Britbike forum Forums Projects started by Britbike forum members Members bike projects House guest T100C

A friend of mine is currently between houses and his little 71 T100C needed a temporary home, so I had to offer space in my garage. I only have a pic from a few years ago since my camera is playing up but you get the idea.

Its pretty much all original but a little neglected. It required a WOF ( safety check ) in order to be road legal so I took it into work. I was feeling a little underwhelmed by that twin leading shoe brake when a car did a U turn in front of me. Sure enough both brakes are like squeezing jelly and not much happens in the way of stopping! Car avoided, I decided that I can't give it back to Alan in this state, especially with my name on the WOF sticker so I'm going to go through it a little while it's here.

The front wheel got removed that evening and I stripped the brake plate to its component parts. I know Alan does not want to restore the bike so all I have done is wash everything lube it up and put it back together. After setting up the brake a road test this morning shows a marked improvement on the front and it was improving as I rode. So next up I'll whip the back wheel out for a bit of the same. Then there is a few oil leaks, a brand new Pazon in the saddle bag and I have a Tympanum reg/rec here somewhere. The gear change is also like stirring a pudding bowl. I recon a bloody good all round scrub and a light cut and wax on the tank ( it is now orange ) and she should be looking quite proud of herself. After that I will give Alan a bell and face the music!

The best thing to do is to turn the drums using a simple wheel stand. No need to even dismount the tire, as long as everything is reasonably well balanced. Have an assistant do the turning, or rig up a motor with a friction drum on it's spindle to turn it for you.

Get the drum spinning slowly and check it for a true inner face using a fixed wire pointer (or a dial indicator if you have one); this step is really important, you FIRST want the drum face to be nice and true. Mark high spots with calk on the edge of the drum. Use one mark for slightly high spots, 2 marks for her spots, 3 marks for really high spots.

Take an old brake shoe and line it with emery paper to use as a sander, hit the high spots a little at a time then re-check and see if they've become lower. If so, proceed; if not, sand a bit harder. Make nice sweeping passes at them starting to put pressure on as you arrive at the mark, then press hardest, then ease off. It might take a while, BUT ITS WORTH IT!

Once you've got the drum nice and round, time to fix the shoes. Set them in the drum one at a time, and look for obvious curve shape differences. Mark with chalk on the face of the shoe.

Use double-stick tape or wood glue, and stick a new sheet of emery paper to a disposable piece of plywood or board, long enough that you can kneel on it, or screw it into your workbench top if you use a topper of sacrificial material (or if simply don't mind screw holes in your workbench).

Work the shoe(s) gently, smoothing off the high spot(s), check against the drum to see that you've hit it right.

Gently color the entire surfaces of both shoes with light, even passes from a full stick of chalk laid across. You want the entire surface colored evenly.

Fit the shoes to the brake plate, and fit the plate up to the wheel, and put it back on the bike. Fix the axle in place snugly. Have your assistant turn the wheel at a moderate speed, then apply the brake gently for at least two wheel revolutions.

Remove and inspect: The chalk coloring on the brake pads should be evenly disturbed or gone across the ENTIRE faces. Any remaining chalk indicates a low spot on the shoe that the rest of the shoe needs to be reduced to. Drum should have a uniform appearance as well; if not, address it.

Once trued drums and good quality shoes are all properly arced, grease fittings serviced, good quality brake cable properly adjusted, and all lever pivot points lubed, you should have the best brakes that your particular bike will ever be capable of having.

That is the best drum brake set up regimen I have ever heard. I am going to give that a go on my project T100. I know the brakes are not over savage on this machines and a bit of attention to detail in the set up can't hurt.

Speaking of brakes, I had a Moto Morini 3 1/2 Strada with a dual leading shoe front brake. I rode the bike quite a bit but I could never really get comfortable with the front brake, It was a good brake but unlike a disk it had nothing at first pull. Then, since I am prone to panic, I would grab a handful and stand it on its nose. This happened every time! What a great bike though. I was too big for it but it went well and handled even better.

That’s almost identical to my bike Rod.

They are a good brake. Mine’s very progressive and predictable. I’ve read somewhere that the front brake light switch can add some give to the braking performance. I’m happy with mine and like to have a brake light.

I have a modern reg/rec bolted underneath the battery tray. where it has stayed cool for years. Accessible through the tool box panel if needed. You’ll have to unbolt the battery carrier to get the thing located in the right spot ( or at least I did). Clearance is tight. Mine’s a Podtrincs I think.

I have a Pazon as well and it’s located in the tank tunnel above the top tube, and behind the coils which are 2x 6volt in series.

It’s a good combination for that bike. Makes it walk and talk.

not much wrong with the 7 inch TLS Triumph brake. Mine was in an 18 inch rim ( my road cycle is a '70 T100S with a 67 Daytona engine ) and worked very well for 30,000 miles although now I have an 8 inch TLS in an 18 inch rim. Not really sure if works much better but it sure looks the part in the smaller rim and is breaking in nicely. I would think that the 7 inch in the 19 inch rim would work fine all being in good shape.

Nice looking T100C

Cheers, Wilf

Nice bike, I like it

Hi Paul, yes i think that would be the way to go with a new set of shoes. However the brake shoes in the front of this bike were fitted by Meriden and comparing the depths of the rivets and wear patterns you can see that they are evenly worn and quite nicely radiused to the drum. The problem was simply a lack of adjustment which I attended to following the instructions in the workshop manual.

I took the rear wheel out yesterday, the brake shoes have recently been replaced. You can see that the contact patch is barely over a quarter of the lining. My method to radius is a little more quick and dirty that yours. I'm going to stick some 80 grit to the inside of the drum and then assemble the brake. I can then centralise the shoes and spin the brake plate with a little bias on the lever. Quick and simple!

It's a lovely wee bike to ride and I am trying to do as little as possible, I don't want to be in trouble with the owner. It does need to stop though!

I hope your drum is true/Concentric!

No sign of pulsating or vibration under braking and whilst the brakes were useless they did pull up smoothly. So I have no reason to think otherwise.

I've read that as well so when I had to replace my front brake cable a while ago I took the old one apart to see how it works. For the switch to operate it has to compress a sort of rubber washer such that the ends of the two spade terminals make contact with the brass washer. It’s not a lot of movement but at the lever I guess it might feel a bit spongier than a cable without a switch? Like you though I prefer to have a front brake light.

Chris

Hi Rod,
"Olympic Flame", please ... (if it's original ...) It's the same colours as my T100, Alan is clearly a man of taste and discernment.

As for the front brake, +1 it should be better; while my T100 has a disc, the 8" pre-conical TLS on my T150 hauls it up PDQ, 7" on a T100 should be equally good?

Regards,

Hello Stuart,

Yeah, he's a good bugger as well so I can't leave him with a bike that don't stop! The front brake is bedding in nicely having had a tickle up and is a match for the 8 inch SLS on my TR6. A little more riding should have it pulling up lovely. I just came in from the garage having refitted the rear wheel. I've sanded the shoes to the drum and given the brake plate and drum a general clean up. Centred the shoes and tightened everything up. On the bench it feels much better.

While the wheel was out I dropped out the rear guard so I could clean the build up of mud and chain lube from the underside, seemed a shame not to clean the rest of the cycle parts while I was at it. I'm also part way though installing the Pazon.


With the tank on the bench I got a proper look at it for the first time, while the black and the pin stripes are original someone has made a poor job of painting the rest of the tank. Unfortunately it is orange.

At least that meant I didn't feel to guilty about giving it a gentle cut and buff. Still not sure if Alan will punch me or thank me!

I dug around in the shed and found the reg,rec that came on my T120R, there was nothing wrong with it except it looked a little ugly!
Pulled out the battery tray and riveted it to the underside.

I had to make a couple of corresponding holes in the rubber mat but it fitted up nice. I then mounted the Pazon box to the back side of the tray using the cable tie mount in the kit. I dug out a couple of old and neglected 6 volt PVL coils and finished up the installation. The timing was confirmed with a strobe this afternoon at work.

The rear brake has come up good but still feels like jelly if used in anger. Looking over the bike some more and I found the brake rod has been bent in such a way that when applying the brake hard it turns into a spring as it try to straighten out. I'm part way through making a replacement.

Sun was shining so I snapped some pics now I've got it cleaned up.




Next up I need to look into some oil leaks, check the valve clearances and tickle up the carb. It's sooting up the plugs pretty good

I was looking over the pictures after I posted them and had to pop back out to the garage. The top of the rear brake arm has been bent in towards the wheel. Rub marks on the rod, exhaust bracket and shock show it was ridden this way for a while and then someone tried to fix it by routing the rod on the outside of the exhaust bracket and bending round and back inwards to meet the bent brake arm. I managed to tweak the brake arm straight and with the rod roughly straightened out it will now run along inside the exhaust bracket and meet the brake arm without fouling the shock. The old rod is still scrap so I'll finish up the new one tomorrow and I guess I will have to road test the bike again.

Great bit of remedial work :-) my partner Su has a 71 C as well,

Dang, that bike looks nice...

Well, that was a mission and a half!

Made the new brake rod from some 1/4 steel rod,

Then spent best part of an hour tweaking the brake arm and the pillion peg bracket until I had sufficient clearance to fit the brake rod whilst keeping it straight.

I confess that I used very little finesse, just a pair of slip joint pliers and some brute force but the result should be a properly working rear brake and that has to be worth it.

Woke up to a grumpy Wife yesterday. It seems since the T100 has turned up the house and in particular the garage has started to smell and it's giving the good Lady a head ache. Sure enough Alan's carbytooter has been slowly evacuating itself, I'm somewhat immune to the smell of fuel so a little grovelling was required. So anyway all other jobs were put on hold tonight whilst I treated the carb to a gasket and seal kit.

If nothing else it is keeping me occupied.

So, back at it. On my list of things to sort was the side stand. With the bike resting on it, it would lean over so far it was quite a struggle to pick it back up. Looking at the stand there was a little bit broken of the end so I assumed it was to short, a quick post in the Triumph forum suggested otherwise and a Google search confirmed the stand was the wrong shape. It's been heated and bent straight before being bent backwards.


I took it work and set about reshaping it and building up some of the wear, I also built up the worn stop inside the clevis so it wouldn't swing out further than it should.

Whilst it did look better, building up the stop lifted the bike, I still had far to much lean. So I took it back to work and when with a slightly more Hockey stick shape.

That got the bike on a better, more manageable angle,


If I want it to stand up anymore I will have to warm the lug and give it a tweak and I'm not sure I'm feeling brave enough at the moment. Looking at pictures on the net this seems about right, what do you Guys think?

I also had a look at the oil leaks from the top end. I've sealed up the rocker spindle and replaced all the sealing washers. I gave the rocker boxes and Intake a light sand and polish, painted the rusty head stays and cleaned all the rusty Fasteners with some Solvo. Came up quite nice.


Then I finally got around to fixing the front park lamp and replacing the bulb in the speedo.

Hi Rod, I find the oif A65’s lean over too much, what’s more you need a 4’ inside leg just to reach the side stand when your sat on the bike.... so I build up the stop at the frame lug end. I don’t have the stand leaning more than a degree past 90° so it won’t roll away but also it’s easier to reach and puts the stand in a place where you can get at it.

Hi Rod,
Might just be the angle your photo. was taken from but I thought the bike was still leaning too much compared to mine, but I couldn't drag mine out for a photo. ... however, these recent images look similar to mine - sorry, can't easily link the images directly.

Hth.

Regards,

Hi Rod,

Mine always sits with a block of timber under the stand. So, you are probably where it was when new.

Ray

Thanks Chaps. I would like to reduce the lean a little more but to do so would mean either welding a raised foot to the stand ( looks ugly ) or tweaking the lug. Looking at the lug some more I no longer think it has been repaired, If I heat the lug and bend it enough to make a worthwhile difference it looks like the clevis of the stand will foul the little lug for the return spring. Time to call this part of the project done and move on I think.

I want to pull the primary cover next and seal it up, it's dribbling like a cheap Whore at the moment. Then pull the gearbox outer cover and look into the floppy gear linkage. I have to lift my foot off the peg in order to change up.