1960 Norton Navigator Rebuild

Not sure about the headlight but I bought a remanufactured seat from Bantam John, it was about £100 I think, not perfect, I think it sits a bit high but seems to be well made, I think Leightons do them too.

dan

On the electrical front we have some answers. Yes to 12V and Boyer ignition but wiring needs to be in correct colours! Well at least the industries standardised colours from the mid 1960s. I do have on my web site some details for such a rewire, www.aoservices.co.uk If you click on the top right hand side orange Icon you will go to some pdf one of which covers the lightweights. The Navigator had two Wipac switches left and right of the speedo, The switches were identical even if the knobs were not. ie the ignition had a key initially but it appeared naf so was soon replaced with another light switch knob. There was also a steering lock on the top of the forks a la Atlas.Al O

Previously Ulrich Hoffmann wrote:

â?the spindle clamping pinsâ?

What's that? Sorry I couldn't translate it into something meaningfull in German

Fritz

Ah a bush for the tappet adjusters?! I have never looked at mine but would have thought they'd come out with heat.

Hello Ulrich,

To the best of my knowledge there are no bushes fitted in the cylinder head. It is more likely that your Jubilee heads are early heads (1959 - 1963) and your new Navigator heads are later heads (1963 - on). I am fairly certain that the later head uses a larger diameter spindle clamping pin. I think the change occurred with the introduction of the Electra in 1963. So what you need are the later spindle clamping pins but I don't know if these are available so making some bushes might be the best solution.

Patrick

Hi Uli, it will be nice for you to get the history/photos of your Navi - it has travelled quite a bit in it's time; from London to Belgium to Ravensburg in Southern Germany. Most Jubilees and Navigators seem to have been originally sold in the South and the Midlands of England/ around the Birmingham area; even in the North of England they were quite rare. I know of only one other Lightweight here in Ireland and I saw very few of them when I lived in North Yorkshire.

When you get your machine up and running keep to the country roads and it will be very pleasant to use - but it is definitely unsuited for use on the autobahnen; the trucks now are just too fast and it is a bit embarrassing to have to admit that a 44 tonne truck can out accelerate and out brake the little Norton !. So you have your Commando for the faster journeys.

Patrick

Hi Uli, The best person to give you some information on your bikes is the NOC Records Officer - he has access to original factory records and can verify frame and engine numbers for you .

The Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) can supply information about the previous history of a vehicle but I think they keep their records only by reference to the Registration Number (License Number in US English). Most vehicles keep their original Registration Number BUT numbers can be legally transferred from one vehicle to another - known as cherished or personal numbers. They can be bought and sold and can fetch enormous sums of money - especially old numbers from the sixties and earlier. So your original number could have been transferred to someone's Porsche or Ferrari if it was a 'desirable number' Eg UH 1 could possibly fetch GBP100,000 at an auction sale ! 25 O was sold a while back for over GBP500,000 - sold to the owner of a Ferrari 250GTO !

Patrick.

Previously Ulrich Hoffmann wrote:

More polishing on the aluminium tank bagdes.

Hi Ulrich,

You have been busy !. Where did you get the ALUMINIUM tank badges? The original Norton made badge was made from mazak -a poor quality metal, also called monkey metal- and was chromed. Because of the poor quality of the base metal original badges are usually quite badly pitted.

Way back -20 years ago or maybe more- NOC had some badges made in aluminium which I thought was a good idea. When they were polished up they looked superb.

Patrick

Hi Ulrich, I don't know any easy way of curing the leaking screwhole. Maybe a local radiator repair shop could sort it out properly.

Are you happy with your Armour's pipes? I see they still have their own shape where they join to the silencer. Best bet is normally to re-chrome a good set of original pipes if you can get a firm to do the job; most re-chromers won't take on the job as they say that dirty exhaust pipes destroy their chemicals.

Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes Neues Jahr.

Hi Ulrich, The mudguard look pretty similar, certainly better than nothing!

Which leaking screw were you fixing?!

Dan

Hi Ulrick,

Yes the bolts arrived just before Christmas, nice job, thank you! Looks like an email went astray ... Hopefully you got the money ok?

My tank has the holes filled and a Norton transfer fitted, but if I ever do the Navigator I may have the same problem!

Dan

The mudguard seems to be good value as it includes the fixing bracket and delivery but you might have to pay import tax and VAT . Also the early(1961) Navigator/Slimline Dominator had 7" wide fork yokes and later models (1964 on)had the wider 7.3/8" yokes - so you really need to confirm that this mudguard will fit your forks correctly. They don't seem to mention this in the ad. - in fact they seem to say that it fits slimline Dominators from the fifties !

That's a nice bit of work you've put in on the tank repair.

Patrick

3.00 x 19 on front; 3.25 x 18 on back.

I think you can go up one size wider to 3.25 x19 on front and 3.50 x 18 on the back but the 3.25 x 19 might be too wide - it depends on the mudguard mounting bracket. Your 4.10 is definitely too wide to fit the early forks (7" size).

Oh just in case it isn't obvious 3.00 x 19 is approx. the same size (width) as 3.60 x 19. - just two different measurement systems used. 4.10 x 19 is something like 3.75 x 19 in old English.

I use Avon Speedmaster Mk11 3.00 x 19 on both the Standard and De Luxe front ; Dunlop Gold Seal 3.50 x 18 on the Standard rear wheel and a Mitas 3.25 x 18 on the De Luxe rear wheel.

Hi Ulrich,

That's good news that your new heads and barrels are matching spigot types. It is highly likely that the change in diameter of the spindle clamping pins occurred earlier than the change to the non-spigot heads/barrels. I have had a look at a 1959/60 Jubilee head on my bench and I do not see any bush. I have the Norton Spare Parts Lists for 1959 and 1961/62 and no bush is shown there - but both lists give the same part number for the 'spindle clamping pin'. I haven't got any later lists to check the part number for the later pin.

I have 2 Jubilees -1959 De Luxe and 1961 Standard- and 2 Navigators - a De Luxe and a Standard -both 1961. It is amazing how they differ in minor details. You asked about the steering lock; early Navigators and Jubilees didn't have steering locks but later models (about 1964 ?) did have.

Anyway the best of luck with your rebuild.

Patrick

Hi Ulrich,

I resorted to a pair of stainless steel washers either side of the exhaust mounting lug. Inner diameter to slip over the hexagon footrest bar. Outer diameter to cover the hole in the exhaust bracket.

Maynot help on the left hand side where clearance with brake pedal is a problem.

The original Norton exhausts were made to finer tolerance and had a vertical slot in the mount, not a VERY generous hole.

Peter

Uli, that will look much better when it's covered in oil! I'm looking forward to the finished article!

Hi Uli, That is clean ! I think your carb or at least the float side cover is not the original - the writing (AMAL) should be horizontal. This won't make any difference to the engine running but you are such a perfectionist.

I notice the use of secret German precision engineering - there's a club hammer in one of your pictures! I'm keeping a blanket over my Navigator in case anyone should see it and all it's mismatched bits.

Previously Ulrich Hoffmann wrote:

Finally I got my resleeved cylinder back from the engine shop! Today a letter with urgently needed parts arrived from the NOC shop. I broke an oil ring on the piston at my first attempt to mount them on the rods. Also a valve collet was missing.

So I could install the last valve in the head.

The heads with all internals and new clampng pins on the valve adusters.

Next was slipping the barrels over the pistons.

I secured the cam followers with pieces cut from an oil hose .

Done!

Next was fixing the heads.

Valve caps need to be polished.

And the carb installed just for the looks..

Look stunning Ulrich, I wish I had kept a record like yours, but then I would not have produced such a splendid bike. Sunny days only?

Hi Uli, no I'm just teasing ...... the oil all goes on the floor!

Previously Ulrich Hoffmann wrote:

This morning I tourqed down the heads and set the valve clearances. Now it?s time for timing...

As I have a Boyer ignition I will set advanced timing at 32? just as on my Commando? The black Boyer box MK III is the same.

What goes into these threaded holes on top of the rocker spindle "towers"?

A plug or nothing?

And yes! there is enough clearance between the claping pin an the rocker arm, it?s just the angle of the camera!

Shouldn't the be capped off with a blanking screw as they are the oilways I think, I left mine in but can see why they might be removed for cleaning. Might be wrong though..

Hi Uli,

The Maintenance Manual I have doesn't give the ignition timing for the Navigator. It quotes 32 degrees for the Jubilee but I am fairly certain that the correct timing for the Navigator is actually 24 degrees. Maybe somebody else can confirm this .

The rocker spindle tower should have a blanking screw - it definitely has on mine anyway.

I personally advanced the timing on my Navigator until it sounded right - (I never did check exactly what it is now set at) - as I found the original quoted figure was retarded and blued the exhaust pipes. It is good to know that Boyer actually agree with advancing the timing - it makes the engine much more responsive and I do not have any kicking back or pinking.

The 32 degrees quoted for the Jubilee (and the Commando) sounds much nearer the mark, BUT be a little bit cautious as back "in the day" the Jubilee had a reputation for destroying pistons if the timing was too advanced.

A year on and 5 pages of replies. Time to start a new thread, methinks.

I've just checked my stash of Jubilee cylinder heads, I have heads with both sizes of clamping bolt, but looking at my bottom 2 pictures I wonder if Ulrich is talking about the rocker spindle bush?

Hi Dan,

Yes I would agree with your bottom two photos as well. Ulrich quoted the part number as 20849 for the early 'spindle clamping pin'which agrees to the 1959/1961 Spare Parts Lists. This phrase "spindle clamping pin" is how Norton phrased it in the original Spare Parts List. It is simply the clamping bolt.

Apparently there was a reason why Norton uprated the clamping bolt to the quarter inch size ; if the Jubilee engine was regularly taken up to valve bounce- around 9000 rpm- the original bolt could slacken off and the push rod could jump off the ball of the rocker. I presume that Norton had quite a few warranty claims for damaged engines. It has happened to me but strangely enough nothing in the engine actually broke !. I could ride the bike home on the one working cylinder and simply readjusted the tappets, relocked the clamping bolt and all was well.

Patrick