New member, old owner,

[Dell Boy]

Hello everyone, my name is Derek & I bought my first Norton rotary in 1988. I believe it was only the 2nd. one in civilian hands. No. 3006 registration YCH 110Y built in 1984 & ex W. Midlands police. The only B.M.W. on the A.13 commuter Grand Prix that could blow gsxr 750`s away. Or thats what they all thought it was!!!!! Does it still exist. Then came a 1990 Commander re-built from burnt out in a heavy front end crash. Bought for £1,000 & rebuilt for another £3,000, Did 90,000 miles on that without an engine rebuild. It was never moly`d but was totally knackered when I sold it. F736 FEA. Is it in the club? Next came a Norton F1 H439 AUE. I kept it for 4 years & had it moly`d at the factory. Is it in the club? I currently have four Commanders as follows:1989 F101 FEA no.4039 Grey fixed panniers,1989 Ex police F665 XOV no.4009. Red MAN588N no.4265 Krauser 1992 & Grey Krauser 1993 no.4292. Derek.

[kanonkopdrinker]

Hi Derek, Good to meet you at Stanford Hall; welcome to the ROC. I am not at my home computer at the moment but later this week I shall have a look at the club records and see if I can locate any of your past rotaries. David

[Malc]

Hi there,YCH 110Y is an ex-Derbyshire bike. It was based at Matlock and was well thrashed as it had a hard rider.This was one of the 5 early single rotor idle bikes that Derbyshire had.It came in at 25,000 miles ringing away as some of the rotor studs had broken and were hitting the back of the flywheel so it was returned to Nortons and converted to twin rotor idle. No more problems. It went to auction in Oct 87 with 45,000 miles on it.The others were YCH 107Y , YCH 108Y, AAU 244Y and A631 CRB.107Y was recently for sale at Rugely. I bought 108Y and sold it to a chap in Aberdeen who did a big mileage on it. Last heard it was still in Scotland.AAU 244Y was the only one that was not converted to twin rotor idle while in service but I have seen it around and in use a few years ago.A631 CRB is my red race bike.Mal

[Dell Boy]

Thanks for the history Mal. My memory is that it was a single idler which had a knob on the side to adjust the tickover but it was a long time ago. Had the engine rebuilt twice due to clear plastic oil pipe hardening & snapping off. Result, loads of oil in gearbox, none in engine. Very expensive. The tales I could tell about dealing with the factory & its dealers & the amount of cash I have parted with over the years. I bought the Spares dept. office door at the factory closure auction in memory of the amount of hard earned cash that dissappeared through it. Derek.

[Malc]

The plastic oil pipe breaking was an expensive problem, thats what happened to A631 but around the same time a later Driving school bike was written off with low miles.The workshops manager arranged that the bike was bought back as salvage so as the engine could be transplanted (something that would not normally happen). This bike was based at Glossop and did little extra miles before its 5 years was up and it was replaced. The bike that was written off was the bike pictured on Page 47 in Kris Perkins book with Prince Michael of Kent, it ended up as a Derbyshire bike.I bought A631 as it had the 'new' engine in and raced it in 1989 only to have a rotor bearing break up and wreck the engine. So I salvaged the r/h end plate, 1 rotor and 1 housing. The rest was scrap!The factory came up with the idea to replace the clear plastic pipe with a green coloured replacement and then just after I had changed a couple, they changed their minds and I had to change the oil pipes back again.malc