Classic Triumph Bonneville

[Mr. Dazzle]

Box of cleaned up gubbins and doodads. You can buy all this lot as a new set in stainless steel but it doesn't seem worth it.

The cam shafts (the tubes) are hollow with a grease nipple on the end. You're supposed to give them a shot of grease every so often. T'internet reckons that's not necessary for a garage queen and its better to strip/rebuild once a year. So I've cleaned them out and I'll give em a coat of ceramic grease when I reassemble.



Everything dry fits together as it should. My new cable is here too now but totally dry. I'll oil that and then rebuild everything "for real". Even off the bike like this there's a noticeable reduction in general creakiness.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Pretty sure the cranks are 90° out in that pic

Maybe not....the cable will move them alot.

[KungFooBob]

Should get them nickel plated to match your MAC-10.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Greased, springed and reassembled everything today. Lovely smooth actuation now. Getting the plate/shoes combination back in the drum takes some fiddly alignment though! Lots of buggering about until it kinda ssshhhhhhcccckkkks in.



I adjusted the link bar between the two shoe cranks. In fact I got so eager I forgot to take a pic, so here's a reenactment.



In the real job I had elastic tied to the end of both spanners back to the wheel, set up so you're pulling both brakes on. You then just twiddle (technical term) the clevis on that link bar until the pin drops trough the hole smoothly. It went straight in, first go! That made me hyper suspicious so I adjusted in both directions just to confirm that, yes, I had indeed stumbled into the sweet spot first try.

Before you say it Ricey, the white marks on the plate are not scratches, they're ceramic grease. Similarly the brown stuff around the big nut is copper.

The central nut on the plate is well chewed up, i can't get a spanner on to tighten it properly so I'll get a new one.

I also oiled the brake cable. I inherited one of those twisty plunger cable oilers, it's bloody great!

[Mr. Dazzle]

All back together and shook down. Also had my first fill up of 2023. V-Power ain't cheap, but it's cheaper than it was.

Brakes do stop you better but it doesn't necessarily feel like they are! I locked the front a couple of times. You almost have to have faith that you are actually slowing down, such is the woodenness.

Fitted the new fork gaiters too.

[JackyJoll]

Looks smart.

Just for interest, what are the spare leads and spades beside the frame tube?

[Mr. Dazzle]

Horn.

That was a new one with regards to shaking loose. The bracket stayed attached, but the horn itself wanging around made the bracket fatigue and snap off

[JackyJoll]

Very commonly lost component, the horn!

[Mr. Dazzle]

Basically pointless too, it was a weedy little beep you can barely hear over the engine. A full rewire is on the cards sooner or later, I'll lose those terminals at that point.

Couldn't tell you which button it is either Ditto on the headlight high beam, it's one of the many unlabelled switches but I forget which. The main on/off is a bloody great toggle on the fairing.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I've been doing a few more jobs over the last few evenings.

Checked/set the valve clearances. The intakes were OK but the exhausts had opened up quite a bit. 4 and 6 thou before anyone asks.

Re torqued the head and rocker box bolts (before ^^^^!). They were all fine, but some of the little bolts around the edges of the rockers were a touch loose. Might partially explain the seive like top end.

I removed the testicle shredding luggage rack. Those little rubber bungs actually have a genuine Triumph part number. A more permanent fix might be on the cards one day.



I also tweaked the angle of the clip ons and pushed them firmly down onto their spacer tubes (the chrome bit). Said tubes were quite loose (and therefore actually quite pointless as spacers!), they're nice and snug now. Fixing that and sorting the overly open exhaust valve clearances should take away some of the Ducati soundtrack.

[Skub]

The sack shredding rack has a certain period charm,I think. Maybe refit it when no moar kidz are required.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Its more the experience it might offer that I'm averse to.

[KungFooBob]

How are you going to attach your flask of weak lemon drink and train spotting log book now?

[Mr. Dazzle]

I've already spotted all the trains in my area, I'm not an amateur!

[JackyJoll]

Valve clearance being six thou instead of four thou doesn’t matter.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I meant 6 exhaust 4 intake. I dunno what it was before adjustment....more than 6.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Centre stand re Centre stood.



The return spring is way to stiff to get back into place without some assistance. So enter stage right two bits of chord...one from the garage rafters to the spring, the other from the spring to my foot. This gives me a way to stretch the spring and shove a load of washers in, thus making it longer.



After that it's just a case of clipping it back in then yanking the washers out with pliers.

It's a million times easier to start on the centre stand, it makes it way easier to get the full stroke. Got her on the first prod.

Also got a bit of a surprise. My jiggling around the valves and plugs had pulled the throttle cable out of the left carb, it was caught not fully seated, putting the left carb about 25% open and resulting in an explosion up to 3500rpm on start up...quite loud

Definitely has fewer rattles now I've done the valves and sorted those spacers.

[iansoady]

The other way to insert washers is to hold one end in the vice then bend the string backwards and forwards inserting a washer at each bend. I have to say I've never had much succeww ith that method myself and usually use a spring pulling tool loke this (but home made): https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/354716775326

For prop stands the Phillips (or JIS) screwdriver usually does the trick:

[Mr. Dazzle]

Access is the issue, there's nowhere you can really get your hands in to pull the spring. Bear in mind I was putting nearly my full weight on it to open it up that ^^^ much.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Time for an oil change. The oil which is in there is the stuff which went in following the full rebuild ~200 miles ago.

I don't actually know how far ago it was cause the odometer is buggered . I know I rode it to work (90 mile round trip) and a did a couple of short shakedowns and the like.

It needs "old" type oil because the clearances and galleries are all relatively massive, it doesn't have a filter and it relies on oil being flung about and sticking to things way more than a modern engine. Lubrication is much more "targeted" in something newer. Not having the filter is the biggy, modern oil is designed to keep crap in suspension until its filtered out, exactly what you don't want on this bike. On this bike you want the gumpf to fall out of the oil and stay in the sludge traps.

Weirdly Halfords don't seem to sell Castrol Classic any more. They sell their own stuff but not the good old green cans. From what I can see Castrol has a higher percentage of all the nasty heavy metal goodies my old engine likes...but I can't use my trade card to buy it

Oh well! Castrol shop on amazon it is!