Triumphant

The Triumph is pretty much done.  And it runs and everything works.......lights, horn, alternator, clutch, instruments, and did I mention, IT RUNS!  I made a short video of it running, but can't seem to upload it to YouTube.  I was a happy man.  It was like the first time the Mustang moved under its own power:

Talk about old school; I haven't kick started a high compression four stroke in many years, and I can barely do it now.  Unlike modern fuel injected bikes, there is a routine you must follow to get one of these things going.  The first thing you have to do is free up the clutch plates.  They tend to stick together making the clutch not release, which makes putting it in gear a potentially damaging event.  To free the plates, you pull in the clutch and kick the engine over until the kickstarter moves freely (no longer turning the engine).  Next, turn both petcocks on (one for each carb).  Then "tickle" the carbs by pushing a button on each carb that pushes the carb float down and floods the engine slightly.  When a little gas flows out of the tickle buttons you have done enough.  Now turn on the ignition and move the kickstarter unil you feel the resistance of a compression stroke.  Now jump on it! (giving it just a little throttle).

Once it's running, there is no sound like a classic Triumph twin, and it's pretty loud too.  Even though the bike has stock mufflers, they are straight through, with just diffusers in the side.  I remember back when I had a 1967 500cc twin I strapped an old portable wire recorder on the back and went for a ride just to record the "music".

At the moment it has no leaks of any kind, which is kind of strange......it is British, you know.  We will see how that turns out.

There are still a few things I plan to do.  The tach and speedo are in need of a rebuild, but I may just buy some replica ones instead.  I may also swap the clutch and brake levers for some newer type that should have a shorter reach; I first need to see how the stock ones feel when actually riding the bike.  I look forward to that first ride, but it may be awhile because I am not going to ride it on wet roads, and where I live the roads stay wet after a rain for a long time because of all the shade from the tall trees.

Enough chat.  Here are some pics of the final product:

Coming Together

I've got the front end pretty well done with the exception of the instruments.  It took new fork tubes, fork seals, fork oil, fork caps, and new front brake cable, plus new handlebars and grips.  The headlight was reinstalled with all the wiring hooked up.  Testing revealed the headlight worked, but the horn didn't: I'll work on that later.

I think this was the first year of this type of front brake.  It is a "double leading shoe" drum brake that was about as advanced as a drum brake could be.  Still not near as good as a disk brake.

My new handlebars are narrower than the originals to make the bike feel more modern.  The grips are also more current and comfortable than the barrel grips that were stock.  I'm keeping all the old stock parts so that when I sell the bike the new owner can restore it to showroom stock if he wants:

Orv gave me his old bead blasting cabinet and I have been using it to clean up nuts and bolts.  Here is an example of what they look like before the blast treatment:

And after:

Now I can move on to the middle of the bike.  I wanted to get the front done so I can roll the bike off my workstand if I need to do any maintenance on my Honda CBR.  I installed the battery tray and the breather tube that runs along side the rear fender and out the back of the bike.  Then the left side exhaust and passenger and rider footpegs:

Not everything goes smoothly.  Remember that oil tank paint job that I bragged about in the previous post?
Just before I started to re-install it on the bike I decided to take a look inside it.  Shining a flashlight down into it and taking a peek revealed it was all gunked up with old oil grundge.  I couldn't risk that clogging up oil screens or getting into engine parts, so I tried dissolving it with paint thinner and sloshing it around.  That was going pretty slow, so I tried gasoline.  That cleaned out the oil tank, but ruined my new paint job.  I decided to do the job right and get the tank powder coated, so it is out to the powder coating shop, which conveniently belongs to my fellow riding buddy Ross' son Chris.

Slow Progress

Progress on the Triumph has been pretty slow, but that's OK.  I have plenty of time before warm, dry riding weather and I'm trying to stay under $200 per month for parts.

The most expensive parts so far have been the spokes and tires, but I also decided to get new fork tubes when I found out they were not too expensive and my old ones were not in the best of shape.  These new fork tubes turned out to be a problem, though, which is going to add more expense.  I have been noticing all along in this restoration that my bike had some differences from Orv's 68 Bonneville.  The impact of these differences finally became an issue when I attempted to put my old fork caps and bottom bolts into the new fork tubes.  They didn't go.  Thanks to some research by the parts person, Cassie, at the Portland store where I ordered the fork tubes, we discovered that my bike is an early 68 production model that apparently had some carryover 67 parts on it, and the fork tubes were one of these parts.  The thread type for the fork caps and bottom bolt were different than the fork tubes.  I have read that Triumph would make changes like that in the middle of a production run.........part of their poor quality control reputation.  Anyway, it meant either sending the fork tubes back, or getting new fork caps and bottom bolts that matched the new forks.  Since the fork caps were a little dinged up anyway, I decided to bite the bullet and for another $50 or so, get new fork caps.  Here is a pic of the bike with the new forks, fork seals, and fork gaiters installed and waiting for the fork caps to arrive:

The gas tank was removed and polished up.  Lucky for me the paint was still in good condition from the paint job I applied 20 years ago:

I removed the oil tank because I decided to repaint it.......it just wasn't quite as good as it should be.  Here it is curing inside the house where it is nice and warm:

Even while I'm waiting for parts, or money to buy parts, there are always small jobs to do to keep me busy.  One of these was to polish the cases on the right side:

I also bought some new oil hoses and fuel line and fuel filters.  The old stuff was either rotting (oil hoses), or so hard from old age they would have cracked from the vibration of the running engine (fuel lines).

Still lots of parts to find their way back onto the bike.  I am beginning the re-assembly mode.

 

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.

Another Restoration

Almost 20 years ago I restored this 1968 Triumph Bonneville and put it on display in our living room:

Over the years, even being inside, it has gotten dingy and dull.  It is time for a little restoration and freshening up.  Although I rode it once after I restored it the first time, I had always planned to put it on display.  This time, I think I'm going to try to make it a rider. 

Just like the Mustang, anytime you do a restoration you have to decide whether to keep it strictly original, or make it better and more modern and usable.  The Mustang helped me decide on the latter course of action for the Triumph.  I like the idea of making it usable rather than just a pretty face.  For this reason I plan to replace the original zinc plated spokes with stainless steel ones, replace the rock hard old tires with new ones, and install an electronic ignition rather than the old points and condenser type.  I think a different set of handlebars would be better than the old buckhorn wide bars the bike came with.  The Brits didn't use those kinds of bars and only put them on the USA export models. 

The first order of business was to put some air in the tires so I could roll it out of the house.  Carolyn helped with moving some of the furniture out of the way and getting the bike out the front door.  Then we put it up on the work stand and got it ready for some disassembly:

 

Still one of  the most beautiful motorcycles ever made.

 

When I restored the bike 20 years ago, there was one disappointing result that I will have to correct this time, and that was that there were a couple of oil leaks.  There is an old saying that a classic Brit bike MUST leak oil, and in fact, I remember seeing brand new bikes leaking perfectly clean oil on the showroom floor back then.  Another snide remark was that if you bought one and it didn't leak, you could take it back.  Nevertheless, I'm going to try to see if with modern gaskets and sealers I can get it oil tight. 

Another interesting thing about this bike is that back when it was new, it was arguably the fastest production motorcycle made, and definitely an expert riders choice.  The model designation....T120....is supposed to denote that it could go 120 miles per hour.  According to Wikipedia, the Bonneville made 46 horsepower, which is actually one less than the specs for my current ride, the 2014 Honda CBR500R.  It's true that the Honda weighs quite a bit more than the Triumph, but I don't think either one of them can go 120 miles an hour in stock trim.  Also, while the Triumph was an experts choice, the Honda is generally looked at as a beginner bike.  Do you think riders have gotten that much better since 1968?  No.  More likely, we have gotten besotted with more power than we are capable of using. 

Pilgrimadge To a Good Road

Every fall I like to make a long ride before winter shuts down the riding season.  Although I do ride during the winter to run errands or to take day rides with friends when the weather is dry enough, I don't do multi day trips.  This fall ride was going to be a pilgrimage to one of my favorite roads, the Old Spiral Highway out of Lewiston, Idaho.  It might be possible to get there and back in two days by riding a lot of freeway, but of course that is not my style.  Plus, there are a lot of good roads on the way to the Good Road, and I even rediscovered one that I had forgotten was so excellent. 

Here is the bike ready to go:

I left on Monday morning, not too early, because of sunlight problems that I will talk about in a moment.  There were predictions for some rain moving in late Wednesday evening, which I hoped would be after I got home, but I took rain gear just in case. 

One of the problems with a fall ride in the Northwest is the low level of the sun in the mornings and evenings.  If you are heading into the sun and there are no trees for shade, the sun can be blinding because there is nothing like the sun shade in a car for a motorcyclist.  There are various tricks, like putting electrical tape across the top of the helmet visor, but I haven't found anything that really works well.  So I try to avoid leaving early when heading east, and riding late when heading west. 

And, if you are heading into the sun, and there are trees for shade, it can also be a problem.  The forest in the Cascade mountains can be so dense that shade is really dark, and in places where the sun shines through, the contrast between the sunny spots and the shady spots is more than my eyes can deal with.  Here is an example from my ride Monday morning.......this was at about 10 am:

You can see that it would be very difficult to recognize a deer in the road in the shaded area, or potholes, moss, gravel, or even which way the road turns.  So I slow down a lot, and sometimes even hold my left hand out to shade my eyes. 

I stopped for a break at the McCllelan overlook, where Mt St Helens was standing tall and topless waiting for the next blanket of snow:

Later in the morning I crossed the Columbia river at the town of Hood River and shortly after got on the old Columbia Gorge highway so that I could ride the Rowena Curves.  This is a relatively short section of road that is popular with Portland/Vancouver area riders.

I struggle to show what makes a good road.  I've tried videos and still pictures but both have their shortcomings.  How about seeing what I see on my Garmin Zumo gps?

When you combine those kinds of curves, with smooth, clean pavement and no traffic, you have the definition of a Good Road.  But if you haven't ridden a good handling motorcycle at a speed that is in control, but invigorating, then you still don't know what a good road means to a biker. 

Another picture:

It's a strange trend in this country that, while generally, it is getting more and more crowded, there are some places that are losing population.  Usually, these are rural areas (Detroit is an exception), where agriculture has been taken over by big ag business, or where some primary resource like timber or mining has declined.  You find a lot of these communities in central and eastern Oregon and Washington.  Lots of vacant homesteads like this one:

Inside this old home I found evidence that it might be a hangout for some of the more seedy locals:

Patrick Henry would be turning over in his grave at what has been done to his famous quote. 

I ended the first day's ride in Enterprise, Oregon; 414 miles.  When riding by myself, I like to eat a big breakfast and then skip lunch.  By the end of the day I am ready for a couple of beers and a full size meal at a restaurant within walking distance of my motel.  This day it was Mexican food. 

The next morning I headed out for the Old Spiral Highway.  To get there I first had to ride up what is called Rattlesnake Grade on highways 3 and 129.  I've done this road twice before......once north to south on a motorcycle, and once south to north in the Miata with Carolyn, but I had forgotten just how good it was.  This ride was south to north, which I think is the best way as it is mostly uphill.  Uphill always seems a little more comfortable to me, I guess because it is easier to stop quickly if you need to.  Here is another Garmin shot of some of this road:

The pink road with the blue center is my track, and the straight blue line heading off to the northwest is a Garmin glitch (I didn't take flight). 
Here is what it looks like in real life.  Note the lack of vegetation, giving a better view around turns:

If you look closely you can see the road down in that canyon. 

Shortly before noon I got to the Old Spiral Highway.  This used to be the only way to head north out of Lewiston, Idaho, but now there is a major four-lane road that bypasses it.  This is great, because it eliminates most of the traffic on the good road.  Here is the Garmin view:

Here is another way to look at it; Google Earth:

After the Spiral Highway I headed north along the Idaho/Washinton state line, following a route I had planned in my gps.  The program I use to plan these routes is Garmin Mapsource.  It is an older program no longer supported by Garmin, but it is easier to use, so I stick with it.  One of it's shortcomings, though, is that it does not distinguish between paved and gravel roads.  So I ended up on six miles of washboard gravel like this:

Eventually I headed west back into Washington through Moscow and Pullman and got on hwy 26, which is the Palouse Scenic Byway.  I stayed on this road almost all the way to Ellensburg where I spent the night.  The Palouse is an area of Washington where over centuries wind blown volcanic ash has created a soil that, combined with the climate, must be perfect for growing wheat because.....there...is...a...lot...of...it.  Miles and square miles of nothing but wheat.  A sample:

I wondered what kind of tractor could till along such a steep side hill without rolling over.  Later I saw someone actually doing it.  The tractor was a tracked vehicle, which meant it probably had a low center of gravity and a wide stance.  It was pulling a rake or harrow that might have been 50 feet wide. 

I got into Ellensburg fairly early, but didn't have to worry about riding into the sun anyway, as it was already clouding over.  The prediction of rain late Wednesday was proving to be a bit off, and now they were saying rain by morning.  I stayed at the Motel 8, which I think is the third time I have stayed there; the previous two times were when riding the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route.  Tuesday was 363 miles. 

Shortly after I got underway on Wednesday it started raining, but I had already put on my rain gear so I was ready for it.  It was pretty much rain off and on for the entire ride home.  Needless to say, I didn't search out the curvy roads, but tried to stick to two lane roads to avoid the truck traffic and road spray of the freeways.  I found that riding a full day in the rain was something I could get used to as long as I had gear to keep me warm and dry.  The bike, however, was a filthy mess by the time I got home.  The total for the ride was 1027 miles.