More Deconstruction

I got the rear tire mounted and the wheel re-installed on the bike after cleaning up all the frame and swingarm parts:

I'm a little disappointed in the size of the rear tire.  The stock size is supposed to be 4.00 x 18, which is the old style tire designation meaning 4 inch width on an 18 inch rim.  When I ordered the new tire, I had the choice of 4.00, 4.25, or 4.50.  I chose the 4.25, and yet it seems narrower than it should be.  I measured it and it measures almost exactly 4.00 inches wide, but it looks skinny.  The jury is out until the bike is done and on the ground, but it would be expensive and a hassle to replace the tire with a 4.50 just to gain a little width, and merely for appearance sake. 

I cleaned up the rear fender and chain guard and then got the bike ready for front end work:

On removing the front wheel in preparation for re-spoking it, I discovered a mistake I made in the first restoration.  The spokes on the left side were all laced so that the ends were on the same side of the hub:

A closer look shows that some of the spokes don't fit the holes in the hub very well:

I had two sources for how they should look; one was the service manual and the other was the parts book.  The parts book diagram looked like the way I had them, but the service manual showed them alternating from inside the hub to outside.  I checked with my friend Orv, who has a couple of these old Triumphs, including a 1968 Bonnie like this one, and he said the spokes on both bikes alternated.  So that is how I laced them, and it looks a lot better:

I found my Harbor Freight tire mounting machine worked well for lacing the wheel without having to remove the axle and wheel bearings:

Next, I trued the wheel on my balancing rig and then mounted the new tire and tube.  I still need to get some spoke mounted wheel weights because the front rim is too narrow to use the stick-on type weights I used on the rear wheel:

Despite the fact that I replaced the fork seals in the previous restoration, they still leaked when I test rode the bike back then.  So now I have to take them apart and find out what went wrong.  The first step is to remove the handlebars, instruments, and headlight, which contains a lot of the wiring harness. 

Then the forks:

Another couple of  mistakes were discovered in this process.  The pinch bolt on the lower fork clamp was loose, and the top yoke of the triple clamp was also loose, even though the bearings were properly torqued.  It makes me wonder about myself as I was 20 years ago;  was I less careful in my work?  Or am I still making mistakes like that?

Some Disassembly Required

First up on the Triumph was some clean up and polishing.  I  got the primary case looking pretty spiffy:

Notice the exhaust pipe has been removed.  I took them both off to start polishing the chrome, and also removed the rear wheel in preparation for lacing up new stainless steel spokes I had ordered:

Here is the wheel getting ready for me to remove the brake drum and then dismount the tire.  Getting the tire off was a real chore because the tire was hard as a rock after more than 20 years. It had almost 100% tread, but was worthless.

When the spokes arrived, I proceeded to take the wheel apart.  Lacing spokes can be a daunting task, and most people recommend having it done by a shop.  I've done it before; in fact I did it to this bike on the first restoration.  That time I tried to polish each spoke individually, but they are made of galvanized steel that does not polish worth a darn.  This time I'm going all out with stainless steel.......expensive, but pretty.

The worst part of lacing a wheel is figuring out where to start......what hole in the rim does the first spoke go into?  Which hole the next one?  After awhile it gets obvious what the pattern is, but the start is hard.  There are two different lengths of spokes for the two sides of the hub, and two different types of holes in the rim that face different directions.  To make it easier, I numbered each of the hub holes and put a matching number on the rim for that spoke, before I took the wheel apart.

Then after all the old spokes were removed it was just a matter of putting the ends of the new spokes in the right holes.  Sounds easy, but it still took me a couple of tries and most of an afternoon to get the wheel complete.  The next tricky bit is getting the wheel trued.  The spoke nipples are first hand tightened and then gradually tightened with a spoke wrench while checking the wheel for run-out, or wobble.  To do this i used this dial-gauge setup:

If the wheel is moving over towards the dial gauge, I mark the wheel at the greatest deflection and loosen the spokes slightly on the dial gauge side and tighten them on the opposite side.  Vice versa if the wheel moves away from the gauge.  In the end, I got the run-out to around .005 inches.  I don't know what the specs are, but I think that is pretty good.  The wheel also has to be checked to make sure the hub is in the center of the wheel.  If not it will cause "hop".  By tightening the spokes slowly and evenly all around the wheel, it is pretty likely that the hub will be in the center.  If it is not, you have to loosen a bunch of spokes on the short side and tighten them on the opposite side.  It came out fine on my wheel.  I used to ride dirt bikes with a lot more wobble and hop than this wheel, but on a street bike it is more important to get it minimized for a smoother ride.  A final check for spoke tightness is made by striking each spoke with the spoke wrench, and going for the same high "ping" note for each spoke and tightening those that have a dull "thud".

Next, I put the brake drum back on the drive side of the hub.  The original bolts holding the drum on didn't look all that wonderful; the threads were smashed in the part of the bolt that went through the drum.  I replaced the bolts with grade 8 hardened SAE bolts and nuts, and used a paint pen to label the drum so that the next guy working on it will know they are not Whitworth fasteners.

The next step is to balance the wheel.  I've mounted a new tire, but I need to find a source of wheel weights for spoked wheels.  The wheel is pretty far out of balance and I'm going to need about 3 oz of weights.