Commando forks

The early Commando forks featured the same yolks (triple trees If you're American) as the Dominator. Otherwise they are the same as the later ones and then the sliders were beefed up to take the disc brake. You can fit them to the yolks and then, before fitting the front wheel, if you let them fully extend with the top nut removed, you can fill with about 160cc of whatever you choose. It will take a while for it to drain down into the bottom of the forks but this method removes the painfully tedious method of dripping the oil down the spring when it's poking out the top of the fork. you will always get impatient and lubricate the top yolk, tank etc. using this method.

I don't want to spoil this party but those of us who have rebuilt both Dommie & Commando forks are reaching for the alarm bell.

The early commando yokes and many other fork parts were superficially the same but there are several very important areas where they do differ greatly.

Firstly the Commando chunks will mostly have AF threads scattered about. This includes all the yoke fittings, damper & top nut internal threads.

Secondly.....the Dommie stanchions are about 2" shorter and so are the damper tubes. Have you allowed for this difference???

Thirdly....the top nuts on Commando stanchions have a longer threaded section to help mount the clock holders. The shorter Dommie type may not have a long enough thread part to do this.

Finally..... how will the yoke stop work? You don't want the forks to be touching the tank or the MoT man will not be happy.

It might be far easier if you used Commando chunks for this rebuild. New fork parts are still reasonably priced at Andover Norton.

I presumed that Stephen was talking about the early Commando forks which are, as you say Phil, different from Dominator forks but look similar in style. (yolks, headlight ears etc)

This highlights a need for members seeking advice to be as accurate as possible when describing exactly what they have got. Whilst I'm not pointing any fingers, many people seeking advice have not bothered doing any research themselves or even buying a manual/parts list. Roy Bacon's book, "Restoring Norton Twins"whilstcontaining a few errors, would be a good place to start for most owners.

The recent articles in Roadholder regarding electronic ignition should give a good overview on that subject for instance. The very recent thread on a novice with Commando starting problems, resulted in two pages of good "gen" (and some crap) but ended with him sorting his problem with a set of new plugs. I don't mind trying to help members with problems but the Homer Simpson philosophy of "If at first you don't succeed, give up" seems to prevail.