I rang up the lady, who didn’t seem sure what model it was either. When we finally arrived, we spied what looked to be a Norton Dommie painted a hideous bright orange leant against the garage wall. The son of the household came out to start it for us. Not being a Norton buff, I didn’t notice anything unusual about the unit engine - which by definition couldn't be a Norton - until I spotted BSA engraved on the primary chaincase.
"What gives?" I asked pointing to the engine. "It’s a Norbsa A65, very rare. Quick too - dad said he’d had a ton twenty on the clock,” the son replied whilst attempting to start the thing and getting nowhere. "Been laid up for a while, but I had her running last Sunday.” At his insistence we heaved it to the local hotel and began pushing it up and down the car park, where it eventually fired up amid a cacophony of pops and bangs which brought an irate hotel manager out to request that we vacate his property like yesterday.
Impressed with the healthy Brit bike racket, I haggled the price down to £475 and gingerly rode home with a friend following on my Bonnie. I had my first taste of Featherbed frame handling on that ride through the twisty North Wales lanes and was well chuffed - it was when we hit the dual carriageway as we got back to Merseyside that one of the bike's bad points manifested itself.
Up until then, I'd been chugging along at 40-50mph with everything feeling fine, but now as I would the throttle open the vibes at the bars passed the pain barrier at anything over 50mph, so it was a leisurely trip back to Birkenhead, where I dumped the bike at a mechanic friend’s garage for him to check it out. This was early in my Brit bike career and I had practically no mechanical knowledge, but I soon learnt the hard way!
It was given a clean bill of health and as my Bonnie blew up more or less as soon as I got the Norbsa back, it was pressed into immediate service for the 50 mile trip to work. It was reasonably reliable and certainly never left me stranded miles from nowhere. As well as speed limited by the vibes there was also the problem of parking it safely as both stands were precarious in use. One night, after a booze up, we stopped off at a chippie and whilst ordering my pie and chips I glanced outside to see the Bonnie sitting on the pavement. A broken clutch lever and half the contents of the oil tank over the pavement (the next day I walked past the chippie where there were oily footprints all over the pavement). Oddly enough, I replaced it with a pattern Honda dogleg lever which fitted perfectly.
Because of its aversion to speed, I generally used it as a commuter hack and used the rebuilt Bonnie for long journeys. One day the Bonnie packed up when I had to do a 300 mile trip, so the Norton was pressed into service. The slower speed was made up for by nice weather, interesting A roads and a lack of traffic. We stopped at a pub in the middle of nowhere on the way south and had a couple of pints outside in the sunshine. A coach party of pensioners arrived and one old boy claimed to work at the Norton factory telling me that it had the wrong kickstart fitted - I didn’t have the heart to tell him about the engine. It took a few attempts to start and the old codger’s parting shot was, "It'll start better if you get the proper kickstart.”
We chugged along and everything was cool until we got to Banbury when the back of the silencer fell off and the baffle came out. We retrieved both and noticed the hole where it was mounted had widened out, presumably from the vibes. With it all bolted together the bike ran for 30 miles until the same thing happened again. We arrived in time to enjoy a party and a brilliant time - we were the only bikers there but the old Norbsa proved a good conversation point with the yuppie cagers.
Sunday morning we set off fairly early and I let my friend take the controls as I was knackered and hung over. In his eagerness to get home in the later stages of the journey (after many exhaust rebuilding stops until a huge jubilee clip was pressed into service) he screwed the beast up to 70mph amid an enormous din, defying any mechanical sympathy he may have once have possessed. Amazingly, the bike kept going and when we stopped to swap positions I asked how he'd coped with the pain and if it maybe smoothed out at 70mph, but he said no, it just gets worse and worse. We eventually returned home at 11pm totally knackered.
As I mentioned before, my mechanical knowledge at this stage of the game was limited, so I decided to have the thing serviced by a guy around the corner who did bike repairs at his home. When it was returned, I took it for a blast on the motorway to see what I could wring out of it. I wound it on way past the pain barrier and saw 75mph on the clock before it went bang in a big way, locking the back wheel up. Luckily, the amount of noise had prompted me to ride with my hand on the clutch just in case, so the slide was only momentary before I pulled in the clutch and freewheeled to a halt - it was still pretty hairy, though!
I waited for twenty minutes debating whether to call the RAC or push it a couple of miles home, then decided to kick it over to see if it had freed itself after cooling down. It reluctantly limped home on one cylinder. Only when I was safely back home did I examine the motor and notice the gaping hole where the right-hand con-rod had exited the crankcase - one written off motor!
I swapped the rolling chassis for a complete A65 in bits, keeping the knackered engine for spares. When I eventually got it on the road it vibrated much less than the Norbsa and 85mph was attained without undue pain, so I can only assume the A65 motor didn’t suit the Featherbed frame or maybe the lack of a cylinder head steady on the Norbsa caused the vibes. Whatever the reason, I certainly won't be buying another.
Dave Pearson