Attn: RN. W/C Classic

[Charles Wilson]

Is there a bit of history about the water cooled Classic that didn't make it into the History Books?I'll accept whatever is stated about the offering made at the M/C show where the w/c Classic was displayed with no significant numbers of buyers willing to dump shoe boxes full of money into everyone's pockets. "We took the Classic tank, etc., and fitted it all to our tried and true, etc., etc.."OK. Fine.Something seems left out. The w/c had the original orientation of the carbs and exhaust facing the rear. From the pictures I've seen, the motor is situated high in the frame serving in contrast to some of the pig motors being stuffed into law abiding frames at the time. OK, it's a little dated in appearance but "It's a nice little bike!"Then, "Presto!, Change-o!", we've flipped our new water cooled engine around to work with our new gear box and it's in a Spondon frame!In other words, there was a labor intensive effort to build a water cooled engine to work with the existing bike and then the water cooled engine was flipped around for a new machine.I know that variations on this theme are very common in manufacturing. Nonetheless, the development from Commander to W/C Classic to F1 - from an entity in precarious financial position - looks interesting from a distance.Y/N/M?Charles

[Wayne]

Hi alli can add about the spondon frames and w/c enginesi have a dyno report on a water cooled race engine in 1987, spondon went through his records covering every norton race frame made, one of the rc bikes from 87 was built as a development wc bike acording to there records it was the 3 or fourth bike from my memory, coupled to this i have seen a commander type r/h end plate numberd RC003, which may tye into spondons records. the last Rc588's also ran water coold engines in 88 for development of what would be the 89RCW.In 1988 spndon made the frirst rcw type frame apparantly this was intended as a road bike acording to spondon, this frame ended up in phil wooderns hands as a race replica in 89. It was always presumed that phil had this bike added on to nortons order of 4 frames, acording to spondon this is incorrect it was the first and the frame number tallys with this.The clay model F1 used a Rc588 frame and forks fitted with a commander engine, again acording to spondon this type of frame did not lend its self to mass production, the race frames were individualy made, he confimed with me this week why the swinging arms of the race frames are not interchangerble between frames the machining is don on compleation of the swinging arm to suit the frame then fitted with thrust washers, the caps been spercific to each individual frame. He also showed me the templates for the race susspension linkages which were as dave hicman already told me the diffrances were mm but made a tremendous efect on handeling.The F1 frame is basic by comparison to a race frame where frame componants will inter change. Its also been claimed by race personel the yamaha gearbox choice was a race development rather than road, this gearbox choice requird the engine turning round, i have on loan a set of drawings for a wide center p55 (F1) gearbox (the beefed up race version of the interplod commander box) so it would seam theres more to this story than whats commonly knownYes the clay model was a true son of a bitch a direct decendent of the works Racer as the phamplet said, for me a production f1 is as near a race bike as the road bike jpn 850 is to a works jpn race bike, sheep in wolfs clothing.I can only go on what i have been told and seen, or own, Bob and Richard are two of the best men on the forum who can tell between the facts and fiction, but it appears to me perkins book has a load of inacuracys in addition to the well known ones. Theres a lot of publicly unkown stuff in the ex nortons peoples heads, unfortunatly with time alot of this will all end up been lost.

[Charles Wilson]

Wow!Absolute First Rate Post.Thank you!CW

[Wayne]

Hi Allfor any one interested in what a wide center gearbox rcw race engine looks like, thats what this engine is ssbb/albums/userpics/Norton_takes_a_new ... uccess.pdf, thans to paul for posting the article