to restore or not

[wetdog]

is a restord machine original ? I have restored bikes but would rather strip clean and reassemble using the original parts , I don't even like rechroming as it alters the shape of things to much , I would rarther see a bit of original paint work (lining etc) than some painters idea of where it should be a what thickness . I am rebuilding a b44 and have decided to wire brush clean and paint with clear varnish , its this years winter hack (thunderbird started to look to good to trash) I may go ott and soda blast (new toy) the alloy but that's it

[Bomber]

I like to see original 'original' bikes... mechanically sorted, but in their factory gate livery, UNLESS it looks a real dog... then a little sympathetic restoration does not come amiss. Sadly a bike that looks as if it came off the production line ten minutes ago is nice but lacks the character of the old war horse.

[wetdog]

i agree and there needs to be some midle ground , but fear i may have gone to far towards the dog side , we will see

[beng]

 
     I think it is okay to restore a bike, as long as it is not what I call over-restored.
 
    I do not believe in blasting aluminum castings or much else for that matter, it destroys the as-cast look. I do not believe in powder-coat or clear-coat paint. I don't believe in polishing parts that were not polished when new.
 
     At this late date a lot of history has been lost or is hard to find, so I think about if I am destroying any history. I want to ride a vintage bike so I can get a vintage experience. I want to know what it was like to ride a bike in the era in which it was built. I don't get the people who get a vintage bike, then throw away all the parts that they don't want to work on and replace them with modern parts. I want a magneto with points, Amal carbs and drum brakes and a chain primary.
 
     If someone can restore a bike and I can not tell that it was restored, but just looks like a well maintained original, then I can not imagine them doing any better job than that.
 
     I am far from a wealthy man, lower middle class actually. I can not afford new chrome or any other paid for restoration processes. I have to do everything in my one-car garage when it is above 50 degrees outside or it is probably not going to get done. But that is okay with me. As long as I can have a bike to ride, as long as I can take part in preserving the history of motorcycling for someone in the future then I am happy.
 
    My 62' 650ss was half apart when I got it a bit over 20 years ago, luckily it came with it's original major parts. I just did enough to it to get it on the road and I kept it as original as possible so others could see what one looked like back in the day. I will never win any trophy at a show, but I saved the bike from a sketchy future, others may have parted it out or made it into a Triton etc.. I knew it was a rare machine though and I kept it in mothballs until I had the time to put it together. I am pretty sure a bit less than 2000 650ss bikes were made in 1962, so it is a shame not to try to keep them in one piece.
 
    This ends up being a problem in a way. I do love altering bikes for extra speed, but if you have a pre-Atlas Norton with matching numbers then it is almost an obligation to preserve it. So I would like to find an orphan frame to build a racer out of, so I would not destroy any history.
 
     I have eight featherbed Nortons that are 500-650cc, and they all have matching numbers or special enough histories to warrant keeping them original as I can. It is not my right to destroy them after they have survived half a century+. I am just a caretaker of a museum of sorts until I go tits up and they go to the next hopefully good home.

 
     

     
 
     
     A 1962 works Daytona 88 racer with original paint on the tank, never restored just kept race ready the last 51 years by my deceased friend Heinz Kegler, one of three:
     

   
 
   

[wetdog]

sounds about right to me , nice bike

[R]

A good dab on the rusty bits with phosphoric acid - panel shops rust remover for steel panels - would take the rusty look away, and leave just bare steel. Wiped over with oil, they will stay rust free.

Lot of folks dislike that rusty look, taking away the rust makes old bikes much more acceptable to the eye. ??

P.S. That rear brake lever looks dangerous if you ever need to apply some serious stopping power. ?!?
Koni or Ikon stickers on the rear shocks are none too original !?
Nice bike otherwise.

       
 

[beng]

P.S. That rear brake lever looks dangerous if you ever need to apply some serious stopping power. ?!?

  The rear brake lever may indeed be weaker than before someone drilled holes in it, but I am pretty sure it is original to the bike, having it's original satin-chrome Bracebridge Street hardware holding it in place. I have had the bike for over 20 years and the rear brake was like that when I got it, and it was like that when the previous owner bought the bike, so it has been drilled out for decades. 
   The 650ss was used very hard at one time judging by the scars inside the crankcase made by stray connecting rod pieces. It was a sporting bike when new and those riding them half a century ago did not spare the rpms in their quest for speed. I thought the drilled brake pedal deserved to stay at the home it has known for so long. I never use the rear brake while riding myself, it just has to be there to pass vehicle inspection.
     Always a work in progress. One of the original rear shocks has a bent shaft, the "new" shocks were laying around here for 25 years so I figured it was time for them to do some work. Keeping the bike on the road is number one priority, working on the next project is second priority, going back to make aesthetic improvements on a daily rider is down there somewhere. Next I want to clean and examine the clutch and fiddle with the magneto auto-advance, things which affect the use of the bike as practical transportation.
   
     With the racing bike I got quite a few boxes of spares, some of which are original parts the previous owner took off and replaced with different ones for performance reasons, but the bikes racing history, and the history of the man who owned and tuned it for almost half a century is as important as the bike itself, so as long as the spares are sitting next to it in boxes there may not be any good reason to fiddle with it. For instance it had a Schanftleitner 6-speed installed into the transmission case by Micheal Schaftleitner himself in the mid-sixties, and I have the original correspondence back and forth between he and the bikes tuner. The Oldani front brake is on the bike in a photo of it sitting on the grid of the Daytona 200 one year in the mid 60s etc..
 
      So presently preservation of history and originality has to be judged on an individual basis. I could make the 650ss 100% to original specification, but because of financial limits and the fact it is ridden regularly a few compromises have been made, note the larger than stock rear tail light for safer night riding for instance. The racer is more of a museum piece, being one of three made and probably the only one left, so it may not do much more than sit and look pretty in the future. If I want one to ride I have enough spares that I could put together a replica that could be abused, crashed and blown up with less consequence.
 
    Thanks

[R]

If you 'have enough spares', why not bin that junk brake lever and make the bike original again ?

Slavishly keeping bits that previous owners have trashed doesn't actually make for a good history piece....

[CaptonZap]

I'm with Beng.
Anybody who was around in the 50-60's knows that drilling out solid pieces in an effort to lose weight was all the rage. Stock, no, but when it went to the race track it wasn't stock. So keeping it in it's original purpose is better than trying to make a "Factory original" out of it. And the strength lost by the drilling will not be noticed under any circumstance except a left side lay down, and then only if the lever hooks something and is bent sideways. The normal direction of stress put on it during braking will not bend it. Go find an engineering book and study the location of stresses in a cantilevered beam.
I'd be proud to have a bike like that.
CZ

[R]

So why not drill the brakes and backing plates and frame brackets full of holes, and make it look like a proper home-modified 'racer'. And save another couple of ounces of weight.
And bob the fenders and fit accessory megaphones too while we are there.

Bikes are either 'original' or 'racer', they can't be half way in between ??

[wetdog]

 , its just nice its being used and not restored for show well done , the brake leaver does look like a after thought mind and maybe a replacement part at some time , its true about stress in materials (plate with a hole etc) also inverted ribs in tube , local firm tried this , but by the look of the rear leaver I don't think this will of helped in the strength department , if it should fail on this machine on the road and with that front brake its not going to be good , I would replace just for pease of mind

[Bomber]

I love this bike as it is, it's just a matter of opinion about the brake lever but a nice oily rag condition bike like this doesn't need anything except riding IMHO. I would be proud to take it anywhere!

[bikerbob]

What we do with our own bikes is down to each individual  it is their decision  to restore or not. If the owner of the Norton want's to ride it as it  is well that's okay by me but if on the other hand he wanted to give it a full blown restoration I would not think any less of him or the bike. If that bike was mine I would be giving it a cosmetic restoration mainly the chrome and that rear brake lever would have to go. I like my bikes to be as near as possible to when they left the factory without going to extremes and then I would add things for personal taste such as my present 1962 A65 has Craven Panniers fitted also an Avon handlebar fairing a Britax crashbar and for safety indicators. It is all down to personal taste.

[beng]

 
    Looks like everyone is pretty much on the same page., I would say Wetdog got a nice cross-section of answers.
 
    It looks like every individual is in the hobby for slightly different reasons and that dictates what they do with their bikes. Some people like things shiny, some like a patina, some like them practical transportation, some like history, etc.
 
    None of us has to worry about doing anything but what we enjoy, because someone else is out there producing whatever we are not ourselves. If I want I can go see re-chromed and blasted show bikes, vintage racers or unrestored originals because they are all out there. All I have to worry about is what I enjoy, running errands on my 650ss and researching it's history.

[R]

Without closeup detail pics of the original bits of your 650SS, it has little or no photographic value though ?

Its all the little details that contribute knowledge of precisely how these bikes used to be.
And with some quite noteable departures from standard, which would need to be flagged.
Any cache of such detail pics, recorded someplace ?