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Back in the day the Rocket was BSAs twin to the Triumph Trident.
A little history on the name= BSA Rocket 3
Summer of '71 bought a Norton Commando over a Rocket 3 mail order through a London dealer because of reliability issues. Details I cannot remember. Coming from Chicago, I rode the Norton all over Europe, and the only problem was excessive oil consumption from bad valve guides.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoonose
Summer of '71 bought a Norton Commando over a Rocket 3 mail order through a London dealer because of reliability issues. Details I cannot remember. Coming from Chicago, I rode the Norton all over Europe, and the only problem was excessive oil consumption from bad valve guides.
6 months later I sold it for way more than it cost me new.
Good memories! I bought a new Commando 'S' in 1970, had the same valve guide problem too. Figured as long as the head was off I'd slip in some high compression pistons too.
Just curious, was the London dealer Hyland-Crowe Ltd. by any chance?
Good memories! I bought a new Commando 'S' in 1970, had the same valve guide problem too. Figured as long as the head was off I'd slip in some high compression pistons too.
Just curious, was the London dealer Hyland-Crowe Ltd. by any chance?
No not that dealer. I can't recall the dealers name, but I'm sure I could pick it out of a list.
I think mine was a Roadster.
Do you know of any other London Norton dealers from back then?
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,415 posts, read 54,749,293 times
Reputation: 40912
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoonose
No not that dealer. I can't recall the dealers name, but I'm sure I could pick it out of a list.
I think mine was a Roadster.
Do you know of any other London Norton dealers from back then?
No, I just remember needing something I couldn't find in the states and contacting Hyland-Crowe, it was around the holidays and along with whatever it was I bought my package also included a very nice hand written letter thanking me for my order and wishing me and my family happy holidays. Parts could be difficult at the time. I needed a kick-start pawl, they'd apparently had a batch with the wrong heat treatment and I couldn't find one in 4-5 states. I lived not far from Berliner (importer/distributor) at the time, went there and was practically on my knees begging for one, I was getting damn tired of bump starting the bike. Thankfully they came through for me.
From what I see these days there's a better supply of Commando parts than there was in the '70s.
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