Back from the dead!!!

Having not posted for nearly a year, life got very busy and no time for anything, I'm going to try and get the blog going again!

Hilariously, the Triumph is still in roughly the same state, old forks are off but ne ones are not quite on yet! I'll be sorting that in the next week or so; getting the external springs compressed enough to allow the stantions through the yokes is a challenge...

At Easter I took part in the Lands End Trial, about 12 hours or tomfoolery on the XT; plenty of crashes, a few brusies but I finished and it may mark my film directors debut!

And a new bike has joined the fold, a KTM 950 Supermoto! Having once owned a 950 adventure I pretty much knew what it would be like, but its an awesome machine and great fun to ride, I'll update on that!

So hopefully, more to come...!! You never know I may even try to encourage people to read it!!!

5TA Impressions

The Ace Cafe day was great, if a bit damp! Hopefully the pictures give an impression of the day. To get to and from the Ace I had a 100 mile ride which was really good for giving the bike a bit of shake down following the work on it. Overall the bike ran brilliantly, it isn't fast but it was fine on the road and the smaller front wheel together with the Avon tyres seemed to dial out any evil handling woes...

But there were problems. First the speedo conked out, having pulled it apart I can see that the internals of the unit work and all the cogs turn so I am fairly certain that the fault is either in the cable or the rear wheel mounted drive unit. I will have to replace them as its an MOT failure if the speedo is not working. Second, the front forks, despite being rebuilt, are still a bit limited. They are the original internal spring forks and are well known for bottoming out fairly regularly. So with this in mind I have bought all the parts to convert to later shuttle valve, external spring forks. I have just about built them up which was a pretty easy job. Next job is to take the old forks out of the yokes and replace with the new ones, not difficult but a bit of a pain...

Aside from that it seems fine!! Also, the fork transplant means that I now have a full 5TA front end - yokes, bars, wheel, brake etc; so I'm on the look out for a ridgid frame, I feel a bobber coming on...!

Ace Cafe Reunion 2010

Today was the reunion at the Ace Cafe, an annual pilgrimage for aged rockers and old bike fans... I took the Triumph along and was amazed at the amount of attention it got! Anyway, hopefully the pictures give a flavour.

Getting ready to go... Excuse the cheesy look!!!













I don't normally like Hinkley bikes, but this one was pretty cool!:







Plenty of music:



Ace gets dwarfed by the new Wembley.

Triumph 5TA Road worthy!

I haven't posted on here for ages, but progress has been made with the bike; it is now road worthy! All that was really left to do was to connect the front brake, make a front mudguard and give the bike a general tidy up. At the same time I also changed the exhaust pipes to megaphones that are shorter than the previous pipes, making them much easier to actually mount, and give the bike a much deeper rumble when its on the road!

The front brake was pretty easy to sort out, but a complete faff when it came to shortening the brake cable. Any cable I could find that was the correct outer length was way to short when it cam to inner. In the end I bought a kit and made my own which, so far, seems to be working fine!



The front mudguard is a simple alloy one that I have cut down to make it more in keeping with the bike. It has been mounted to forks using converter plates from Unity Equipe and it looks pretty neat!

So the bike is road worthy!! Having just done a 50 mile blast on it, there are a few things that need to be sorted. The speedo cable seems to haven given up the ghost so that will need to be replaced. There is a leak on the primary side which isn't bad enough to cause any problems but it does need looking at. The plan is for the engine to come out over the winter and have a bit of a rebuild, so I'll probably just keep on eye on this until then and sort it with the build. So what does it look like? Not to bad!!







View over the bars... ish!!



So the aim of getting the bike ready for the Ace Cafe reunion has just about been acheived!! Lets hope the weather holds for next week and that nothing happens to the bike in the next week....!!

Triumph - New front brake

When I got the bike it had the standard single lead front brake on a 19" rim with a pretty manky tyre. Whilst the whole system functioned it didn't actually seem to do anything, least of all actually stop the bike! Seeing as that is pretty much a pre-requisite of a brake, it had to be changed! Coupled with that the old brake was hardly a thing of beauty...





Having picked a twin lead hub a while ago, I cleaned it up, fitted new bearings and brake shoes so that it could be fitted. The biggest issue was that the twin lead hub is wider than the single lead hub, so whilst the forks could be reused - I refurbished these first - the old yokes would have to be changed for later yokes that could take the wider brake. I sourced a set of upper and lower yokes from Burton Bike bits (http://www.burtonbikebits.net/) along with new races. The result was a set of forks that would could take the new brake.



The new brake has been laced into an 18" wheel, which matches the rear wheel, and actually was the size that the bike would have been made with. Over time most old Triumphs will have been converted to a 19" front rim, but 18" was the original. It'll be interesting to see how it handles, but it certainly looks better!! An Avon Road Runner has been fitted to match the tyre that has been put on the rear, the 100 width is fatter than the tyre that came off, but it still fits nicely in the forks.





Next steps are to cable the brake so that it works and then to set it up, could be a bit fiddly... Then I need to find and fit a mudguard. I actually think it looks pretty cool without one, but with the British weather a dry ride can never be fully assured and without a guard, if it does rain, I'll be getting facefull of rain water and maybe more... The old guard is a bit too long and obviously fits a 19" wheel...

I'm coming towards the end of the re-furb of this bike, just the last few jobs to be completed, although they are always the ones that take the longest...

The Bikes: BMW R100GS

This is my current day to day bike, I've owned it for about 5 years now and whilst other bikes have come and gone (way too many) this one has stayed and probably will for ever now. Its an 89' R100, 1000cc boxer engine which is engineered much more for torque than speed, so it kind of just chugs along. Those people into GS's will know all about these bikes, but those that aren't will probably know their spirtual sons, the 1150 and 1200 GS of Long Way Round / Down fame. Those bikes are much more modern and have way more electronics etc, but scratch the surface and the DNA from the 100 and its little bruv the R80GS are still there.

This GS is a little modified. The obvious modification is the exhaust system. In standard form the GS has a high exhaust, exiting around the left leg of any pillion. Mine has a low exhaust, not too sure what its off, but it works and means that if anyone is on the back their left leg is unlikely to roast, unlike the bottom of their boots...



Less obvious is the engine, the power plant on the bike comes from a 78 100RS. All the internals have been properly balanced and the gearbox has been rebuilt with new bearings and the fifth gear ratio altered to give a more relaxed cruise. The result is a really smooth engine that is much quieter and more refined than just about any other 1000 engine I have heard, it also puts the 1100 and 1150 to shame, though they really do vibe a bit. Downsides are not many really, the engine obviously now runs with points which can be a faff, but adjustments are pretty easy. The Bing carbs need to be cleaned and checked pretty regularly, in fact they need doing now! This can be a pain, but I have come to the conclusion that these bikes react best if you don't play with them too much! Fix and nurture but don't dabble... They can bite!



No specific plans for this one! It needs new tyres, the Scorpions that are on the bike seem to have been there for ever! Whilst they are still legal, I am going to put some Avon Distazia's on it and see how it goes. There are some repairs that are needed however... When the bike was last serviced I got a garage to do it, lesson here - do it yourself! It seems that the spark plug on the right hand head has gone in cross threaded, so that needs to come out and the threads be restored. The second issue is that the nuts bolting the oil filter cover to the engine case have been put on so tightly that on head has sheared off, so that needs to be drilled out and the others got out. The bike runs fine as is, so that is on the forthcoming list!

It never really ends, but the bike is probably worth it!!

The bikes: Triumph 5TA

My current main project is a Triumph 5TA that I am slowly turning into a cafe style bike. Why the 5T, well mainly because 650s are pretty expensive to buy, especially if the intention is pull them apart! Secondly, the 500 engine, whilst not being the most potent in the world is sweet running and smooth. Finally, the bike had a bit of reputation for being a bit of an iffy handler, I reckon that with modern rubber, uprated front springs and decent shocks some of the handling qwerks can be dialled out... We shall see!

The bike arrived like this:






It isn't original in any sense at all and whilst looking pretty enough, to my eyes it looked a bit dull. So first up was to create a mental picture of the bike I wanted; basic essentials were: clip-on's, rear-sets, humped seat and swept exhausts. I also wanted to switch the front wheel from the 19" wheel it had back to the original 18" but also to incorporate a twin lead brake rather than the puny single lead.

So work to date...

The forks have been rebuilt with new seals, springs and legs. At this point I reverted to a set of clip on's and new headlight supports, throttle, grips and levers. At the same time the yokes have been swapped to later ones so that a twin lead brake will now fit between the fork legs; the races were renewed as well.





The effect is pretty cool, but it does mean that by the time the choke and light switches have been put on there is not a lot of space on the bars! One area I did overlook was where to mount the ignition switch; it was on the old, much bigger, fork shroud, but that has now gone, so still need to figure out quite where that is going to mount! The Chronometric clock still works looks much better on the bars than just mounted roughly as it was before.

At the rear the old dated mud guard has been switched for an ali one that has been cut down to accept a new light and plate holder. The aim is try and show as little of the guard as possible whilst still making it useful - I think its tuned out OK! The seat has been switched for a pretty cool humped seat. Initially I wasn't sure about this, but it seems to work well, its certainly more comfy to sit on and induces a more leaid out sporty riding position. The changes have tidied up the back end massively.

To help with the handling the rear shocks have been changed for Hagon items and the rear tyre, which before looked more like a car tyre, has been replaced by an Avon 130/18 Road Runner that just fits in the rear swing arm... Just! The low level pipes have been changed for higher upswept ones and Thruxton silencers. They sound like thunder with the baffles out...! I've now lost the baffles!!! MOT will be interesting!!!







With the new exhaust and the bars, the need to sort out out the foot pegs is pretty obvious! Clip-on's and standard pegs would lead to hop surgery pretty quickly! So I have mounted rear-sets by removing the passenger pegs and mounting the new pegs on the pillion mounts. The brake has been easy to modify but on the gearbox side the selector has had to be turned through 180 degrees so that it sits near the new peg, so reversing the gear selection pattern. Instead of one down and three up, it is now back to the more conventional (for old Brit bikes) one up three down; and of course it is on the right not the left...



That's the progress to date; next on the list is the new front wheel incorporating the twin lead brake - I have already bought and re-furb'd a hub - mount a new front mudguard, sort the electrics, give it a really good clean and polish and then actually ride the bike. The aim is to get it ready for the London to Brighton run later in the year.