Classic Triumph Bonneville

[Mr. Dazzle]

Besides, what else can you get for £1k these days?

Well yeah there is that. I think I'll be in by nearly four grand when it's all done and dusted (including the work I've done myself). But for that I've got basically a new engine and a new clutch. What else can you get for four grand? More to the point; no four grand bike feels like this This is the best version of one t of the most iconic bikes ever made!


I should point out that with my currently dislocated and broken collar bone there's no way in hell I could actually ride it. It's uncomfortable enough as it is, properly head down arse up. Just have to hope I heal straight

[Skub]

Hide that receipt from the missus!

[Mr. Dazzle]

Hide that receipt from the missus!

Ha, she's already paid for some of it. It's actually her bike after all.

[KungFooBob]

Hide that receipt from the missus!

Ha, she's already paid for some of it. It's actually her bike, that I broke after all.

EFA

[Mr. Dazzle]

Hide that receipt from the missus!

Ha, she's already paid for some of it. It's actually her bike, that I broke after all.

EFA

Well.....funny you should say that....

There's like a whole story here! Without going in to too much detail, her Dad was scammed by a mechanic to the tune of thousands with this bike. This guy did "something" to the bike are for the longest time we couldn't work out where it was or how to get it back. In the end her Dad ended up paying him 'cause we were on the point of getting the police involved and he didn't want that hassle.

It's a real shame, my FiL was an engine man in the RAF for 30 years and a life long mechanic, there's no way he would have let the bike get into the internal state it was in. Sadly he started to suffer mentally quite a long time before any of us realised and in that period a cowboy mechanic managed to mess the Bonnie up by the looks of things.

[Cousin Jack]

You have spent a fortune getting it fixed by an expert, best get it ridden by one too, Lend it to me for a bit.

I can offer Bonneville experience, both original (back in 1965ish) and more recently with a ersatz 2003 version.

[Skub]

Hide that receipt from the missus!

Ha, she's already paid for some of it. It's actually her bike after all.

A sound arrangement.

[Mr. Dazzle]

More expense

He's been putting it back together. One of the conrods is still tight on the crank...so he's sent that off to an inspector/machinist to figure out what's going on their. The crank and bearings have been sorted so it must be the rod.

[Skub]

At least he didn't bung it all together and say,'there ya go mate'. He sounds meticulous.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah he's a pro. He's got some lovely looking bikes in his unit whenever I go there. He's also a BSB mechanic so my (and everyone else's!) work gets slowed down during the season.

It's just super fortunate for me that he's 15 mins from my house

[Mr. Dazzle]

The crank and bearings have been sorted so it must be the rod.

False alarm!

He sent the rods off to be inspected and they cam back OK. Ona hunch he tried swapping the big end caps over and it all fits nicely now. Whoever took it apart last manually labelled 'em wrong.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Close to actually being finished now

Engine and gearbox and all back in the bike, bolts are in but not torqued down. He's flushed out the oil tank and replaced all the oil hoses...the previous issues were caused by the lubrication system being gunged up, thus there's not much point cleaning things out if you leave the oil tank and lines dirty.

Everything turns over nice and easy now. Just need to torque it all down, set the clearances and then do the ignition timing.

Reckons it'll be all running in January. He's off work for Christmas now, as am I.

I'm 50/50 on whether or not I should add up all that the bike has cost me Looking back at the work, nearly the whole engine and much of the transmission is pretty much new now...but the numbers all still match. Can't get much better than that.

[weeksy]

I can never understand how these things take so long, does he do 10 mins per day on 20 different bikes ?

I see this where builds and engines take a year and think "WTF, why is that".

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah he's got lots of bikes on the go at once and most customers are like me..."no rush, just finish it by spring". With classics you're often waiting for stuff to come back from the chrome plater, or the machine shop, or the painter etc etc so it can also be very stop/start. I imagine he does my bits while other bike bits are "out".

He's also a BSB mechanic so spends alot of time doing that, obviously that has more immediate time pressures.

[weeksy]

Yeah he's got lots of bikes on the go at once and most customers are like me..."no rush, just finish it by spring".

He's also a BSB mechanic so spends alot of time doing that, obviously that has more immediate time pressures.

Is he the only one who can do it then ? I get that he's busy but why then would you send yours to him ? and why would he take it on if he doesn't have time ?

I think it's part of my personality of course that i'm more of a 'now' kind of guy. If i have to drive 2 hours each way to pick something up to finish a job that day, instead of waiting until the day after for the postie to bring it, well i'm jumping in the car and getting it that day and knocking the job out ASAP.

I've currently got my lads bike frame on the workstand without forks as they're off being serviced, i can't recall the last time i left a job 'incomplete' overnight. It's a long time ago that's for sure. I have to finish a job, put all the tools away and tidy up, otherwise, well it's just not right.
There's been times i'll put components back on a motorbike if i'm missing a part, knowing i've got to remove them all again tomorrow when that part arrives, just so it's 'complete' for the evening.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Just on the flipside...during my work on motorsport stuff, I've seen entire driveline built from scratch in a couple of weeks

We once made a carbon prop shaft in 3 days and then took it hand luggage to Tokyo for a race customer

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah he's got lots of bikes on the go at once and most customers are like me..."no rush, just finish it by spring".

He's also a BSB mechanic so spends alot of time doing that, obviously that has more immediate time pressures.

Is he the only one who can do it then ? I get that he's busy but why then would you send yours to him ? and why would he take it on if he doesn't have time ?

I think it's part of my personality of course that i'm more of a 'now' kind of guy. If i have to drive 2 hours each way to pick something up to finish a job that day, instead of waiting until the day after for the postie to bring it, well i'm jumping in the car and getting it that day and knocking the job out ASAP.

I've currently got my lads bike frame on the workstand without forks as they're off being serviced, i can't recall the last time i left a job 'incomplete' overnight. It's a long time ago that's for sure. I have to finish a job, put all the tools away and tidy up, otherwise, well it's just not right.
There's been times i'll put components back on a motorbike if i'm missing a part, knowing i've got to remove them all again tomorrow when that part arrives, just so it's 'complete' for the evening.

Well quite simply...you're not doing it to pay the bills!

I'm sure he could do it over night, I'm sure he does exactly that on his BSB stuff, but since I don't need him to he's not

He might well have customers who want/need stuff NOW, in which case he'll bump my stuff to do their's. No big deal, the bike is gonna sit in my garage til spring anyway and he knows that.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I can never understand how these things take so long, does he do 10 mins per day on 20 different bikes ?

I see this where builds and engines take a year and think "WTF, why is that".

A big air cooled Suzuki or Kawasaki (they're very similar) engine takes about 10 hours to strip right down and rebuild (so long as you don't touch the gearbox), an LC engine takes about half that, most of the delays in doing these jobs are either getting parts you didn't know you'd need or waiting for specialist work to be done, like crank rebuilds or rebores.

Chris Tombleson who trades as Grumpy 1260 is inundated with work rebuilding Suzuki and Kawasaki engines, if you wanted Chris to rebuild you're engine you'd be looking at 6 month wait, I believe Debdens and Dave Ennis have similar waiting times, and if they find your crank needs rebuilding it then has to go to one of the crank rebuilding specialists who have similar waiting times.

Waiting times for odd ball stuff is even longer, as there are a limited number of people who want to do the work, and I don't know who you'd go to these days for stuff like CB1100Rs and RC30s, you'd probably be looking at someone in the US.

[weeksy]

I can never understand how these things take so long, does he do 10 mins per day on 20 different bikes ?

I see this where builds and engines take a year and think "WTF, why is that".

A big air cooled Suzuki or Kawasaki (they're very similar) engine takes about 10 hours to strip right down and rebuild (so long as you don't touch the gearbox), an LC engine takes about half that, most of the delays in doing these jobs are either getting parts you didn't know you'd need or waiting for specialist work to be done, like crank rebuilds or rebores.

Chris Tombleson who trades as Grumpy 1260 is inundated with work rebuilding Suzuki and Kawasaki engines, if you wanted Chris to rebuild you're engine you'd be looking at 6 month wait, I believe Debdens and Dave Ennis have similar waiting times, and if they find your crank needs rebuilding it then has to go to one of the crank rebuilding specialists who have similar waiting times.

Waiting times for odd ball stuff is even longer, as there are a limited number of people who want to do the work, and I don't know who you'd go to these days for stuff like CB1100Rs and RC30s, you'd probably be looking at someone in the US.

I get there's a wait time... but once it's in there... i'd expect it to be being worked on until complete. Clearly i'm more the exception than the rule.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Meh....I don't care when he does it, its just gonna come and take up room in my garage anyway If I had a race on Sunday with it I'm sure we could come to a different arrangement.

Having worked ALOT on building stuff (its how I pay my mortgage after all) I'm not arsed about jobs going non stop until they're finished. Its just not a practical way to work as a job rather than a hobby.