Sitting in a Ghetto Stylee

Got the seat back from the upholsterer a few days ago and he's done exactly what was asked of  him. The brief was, black leather, tuck and roll and keep it as thin as possible to maintain the contour of the base.

Looks so thin it's difficult to think it's padded but it is, not saying that the springs won't be doing most of the work, but give it a squeeze and it's soft.

If you want any work done you could do a lot worse than talk to Bespoke Auto Interiors in Letchworth. 

Chris' Speedo Get's A New Lease Of Life

Remember the D shaped speedo that Chris sent over from The Lone Star State a couple of months ago?  well, the case has been chromed and the internals have been  overhauled and recalibrated to suit the Triumph gearbox drive. Also took the opportunity to have a 75 MPH dial fitted rather than the original 55 one as supplied.

The work was carried out by Speedo Repairs down in Aldershot, great work and turned around in under two weeks.

If you need similar work doing, he's the man to see.

Q:, Why Do Americans Run Spool Hubs On Springers?

A:, Because They Can!

Having spoke to a couple of people regarding setting up a drum brake on a set of springers, I came away with a bad impression, they both said that the suspension locks up when the brake is applied! That can't be right, leastways not if the geometry is correct to start with, it is only the most simple of four bar linkage arrangements after all. As long as the relationship between the rocker, the brake plate and the length of the stay form an accurate parallelogram I can't see any reason at all why the suspension shouldn't continue to function......................Bet it does on standard H-D's!!!

Possibly thinking too deeply about it,  I started to convince myself that the brake plate itself also needs bushing to allow it to rotate/float on the spindle to allow for the change in angle between the spindle and the anchor point. Laid out the brake stay arrangement on CAD to figure out how much movement was involved, and whaddya know, in a perfect scenario there is no change in the dimension. The bottom drawing in the horizontal position shows the gap between the stay pivot point and the spindle is 31.68 mm, and at 15 degrees of rise, shown in the picture above that dimension is constant. I did a further check at 30 degrees of movement and the number remained the same. 

Of course that's all well and good in the virtual world of CAD where everything is perfect and lines and holes are in exactly the right place. Bush the plate anyway,.........maybe!

A fully functioning CAD system can be downloaded HERE

WIPAC S179

This bad boy arrived today, scored off of the bay (as if you hadn't guessed) for half the price of a Taiwanese imitation, although I don't think they do a knock off of this particular light...... yet!

Listed in the very brief description as for a C15, I don't reckon it is 250 AJS/Matchless seems to ring a distant bell but that's not a definite. If anybody knows for sure please let me know.

The description didn't say it was NOS but it's hard to believe it's spent much time fitted to a bike, this is how it arrived with no attempt to clean it up, no signs of rust on the back plate and not a hint of fading in the lens.

Easy to imagine that it was designed by the same guy that did the WIPAC Sabrina posted on here a little while ago, all fifties starship dreaming style. They seemed to be far more adventurous in their designs over at Wico-Pacy than their compatriots over at Lucas.

TR6 Trophy Pre-Unit Build

Cliff went up to The Midlands earlier and scored a Sportster front end complete with a 21  for his Trophy build. Looks to have dropped into the TFMW frame without a lot of heartache, although the tyre looks a little snug for comfort up against the front rails.

He says the fork tubes are three inches out of the top yoke, and the reduced gap between the top of the slider and the bottom yoke give it a cool, punchy look. It'll look nice if he can pull it off.

It'll be a matter of undoing the top nuts on the legs and releasing the springs to see just how close it all becomes, he may be glad it's a Duplex style frame.

Sweet Thunderbird from Denmark

James of Customs From Jamesville posted this beautiful 6T a couple of days ago.

Nice and simple and simply nice, great work, the tank is from an SCO moped, don't know what one of them is, but I do know I want one!

51 Thunderbird Bobber on The Bay

This has just made an appearance on the Bay, your's for £7,250.

This is the description that goes with it;

Description

Superb Triumph Bobber, this is certainly not your average thrown together budget job. This machine stands close inspection and has no excuses.
The bike was built in 2006/7 and upon completion was featured in the November 2007 issue of Back Street Heroes and also displayed on their stand at the NEC bike show. The basis of the bike is a 1951 Triumph Thunderbird, the frame is original uncut and standard rigid Triumph, the 650cc engine is fully rebuilt and balanced and has Bonneville finned rocker boxes and bespoke pushrod covers plus much more. The rest of the machine was built will a total disregard to budget and had many parts supplied by respected experts e.g. Barons Speed Shop and others. The paint and detail is stunning. Viewing is recommended as the pictures do not do it justice.
The bike is road registered and has a period number, it sounds fantastic and rides well and is a great crowd puller, silencers are not fitted but are supplied with the bike along with a speedo and front mudguard to make fully compliant with mot laws, but to avoid complication etc will be sold without MOT leaving the new owner the debate of ......................... The spec seems endless and all detailed in the magazine feature, please call for more details.

Interested? Get in touch

Phone:  01694 731373 
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More pics HERE

Pre-Unit Triumph, Bobber Build

It's always good to hear of another British Bobber being put together, and Paul has sent these pics in of the foundations of his pre-unit Trumpet build. Back in the Seventies the usual whine from the purists and rivet counters was that another good bike was being sacrificed on the alter of Custom. Well that just ain't the case any more, what we are doing is recreating bikes, taking disparate parts from under benches and off of the Bay and breathing new life into them and putting them to the work for which they were always intended. 

Right, rant over.

Paul says that the front end is from a '58 single down tube, swinging arm frame, possibly Speed Twin Id a thought  judging by the colour. The back half is Factory Metal Works, no info on stretch or drop but looking at the lines I doubt if it's much of either. Lucas at TFMW is really putting his stamp on the market now, and rightly so in my opinion, he turns out high quality well engineered kit that works. Wheels are 19 inchers at either end, the rear being built onto a '63 unit hub whilst the front centre  is a Tiger Cub number. Style before function, "Oh Hell Yeah Baby!"

The forks are heavy weight nacelle type with the ten degree raked yokes.

The thing that impresses about this build, even at this early stage is that everything is already bolted together properly and not hung together with tape and clothes pegs for the sake of a picture. This promises to be an interesting and tidy build and I genuinely hope that Paul keeps us posted on the progress.

Thanks Paul, nice one mate.