What is it?

The Norton Electra was in production for a very short period of time – only 1963 to 1965.

It has a 400cc engine – a mildly enlarged version of the engine that was originally fitted to the Norton Navigator.

The frame was a strengthened mild evolution of the frame used on the James/Francis Barnett – so they were very much drawing from the AMC designs they now had access to.

Unlike the Navigator and Jubilee, the Electra featured the ‘proper’ Roadholder front end, it sported an 8 inch brake at the front and a 7 inch brake at the rear (both ‘borrowed’ from the Dominator).

Elec-trickery

The electrics were a bit of a mish-mash on this bike.

It was mainly WIPAC wiring and components, however the electric starter is a Lucas M3 unit, and the turn signals (quite a novelty to have on a bike in the mid-sixties) were supplied by German company Hella, and can also be found on BMW motorcycles from the same era.

I am very lucky to own an original WIPAC Service Manual, so have scanned the original wiring diagram. It is much better quality than the one you can find in the Norton Electra Workshop Manual.

Scanned Original of the Norton Electra 400cc twin from Feb 1963 wiring diagram PNG 726 x 1024

This is available for download in a higher quality PDF too – here

Simpler, more colorful

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find the original wiring diagram very easy to read?

So, much like the work I do on Norton Commando Wiring Diagrams, I have taken the original, colorized it, and massively simplified it.

Believe it or not, this is the same diagram for the same bike. Just by moving a few components around on the page, re-routing the way some of the cabling has been drawn, and adding a splash of colour, it’s made it a million times easier to read and understand!

I have added a colour key on the page. WIPAC tend to use dark and light versions of the same colour, plus their brown, dark red and maroon are a bit ‘close’ – so the key is a big help.

Norton Electra 400cc twin from Feb 1963 wiring diagram PNG 3066 x 1841

This is available as a PDF too – it can be downloaded here.

Wipac ‘vs’ Norton

Norton made a minor change between the schematic that Wipac created originally and published, and the version that Norton later published in their factory workshop manual.

The change is pertaining to the behaviour of the lighting – in the “emergency” ignition switch position, the lighting is not operable based on the original Wipac schematic.

However, with the Norton’s later revision, the lighting behaves the same in both normal “ignition” and “emergency” switch positions.

I assume this change was due to the need or desire to get home safely under the cover of darkness with lights on!

Norton Electra 400cc twin from Feb 1963 (updated) wiring diagram PNG 3066 x 1841

This is available as a PDF too – it can be downloaded here.