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!

Quimtastic

Issue 3 dropped on the mat earlier today, usual content of hot babes and cool bikes with an increase in editorial content which makes it readable rather than just a letch fest that the first couple have been. Get on it HERE.

Flog what ya brung

Took a run up to Towcester with Johnny yesterday, bit of a HD cum custom jumble up there. Not much that stirred the loins in the buying stakes but this was up there,

Very nice, did hear later that it's up for grabs at a price that made me choke a little but can't divulge it cos it ain't been confirmed.

Brough Superior

Defining Moment

Got a day off from The Salt Mine, being as it's my birthday an' all. Thought I'd share these pics with y'all and the memory from the day which has stayed with me ever since.

Taken in either 1971 or 2 at a sprint meeting at Duxford, when it was still just a disused WWII airfield and not the Imperial War Museum that it is today

I can clearly remember blokes unloading all sorts of exotica from their vans and trailers, all the results of hours of labour and love deep in garden sheds and garages. Sounding for all the world like the gates of Hell had been opened and the apocalypse was here and now!

Then this guy turned up, first 750 H1 I'd ever seen, rode it down from Birmingham to compete. As I recall it left the line with no real sound, certainly when compared to the roar of the Brit stuff, sounded like men's motorbikes they did. But then all that remained was a lingering cloud of pungent two stroke smoke and a dot that was very rapidly becoming part of the horizon. He absolutely decimated the up to 1000 cc fastest time of the day on it, he waited about, picked up a trophy or something and then rode it back to Birmingham.

Don't know about the writing on the wall, for me this event tore the wall down and replaced it with a rice paper screen. 

Still bought Brit after that? You bet ya, gotta support the underdog dontcha think.

The Devil Is Still In Them Details

Kept looking at the petrol pipe set-up, pleased with the way that it tucks out of the way instead of hanging down the outside of the carb, but them bloody clips, they look like.... well, clips I guess. Something had to be done to tidy that little problem up. 

Scored some brass ferrules and a crimping tool from Carrot Cycles the other day to try and tidy the act up a little and give that authentic period look. The job is made easier by the fact that both the taps and the carb have threaded unions, allowing the pipework to be lifted out as one unit.

Looks far more like it now, so much so that come the day it probably won't even be noticed, but it's a sure fire bet that the clips would have been spotted from ten yards .... result.

Rare Rigid Triumph Parts

Johnny has just about got to the bottom of stripping out the '49 Speed Twin. There's always been a strong suspicion that this bike had a sidecar attached when it left Meriden in December 1949. This has been confirmed now the forks are out.

Back in the seventies these yokes were few and far between and highly desirable as they were made specifically for sidecar work and had (if my memory serves me well) 10 degrees of additional rake built in to reduce the trail of the front end, chopper heaven back then.

It does raise a couple of points though, firstly what a bastard if you scored the top yoke for this set up thinking it was standard and then couldn't figure out why the forks wouldn't go together using a solo bottom yoke. Secondly, we feel that the sheet metal components of the lower nacelle must be different as well to maintain the headlight on the horizontal, and compensate for the extra angle. If that is the case, then there can't be many kicking about nowadays and it's very doubtful they're being repopped.

A chance to buy.......

.......... one of the sweetest unit 500's in the kingdom.

1962 Triumph T100A, 500cc 5TA Engine. Complete sludge trap up engine rebuild, MOT ready to ride.

Offers…

More info and photos: eddie@reddice.co.uk