steele01
Registered user
Hi Everyone hope we are all keeping well long time 
Sold the 800GS the other year an let a few more bikes go including my TZ to fund a Norton WD16H.
I got highly lucky with the bike getting one from auction that turned out to have some very interesting history.
Most of the RAF WD Bike records were thought lost so although I knew she was an RAF Bike at the time of bidding I never knew I'd be able to find the original RAF Wartime registration number for the tank. I got super lucky thanks to a RAF researcher who had a handful of Keycards including my bikes number which was referenced to my frame number !!! so for the first time in all these years she is able to sport her original number.
The placement of the writing on the tank along with roundels etc and layout was recreated from painstaking research finding original pictures of RAF Norton's only 3,000 were made for the RAF and only 1,500 as sidecar combos like mine would have had originally.
Had a huge amount of help and advice and what was nice was one of the guys who had given me a ton of advice I was able to pass the contact details on an he actually got his number for his RAF Enfield! Exciting stuff.
Learnt alot on restoration on this one beyond what I had been doing on my other classic Norton's my daily rider 650ss and my 1968 Norton Commando.
Wanted to restore one for years in memory of my grandpa who served in the 8th army as a RA Gunner and in the RAOC. He saw action in Tobruk an el-Alamein.
Sometimes the bike leads you down the path they want to be restored down.
My dads best friend was actually a Dambuster so was nice to do it in memory of him as well and everyone that served.
Thanks to lots of advice I also got lucky in respect of most of the bike being original WD parts tank etc although some parts like the rear rack are earlier and so was the DU142 8" Headlight originally she's now got the correct DU42 on her.
Had the mag done by Tony cooper.
The paint colour is SCC.2 Brown which is the correct colour for the year. Had a few nightmares along the way with the painting but got it sussed in the end
Anyway enough of me rambling hope you all enjoy the progress has slowed right off now for a short while as a few tricky to get bits are hold of should hopefully have her fired up over the next couple of months.
Episode 1 Rescuing my WD 16H
Episode 25 Painting the RAF Roundels!
Episode 26 showing her fitted with the blackout latest progress grabbed my Canon 1D Out to film for a lil one an edited on my phone not ideal but not bad.
Sold the 800GS the other year an let a few more bikes go including my TZ to fund a Norton WD16H. I got highly lucky with the bike getting one from auction that turned out to have some very interesting history.
Most of the RAF WD Bike records were thought lost so although I knew she was an RAF Bike at the time of bidding I never knew I'd be able to find the original RAF Wartime registration number for the tank. I got super lucky thanks to a RAF researcher who had a handful of Keycards including my bikes number which was referenced to my frame number !!! so for the first time in all these years she is able to sport her original number.
The placement of the writing on the tank along with roundels etc and layout was recreated from painstaking research finding original pictures of RAF Norton's only 3,000 were made for the RAF and only 1,500 as sidecar combos like mine would have had originally.
Had a huge amount of help and advice and what was nice was one of the guys who had given me a ton of advice I was able to pass the contact details on an he actually got his number for his RAF Enfield! Exciting stuff.
Learnt alot on restoration on this one beyond what I had been doing on my other classic Norton's my daily rider 650ss and my 1968 Norton Commando.
Wanted to restore one for years in memory of my grandpa who served in the 8th army as a RA Gunner and in the RAOC. He saw action in Tobruk an el-Alamein.
Sometimes the bike leads you down the path they want to be restored down.
My dads best friend was actually a Dambuster so was nice to do it in memory of him as well and everyone that served.
Thanks to lots of advice I also got lucky in respect of most of the bike being original WD parts tank etc although some parts like the rear rack are earlier and so was the DU142 8" Headlight originally she's now got the correct DU42 on her.
Had the mag done by Tony cooper.
The paint colour is SCC.2 Brown which is the correct colour for the year. Had a few nightmares along the way with the painting but got it sussed in the end
Anyway enough of me rambling hope you all enjoy the progress has slowed right off now for a short while as a few tricky to get bits are hold of should hopefully have her fired up over the next couple of months.
Episode 1 Rescuing my WD 16H
Episode 26 showing her fitted with the blackout latest progress grabbed my Canon 1D Out to film for a lil one an edited on my phone not ideal but not bad.
got the lever screws sorted thanks to Nick for some advice on them ended up with 2ba x 3/4inch which fit pretty much perfectly just had to trim the length down a bit an go in an out a handful of times by hand.
