Custom: 1949 Norton Roadster

My first glimpse of this stunning 1949 Norton was at a bike show recently, but it wasn’t part of the exhibition, it was in the car park some distance from main event.

I took a few happy snaps before setting off in search of the owner to investigate its story. Some time later I’d tracked him down, agreed to meet up in a few weeks’ time and had exchanged numbers. I looked at the note he’d written and asked, “Les?”“Les said the better,” he grinned. Had I just met the real Les Norton from the Robert G. Barrett novels?

A few weeks later, the story behind this impressive Norton began to unfold.

“I’d had a few Harleys over the years,” Les began. “Besides, everyone has Harleys and I wanted something that was different. The idea of building a Norton had been lurking in the back of my mind since I was a teenager.

“I had a clear picture of what I wanted the end result to look like; I’d probably built it in my head about a million times over the years.”

The history
In 1949, three of the top four finishes in the Isle of Man’s Senior TT were riding Nortons. Harold Daniell won the event with an average speed of 86.93mph ahead of Johnny Locket who posted an average speed of 86.19mph, while Norton-mounted Artie Bell was fourth.
It’s little wonder that Les chose 1949 as the year to commemorate his hand-built Norton Roadster and honour the marque that dominated the year’s Isle of Man TT blue-riband event.

The original 1949 Norton Isle of Man race bikes boasted a new frame that made its way into production bikes in 1950. Leading up to the 1949 TT event, Norton engineers were becoming increasing concerned about the reliability of their ageing plunger frame. After enlisting the help of racer-frame builder Rex McCandless and his brother, Norton arrived at the 1949 TT with an all-new frame after some successful off-season testing of the pair’s work.

After winning the Senior, Harold Daniell stepped off his Norton and declared it was like “riding on a featherbed” compared to riding the “garden gate” — and the chassis has been called the Featherbed frame ever since.

Move ahead to the late 1960s where the capacity of the Norton engine increased to 750cc. However, with more power came an increase in engine vibration transmitted through the frame.

The solution was an innovative designed Isolastic frame which made it smoother through the use of rubber bushes to isolate the engine and swingarm from the main frame, forks, and rider. It went on to become known as the Super-Ride.

The beginning
It was early 2008 when Les arrived home with an old Norton frame and a dismantled 1973 750cc engine. He knew the project would take time to complete and throw up a few challenges along the way, but he didn’t know that transforming his vision into reality would end up taking him six painstaking years.

The original 1949 model ran a 500cc engine but Les wanted more punch, and so when an opportunity to get his hands on a 750cc engine arose, he grabbed it.“Norton motorcycles had a bit of history at the Isle of Man in the early days,” Les recalled. “Norton won the first-ever TT in 1907. My idea was to try capturing the history of the Norton.

“You don’t see many around these days — even their standard form — however, when you do see someone who has had a go at building a custom Norton, they’ve generally grabbed a Norton motor and tossed it into a flat tracker rigid frame.”

“This bike of mine started off as a standard Norton frame and still has all the isolastics in it,” he added. “That was a challenge all on its own, too, Norton engines are renowned for having a bit of rock to them.

“Most Nortons run rough when they idle but will smooth out once you hit the throttle. This engine is worked and fully balanced and still does have a little of Norton rock at idle, but no where near as bad a factory engine.”

The engine
The engine rebuild was Les’ first attempt at major engine reconstruction work, and by major, I mean some serious engine modifications.

“To keep the traditional look of the ’49-style engine, I wanted to use the early-model timing cover,” he said. “But this meant I needed to move the standard ’73 magneto from the outside front of the engine to rear of the block back inside frame behind the cylinders.

“It had the original one which didn’t work at the best of times,” he continued. “I fitted a Joe Hunt magneto with the retro red bakelite cap — now that took some working out. I had to fit additional sprockets and chains and modify the oil ways to ensure everything would be well lubricated.”

The highly modified engine stills runs the standard Norton carburettors with the open-throat staintubes fitted with gauze to keep the bugs out.

When it comes to estimating how far the engine is bored out and how much power it produces, Les leant back and said: “It’s bored out to the max, you’ve really got to hang on to it,” he grinned.

The know how
The intricate machining didn’t end once the engine was complete, there is a bracket the on the right-hand fork leg that Les machined out of a solid aluminium.

“There were a number of different angles and a couple of radius’ that needed to be machined into that piece,” he explained. “I started off building a cardboard template so I could check all the angles and the fit, and it took a few attempts before I was satisfied enough to commence making the piece out of the alloy billet.

“Sometimes it would take weeks of trial and error just to make one piece by hand,” he said, recalling the despair he’d feel when he was forced to redesign a piece he’d spent days and days making.

Every now and then he’d catch a lucky break, as was the case with the headlight. “It’s actually an old Lucas light from a car that I scraped all the paint off and polished up,” he said. “Like everything else, it to has been highly modified to house all the switchgear and given wire mesh in the front to suit the period of the bike.

“The brass badges on the tank I designed myself [which are attached using wheel spoke adjusters], and sent the pattern off to a chap in England who made them up for me.

“The badges arrived back here in Australia a month or so later — very reasonably priced mind you — and with a little note that read, ‘If you have any other bright ideas, please let me know’.”

The nous
Les wasn’t a fan of the original Norton dash, likening it to a Honda Fours, and so set about streamlining it to better suit the fast lines of an Isle of Man TT contender. “I’ve slimmed it down to a light for high beam, a light for ignition and located the speedo into the headlight which, incidentally, is in miles per hour.”

There was a gap above the transmission and Les made good use of this space by building a electrical housing.

“The top of that electrical box is actually an end cap off an old fire hydrant,” he revealed.

Glance around the bike and more hand-crafted parts become apparent. The rear brake light switch is an old drinking goblet. To keep with the period of the bike, where blokes would commandeer bits and pieces from the kitchen and modify them into parts for their bike, Les did much the same.

“That’s how it was back in the day,” he said. “Mum would wake up one morning and be missing a heap of stuff out of the kitchen.

“The derby cover on the front wheel is an old steam lid. Sometimes its easier to modify something than make it from scratch.”

“Take the mirrors, they are full-spun alloy billets that I’ve turned up on the lathe then I’ve made the brass inlay around the glass,” he explained. “But the backing plates are actually brass bowls that you dip your fingers in from the Chinese restaurant.

The fuel tank is a standard Norton Commando tank, and Les built the front out to give it a wider presence in the nose.

“It probably chewed up $500 worth of liquid steel to do that,” he added. “But one day I’d like to build an aluminium tank for it.

“The engravings all around the bike are my own designs which I took into town and got it all professionally done.”

Les pointed me old power wire at the local scrap yard.

Down the line
“The success of any bike build is a painstaking process and that involves getting the stance of the bike right,” Les revealed, thoughtfully pointing towards his bike. “You’re halfway there whout that all the oil lines are handmade and took hours to carefully bend.

The copper winding around the fuel line is another piece of Les’ handywork and he added that he scored it from soen you have established the lines of the bike.

“The seat was the last thing that I made for it and I even did my own leather work,” Les said. “It gives you really nice road feel and the bike is very responsive to any input, if you twitch on the seat then that’s where you’re going.

“I ride it whenever I can, but mind you, you’ve got to pick your spots because its pretty low and some places it just won’t go,” he smiled. “I only run 12 pound in the rear tyre. I made the mistake once of adding an extra pound or two and ended up busting the headlight off it. The front tyre I run standard pressure.”

Make no mistake, Les is adamant this bike is true street machine and it’s a machine that’s been built to be ridden.

Specs: 1949 Norton Custom Roadster