extent. What is always worth bearing in mind is that they need to be changed in sets. This clutch was decently light, and its diaphragm spring was working well, so there was nothing wrong with the stack height. Which is what, exactly?
Stack height in this case refers to the thickness of the complete set of clutch plates – the ‘stack’ in question. Commandos – like Tridents – boast clutches held together by a single diaphragm spring rather than a collection of small coil springs. Diaphragm springs are great, applying even pressure and needing no adjustment. They also take up plate wear, which – obviously enough – also reduces that famous stack height. Eventually, the plates wear to the point at which the spring has passed its point of optimum efficiency and misbehaviour results. Slipping, dragging and a heavy action are all symptoms. All curable by replacing the friction plates.
In this case, the drag was so slight that I suspect it would clear up once the plates get used to rubbing along together again. And an oil change. Maybe two. Oil changes are good.
Like all decent Commando engines, this one was mechanically pretty quiet. There’s quite a lot of metal milling around inside, and you can amuse yourself by watching the engine squirm against its Isolastic mountings at tickover. And indeed the thing would tick over, although it was a good idea to be careful when returning the choke lever to its open position.
Speaking of chokes, unlike my own machine, this one is still adorned with a pair of Amals, just as its maker intended. I’d hoped to be able to wax all smug about how mine – running just the one carb – was better. But it wasn’t. In fact they felt so similar that I couldn’t feel any difference. However … I’m a journalist, so I know I’m right about one carb being better than two! Or not.
And then it’s all down to the riding thing. The big tank is long as well as big, as previously mentioned, and the position it induces is really rather comfortable. The arms are a little more stretched out than is the case with my own bike, but it is in fact really comfy. Everything feels right, somehow. And everything works very well. Main road speeds arrive very very quickly – Commandos always accelerate remarkably well – and it’s up to you whether you rattle along at 65mph in third or roll along at the same speed in fourth. Norton Commandos
have but four gears, remember, and to be honest four is enough. There’s a unique and delicious lope to Commando motoring, the engine feels to be revving slowly and in a very relaxed way – 70 is 4000rpm, give or take, and that feels really effortless. As well as being completely smooth.
Back in the distant days of my very first Commando rides, that was the most astonishing feature of the breed – the excellent effectiveness of the engine mounting system. Being a Mk3, the Isos fitted here are easily adjustable and were well adjusted. Vibes intrude at low engine speeds and then vanish with switch-like abruptness at around 3000rpm. After that it’s magic carpet time.
And the engine’s long legs, the gearbox’s wide, long ratios and the competence of the bicycle itself remind me every time I ride one of the reason Commandos kept winning MCN’s Machine Of The Year awards. It is a great riding machine, this.
Even the brakes – stock single discs at each end – were OK. Not great, despite the front having an aftermarket braided steel hose, but OK. I would upgrade them due to paranoia, but that’s another personal thing. Likewise the suspension. I suspect that the forks contain their original springs – they’re stiff enough – and that the rear shocks may also be original. Mine has Progressive springs up front and Hagons on the rear – the front is notably better than stock, the rear less so. Again, I’m not a light bloke, so other springs may suit other – lighter – riders better. But, as I said, the package works very well. All of it.
No leaks, no smoke, no drama. I really do like good Commandos, and this is one of those.
You want to ride gently, like down a grasscentred country lane? Fine; that big soft engine can be clutch-home and steady in first gear at maybe 15mph. Or… you want to impress at the traffic lights GP? You can slip the clutch on a fat handful of throttle and power first gear well past 35mph if you want – those 58 brake horses appear to enjoy working hard! This is a great all-rounder, although the riding position does not exactly encourage hooligan riding – you’d want one
of the smaller tanked models for that slim and upright throw it all around riding, really.
Some bikes have a peculiar effect on me. Again, this is a personal thing. Some Commandos do it, Commanders too, a couple of BMWs also, and a couple of Harleys. The effect they produce is an urge to ride a long way. Just like that. To ignore the destination and to dream up a quick excuse for another 50 miles, maybe 100. A recent disappointment was that the current Commando, the 961, is not among those bikes. But this Interstate really is one of those machines.
However… there should always be a ‘however’. There are still a lot of horrible Commandos out there and the secret info is that we should all avoid buying them – unless it’s a project and described as such. Maybe the biggest area for concern includes bikes kept running for many years on little or no maintenance, using spares taken from other Commando models or from other bikes entirely.
Returning to the top of the story, I talked about my very own very first Commando – a yellow Interstate I rode down from the Lake District to Cheshire. The one with the mysterious but fairly unpleasant engine knock which proved almost impossible to identify. In the end, I asked a friend to ride with me and observe the engine to see whether he could see anything loose, banging around. The knock didn’t interfere with the performance and wasn’t getting worse – but it was seriously irritating on an otherwise smooth and fast bike.
After the ride, my friend was rolling his eyes and shaking his head – neither of these being entirely good signs. He gripped the top of the primary chaincase with gloved hands and made a mighty heave. The chaincase moved away from the crankcase. A little dismantling revealed that the chaincase wasn’t bolted to the crankcase. How come? Because the bolt holes didn’t line up – not at all. The reason? The drive-side crankcase half was from another Norton – an Atlas. You live … you learn.
When I rolled up to gaze lustfully at the bike, I told Chris of Venture Classics – for it was one of his machines – of my thoughts about having a pair of Commandos. He smiled at me, proffered the traditionally stimulating high-caffeine brew and shared with me his view that as I already had one of the very best Bendies on the planet I would never ride the Interstate. A convincing argument. In any case … it was already sold. A more convincing argument, that one.