The headers are from BUB, and Damian converted the carburetion to a single Mikuni. By the time he’d finished, he’d added a bucketload of extra power and shaved off around 12 kg in weight. “A bottom end rebuild was in order, so I called on JS Motorsport,” he says.ĭamian also added lightened pistons, Carillo rods and a Stage 1 race cam. But since then, a cam follower has disintegrated and destroyed the internals. The engine seemed in good condition, so Damian just ground the valves and added a Joe Hunt magneto. He narrowed and shortened the new frame, rebuilt and shortened the forks, and reinstalled the motor. And after a year of building, here we have it.” Damian ditched the frame and picked up a stock frame with the rear loop already cut out. “I decided to create a street track-dirt track-cafe racer hybrid. “The seller mentioned a bottom-end noise, but I found it was simply a loose tappet.” With non-matching numbers and a bizarre stepped backbone frame-perhaps to suit a short rider-Damian rode the Norton for a year while debating what to do with it.

But it’s from my old backyard-Sydney, Australia.ĭamian Bombardiere bought his Commando on the cheap from eBay three years ago.

When I first saw this 1969 Norton, I’d have bet big money that it was from one of the established Japanese workshops. It’s now gracing the pages of Tank Moto, a super-stylish magazine from the publishers of Fuel Magazine. We first happened across this amazing Norton Commando eight months ago.

Norton commando frame loop