Britbike forum Forums British motorcycles in general British modified/specials Triton Wideline / 650 Thunderbird awakening

This project has been on my to-do list for many years but every time it gets near the top of the list life gets in the way and it gets put back into deep storage.

Due to a strange chain of events I now have myself, the bike, and a basic workshop all together together at the same time - and I have a few months to play!



Expect lots of questions, starting with "Is the photo showing ok?" (Host: changed to Postimages.com)

Classic case of the front brake cable being in danger of catching under the back edge of the mudguard.

Well, your photo Hosting site is one of the [email protected] ones that can bomb viewers with mild porn and adverts, but the project looks to be a fun one.

Thanks for the comments, I got this as a non-runner many years ago so almost everything needs to be checked.
I'll add the brake cable onto my to-do list

Early preparations :
Strip the whole bike (in North East England) and move it - in a very unsuitable car - to South Wales.


Crate everything and ship it to Portugal where I'm spending the next few months.




Unpack everything and lay it out in the garage/workshop.


Suggestions welcome for a decent free Hosting site (Host: https://postimages.org/)

I like postimages. I agree with GrandPaul. Your Hosting site put up porn then locked up my pc. Said it was infected, supposed to call a number. Whatever. I rebooted and scanned. No threats, but Irritated that I had to put up with that nonsense.

YIKES!!!

Ransomware!

Yikes indeed!

Huge apologies folks (especially Tracey !), the forums I normally use host their own photos so I just looked for "Best free Hosting sites" for a host to use here and picked one that looked ok.
The first attempt was freeimagehosting.net - GrandPaul wasn't impressed so I changed to postimages.com

I'll remove freeimagehosting link (now done) & replace with postimages.

The first decision - wash & degrease every bit before putting it back together.


The oiltank mount had been hacked off before I got the bike, now was an ideal opportunity to clean up the weld.




By the end of the day


It's a start...

The engine mountings were fine but it took a while to eliminate all wobble from the gearbox (wrong sized mounting bolts, wrong primary chain tensioner, etc)


A lot of time was spent oiling control cables and routing them to get free movement, end result is a rolling chassis with the motor in place.


Moving in the right direction ...

I like taking progress shots from the same vantage point, then I do a "time lapse"; works pretty well.

The bike is looking good...

Not a lot of progress but a few bits done, finding the chronometric works after years in storage was a nice surprise





Bars & levers need replacing sometime, I can have smooth controls at weird angles or I can have levers in sensible positions but the controls are stiff. Not good but ok for test rides. Higher bars would be a good start, so would levers with the cable exit parallel to the bars not angled into the bars.
The oiltank isn't bolted in yet but is next.

You don't want drag bars on the bike.

Clubmans, "M" bars, or standard low-rise...

I've found, from my limited experience with drum front brakes, that 3-4" rise bars give the best bend to the brake cable.

Hello, and a Happy New Year to everyone!

I spent most of News Years Eve trying to get the motor to run, some progress but it's not quite there.

New (stainless!) standard / 2” rise bars now fitted and feel a lot better. The new brake & clutch cables I got are causing problems so are not fitted yet.
I have new silencers but will be using the originals until the bike is ready to use.

The motor often fires up and tickover sounds good but it dies after a couple of seconds. If this is a typical sign of a particular problem - let me know.
I know it needs sparks, petrol, and compression. It (seems it) has all 3 ... until it doesn't.
The bike has been running in the past so valve timing, compression etc were ok then. It has been stripped for shipping since so everything is now suspect..

Info :

The oil system was primed before I did anything else, the tell-tale shows pressure as soon as the bike starts.

Ignition is a distributor with 12v twin coils (wasted spark), power is from a fully charged 12v car battery hotwired direct to the coils.
Timing has been checked & rechecked, Sparkplugs were fitted new before it went into storage (so are unused but not new).
Plugs have been removed & cleaned, they soon go black / sooty - no surprise given the amount of petrol I've fed it.

3 monoblock carbs give similar results which makes me think the problem isn't the carbs. Pilot jets & floats were checked on all carbs before use. I have a spare needle but not sure if it will work with the 375 or 376 - what length do they need? Carbs available are :
375 (ok but undersized? Missing needle?),
376 (snapped airbleed & tickover screws - but should work if they are set somewhere near? Carbtop ring has snapped and is held with a jubilee clip, missing needle?)
389 (looks most complete & usable, bike has been running with this in the past)
Fresh fuel was bought last week, I've been using a lawnmower petrol tank as a supply (also an open funnel) so I can see any movement. All seems ok.
Pouring neat petrol down the carbs / into the cylinders doesn't really help.

There's no other wiring fitted yet, the petroltank / fueltap hits the rocker covers so I'm using a temporary tank for now,

I have a basic toolkit here (inc timing light & multimeter) but assume if I don't have it I can't get it.
Getting spare parts here is near impossible, I don't have a compression tester but it feels like it has compression.
Hopefully the problem is something obvious but I'm missing it...

It’s alive

The problem was a mix of ignition gremlins, once fixed it fired straight up. I took the opportunity to rewire rather than reuse the original trashed and bodged harness.
The motor now starts and runs fine, the downside is the gearbox grinds when trying to change into first (it goes into second fine so I don’t think the clutch is the problem).
The gearbox output shaft has a lot of play and a bad oil leak so I guess I need to rebuild the gearbox before going any further





Old harness at the back, new fused relay harness at the front