Precious Metal, Meriden Stylee

Produced in 1957 only as a tuning part for dealers in the US, this is a Tiger 100 Delta head.

By all accounts as rare as the proverbial rockin' horse shit, it has recently found it's way here. 

The standard parallel inlet tracts are still part of the casting but never machined out, instead extra meat has been added to the side of the head to allow for the splayed ports similar to the Bonnie set up.

This has got to be a keeper, just got to find the rest of the parts to create a bike worthy of putting it on.

Brit Class On The Bay Of Fools

Came across this on The Big Bay, a rare opportunity to get on a piece of real Brit history. Very close to a factory Bobber if the criteria between the stripped Hot Rod style of the early fifties and that necessary functionality of a dedicated trials bikes are compared.

Sitting at just over the 2 bags with a day to go, chase your dreams HERE.

The word is out........................

Now you know the finish date for that project that falls just short of the wire............

Reelin' in the Years

Remember when this used to be on the telly, Saturday afternoons, nationally regarded sport back then. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

I've seen the future.....but it looks like yesterday!

Geoff's got this up on the rack at the moment, building it up for somebody. In a classic stylee that's for sure, but not my cup of Darjeeling at all, guess I'm just turning into a miserable bastard, still "Ya pays ya money, ya takes ya choice" or something like that.

No spring action required!!!!!

Following an earlier post pointing out the mortal dangers of getting too deep and intimate with Edward Turner's attempt at a rudimentary rear suspension system, it is still possible and indeed necessary to get so far into it without risking life and limb. 

Getting the brake plate off was a bit of a puzzler, having the Triumph instructions on servicing a Mk. 2 Sprung Hub is not the best thing to have when you're stripping a Mk 1. No mention of the fact that the brake plate is actually screwed onto the center spring box, that's probably because it's not on the later improved version. More luck than judgement revealed the big thread in the middle as we were spinning the brake plate trying to figure what was holding it and realised the gap betwixt plate and drum was increasing. This is a lesson well learned as it's easy to imagine increasingly rare parts like this being destroyed by trying to lever the plate off in the assumption it was a normal floating set up.

This is the state of play beneath the brake plate, this picture was taken immediately after removal with no clean up whatsoever! This bike has not been on the road for half a century and  probably exposed to the elements for a large proportion of that time, check out the state of the spokes. A testimony to the build quality and engineering that originally went into this old British iron, and the fact that it had luckily escaped that attentions of the spotty faced youths in the sixties and seventies. As can be seen the main spring box and associated parts are still packed with grease , preserving the internals and bearings, so there is nothing more than a new sprocket, brake shoes and a bit of a cosmetic uplift and it'll be good to go. A definite result as the bearings are something like £400 each nowadays!!!!!!

Insta-Bobber

Saw this the other day 'round a mate's place. It's up for grabs if anybody fancies something a little left field and straightforward enough to slip into Bobber clothing. Not quite ride away but all up and running and 95% roadworthy, your's for around 6,000 of our English Pounds!