Triumph T140

Getting there! The rear wheel, chain guard, and swinging arm came off today, with an ever increasing lists of parts to buy and the pile of stuff to get stove enamelled is getting bigger aswell.

Plastic welding Ducati

One of the inner fairing covers on the 888 was cracked so having had some success with superglue I whipped it off, but unfortunately there were bits missing so I thought I would have a go at plastic welding with a tie wrap and soldering iron (look it up on YouTube!). It actually works pretty well as long as you melt the base aswell as the tie wrap, I built up a reasonable thickness of plastic and then ground it down with the Dremel. The result is not perfect, although maybe spending more time with fine grain emery would help, but it does become functional again.
I was also visited by a 750ss at the weekend a lovely bike that has been lovingly restored.

100k Service Daytona

So back from Paris after 1100 kms aller retour! Bike seems to be surging a little and pinking quite a lot, hopefully finishing the service will resolve this.

So yesterday, tank off, airbox off, valve cover off, to check the valves, all perfect! I suppose  I ought to happy otherwise it's cams out, but you know a lot of work for nothing but peace of mind! Still good to know that after 100K kms, no valve clearances have moved - I have never changed a shim on this bike!

I spent about an hour cleaning up the rubber gasket and cover and then liberal use of silicon sealer and on it goes, and believe it or not it didn't leak!
The trick is to stick the rubber gasket to the cover and then put in the left side first and then the RHS, can't say I didn't get sealant everywhere but it eventually went on.

New plugs and then to balance the throttle bodies, now I am sure I have done this before, but I couldn't find my post so had to read the book a bit.

Basically you disconnect the air pipes from the IACV (little device that controls air input during startup and then control idle) - you are supposed to put in T pieces so you can connect the vacuum gauges and IACV at the same time, but I stuck the vacuum hoses directly in the pipes effectively disabling the IACV.

To start the bike you need to hold a steady (just open throttle) and not let it drop as the idle is no longer controlled. The balance is then done on each cylinder (no reference) with a type of air screw between each throttle body. They don't seem to have any impact on the butterfly valves.... hmmm.... As a consequence it didn't seem to have any impact on the vacuum at all whether I shifted clockwise or anti clockwise. This can not be right!

After much fiddling I think I need to buy some T pieces and try again, although I have no recollection of doing this in the past.....

Anyway, new filter and then back together and all is well. I still have a problem with the fuel level sender so I think the tank will be off again soon, as I will need to find a solution to that - the bodges on the Triumph forum don't appear to have worked!

amazing what you can do with a mobile phone take pictures where you eyes can not see!

Throttle balancing screws

Nothing better than a ice cream stick to clean old silicon out of the cover

Valves all good!

100k service

Well if you didn't see my post on Facebook, I hit the 100k Kms on my Daytona last week, so big service time! Basically everything needs doing, I have ordered everything from silverperformance.eu and an Pipercross air filter from eBay. I have so far busied myself with changing all the fluids, oil and filter, coolant, brake fluid (front& back) today I got some 10 weight fork oil. The forks hold 589ccs in each leg with an air gap of 76mms, I managed to get in 580 in each leg taking it up to 76mms, first time I've used Ipone fork oil we'll see what it's worth.

I am travelling to Paris tomorrow, so I will do the remaining stuff when I get back - valves, air filter and plugs and I'll have a look at the rear suspension linkages as they are prone to rust up.

Rd350 first start

Happy the 350 started 4th kick! I even checked the gears up to second and all seems to be in order. I checked the float height on both carbs and they were both the same at 24mms, so I will just have to see if it starts to leak fuel again. The right hand piepe was full of petrol and both crankcases were well full, so fuel had obviously leaked its way past the Reed valves and into the bottom end. I'll keep an eye on it. The attached picture is of base gaskets that I cut out of gasket paper, coz the ones that came from Norbo were too thin, this has an impact on the squish setting so you can't afford to mess with losing 0.2 mms!

The Triumph is slowly coming apart, the shopping list and chrome and paint list are getting longer.....

Triumph T140

Well I proposed to customer Nr1. To come back and have a complete restore on his T140 Triumph Bonneville. He had stored the bike in a garage but it was covered in bird shit, so a good clean was the first task, I have found a guy that will stove enamel the frame, and a potentiel chromer for the shiny bits so I am starting the strip down and the shopping list, of course the wiring is a worry as I don't have a diagram and despite taking many photos it is going to be a challenge getting it back working, I am planning on using LP Williams for parts as they were great the first time round, although they don't have silencers for it so will have to source them elsewhere.

RD350 gearbox

The 350 was jumping out of second at the end of the season, so I decided it was time to get in there. I had bought a second hand main and secondary shaft which was in pretty good nick, although no selectors forks (which I thought would be the problem!), Anyway no problems removing the engine although I did have to improvise a little to get the clutch out as I removed the chain a bit early, however all as expected.

The second gear on the output shaft was pretty worn and the selector forks looked perdendicular to the shaft so they were left alone. However I separated out multiple gears where the dogs were looking a bit worn or as like the second gear the teeth were actually worn.

All went back in and I could've finished today however I broke one of the base gaskets and I didn't have a spare, so I have ordered one from Norbo (RDLC Crazy).