TALES FROM FRANK WESTWORTH
Do you suffer from a sort-of delicious terror when looking closely at a new (to you) bike properly for the first time? To be honest with you, gentle reader, this is the point at which I rediscover the hidden joys (as in I've not found any yet) of Buyer's Remorse. Maybe Regret, I'm not sure. Possibly both. So what have we got?
There was an air of growing surprise condensing from The Shed's damp rafters. The more I looked, the more I liked what I was looking at. The rims are original and wear excellent chrome. The exhaust pipes are too, although the silencers are a mismatched pair of peashooters which I'll probably replace if and when the bike's heading for the (UK) highway. Chain and sprockets are fine, and the engine has hefty compression and no hideous clonking noises when I kick it over. Which I do a lot. The oil tank was apparently empty, and although I'm well aware that Norton's excellent gear pump will allow the lube to drain down into the crankcases when left standing for a long time, I still slapped a couple of pints of shiny fresh SAE30 into the tank before I removed the spark plugs and commenced a daily kicking routine to ensure that at least some oil was getting around the internals.
Am I being too cautious? I think not. A little investigation suggests that the bike was last in use prior to 1989, which is a heck of a time ago. As the exterior of the machine is in generally excellent condition, I'm hoping that the interiorsplugs restores a good dose of compression.
