Everyone in my family knows about my obsession with motorcycles. That I had worked weekend after weekend to make the money to buy my first bike, an early FS1E and that l was only happy when tinkering with or riding my second, an even earlier Yam 125 two stroke twin. When a distant relative passed away word slowly filtered around the family that he had a big motorcycle stored away in his garage. Eventually, his wife phoned me up, convinced that my love for motorcycling was equal to her dead spouse's, she offered me the machine for nothing if I'd come up and take it away!
Four mates and myself were on the train the next day, for the 100 mile trek across the country to Birmingham. All I knew about the bike was that it was a Norton, hadn’t been touched for ten years and was a big twin of some kind. The poor dear was a bit overwhelmed by five leather clad hoodlums suddenly descending upon her, and quickly left us to unwrap the bike huddled in the corner of her garage.
Jesus, what a sight. It sort of looked like a greased up CD175 only without the style! Huge mudguards, a horrible looking engine and a pressed steel frame that C50 owners would have rejected as too ugly. The whole was covered in a thick layer of grease, part of which quickly covered our clothes. Ugh! After removing the seized up chain, it could be pushed out into the sunlight and studied in all its glory.
The relative came out and handed me the logbook. This revealed the heap as a 1961 Norton Navigator of 349cc displacement. Further study revealed that it was indeed a vertical twin and had a wheel at each end, could therefore be classified as a motorcycle, although looking at it I had grave doubts about that definition. We pushed it up hill and down dale to the railway station, where an altercation with a couple of porters ensued until I handed out a couple of fivers and we were treated like royalty rather than grease covered scum.
Back home, the next day, the machine was pushed to the local jet-wash, sprayed with three cans of Gunk and cleaned off. Some old fart in a big Merc, who kept blowing his horn in impatience at the time it took us to clean the Norton, got a car full of water for his pains. In my garage a long list was made of bits that had perished or rotted away during the storage, oil was changed, rust was removed from the points, a new set of spark plugs and battery installed and various tanks filled with essential liquids.
To be fair to the thirty year old beast, rust was conspicuous by its absence, even the spokes and rims still showed signs of chrome, and the engine alloy just needed a bit of polish to get it back to the state the manufacturer had intended. Kicking over the engine revealed that everything still worked and a nice fat blue spark from the plugs was a sight for sore eyes.
Would the beast start? No way. We formed relay teams to kick the engine into life. After the first hour there was a promising hint of combustion, thirty minutes later it was trying hard to explode into life and then with a tremendous, earth shattering backfire it was running. A huge pall of smoke emerged from the exhausts, as whatever the previous owner had put in there to preserve them burnt off. No rev counter, but the engine seemed to run very unevenly for the first ten minutes but then settled down to a nice even beat.
My mates and I screamed in unison and headed for the stack of beer cans in celebration. It took two weeks to gather the necessary pile of bits to make the machine roadworthy. The total cost in parts came to around £150, so it wasn’t that cheap a deal. I rode the machine proudly down to the MOT station where it passed without the need for a backhander.
My initial impressions were that it ran along well at low revs with little vibration and enough power to keep up with the traffic flow. The SLS drum brakes, despite new shoes, were pretty frightening until I realised the necessity for a gorilla grip. It was as chuckable as my small Yamaha and up to 40mph seemed stable enough. A knowledgeable mate had told me I was lucky to have the 350 version, as it had proper Norton Roadholder forks unlike the 250 which had some very cheap and nasty suspension.
I decided to take the long route home, down some fast country lanes to see what it would do. I knew the roads well, and had buzzed my little stroker up to an indicated 85mph on the longer straights, so expected at least the ton from the Norton. What a disappointment, the engine ran out of power at 65mph and discouraged the usual thrashing to the redline, whatever that was on the Navigator, by production of handlebar and footpeg shaking vibes. Once past 70mph, the tank joined in too and the whole bike started weaving across the narrow country lane. I came very close to dropping the plot into a ditch, only backing off the throttle and slamming on the brakes saved the day.
I was even less impressed when I found the vibes had wrecked my expensive watch. Back in town I hurled it through the traffic, screaming the engine in second, not in the least impressed with the acceleration. I used the bike alternatively with the 125 Yam, one day the Norton, the next the Yam. I could find little in the bigger machine that impressed me, even the fuel consumption was worse. the Norton rarely doing better than 45mpg, whilst the Yam hovered around 70mpg!
I was impressed by the toughness of the Navigator, though. When a car rushed across my path the puny brakes were only able to knock speed down to 25mph. There was a gratifyingly large dent in the car whilst I could find no damage, other than a dented mudguard, on the Norton. Town riding was not too bad apart from the minor problem of the antiquated suspension that allowed every minor bump, never mind the huge craters or potholes, straight through to my spine. Suspension travel was minimal, springs rock hard and damping a modern concept Norton had not yet grasped.
The engine vibrated and rattled like the end was near, but in the 8000 miles I did in 14 months, it proved surprisingly reliable. Only 500 mile adjustments of points and copious oil leaks showed up its age and ancient design. I did not much fancy stripping the motor down, so left it well alone and tried not to thrash the balls off it too much - there wasn't much point, anyway, as power all but disappeared at high revs. It was very cheap to run on consumables, in fact once I splashed out on all the new bits I didn’t need to replace anything.
A local event organised by the Norton Owners Club inspired me to take the Navigator along. Expecting to be welcomed with open arms into the fold, l was surprised to be viciously attacked by old farts who posed on gleaming Dominators and Commandos.
Apparently, the Navigator isn't a real Norton, and I should do the decent thing, keep it locked away out of sight and sound. I got my own back on one particularly vehement old duffer by swapping his HT leads over. Last I saw of him he was red in the face in heart attack country, vainly leaping up and down on the kickstart of his dead motor.
On a few occasions I got into the right frame of mind for Navigator riding, gently pottering down deserted country lanes with less than 50mph up on the clock, the pleasant bark of the exhaust and gentle heat of the sun backing up the sheer pleasure of motorcycling that exists regardless of machine or speed. But as I’m only 19, lust after a YPVS350 and have an image to keep up these occasions were rare.
More usually, I buzzed the engine into the vibration zone as far as l dared or could take, whizzed through town with something near elan and tried pivoting the bike on its stand prongs during fast riding. It was particular fun to scrape the undercarriage in the dark with a huge spray of sparks following the machine. This was probably the only way the other drivers could see the Navigator, the lights were terrible, dimly flickering things... l think most of the generator's power was used up firing the spark plugs.
In the end I sold the Navigator to some fanatic who had a garage full of the various models in the range. He insisted that they were easily the best motorcycles ever produced anywhere in the whole world; I just took the money and laughed all the way to the bank. I did not feel the least bit sad to see the back of the heap.
David Louis