Stroppy Old Tart, or the story of a Triumph Bonneville

[Hooli]

I ordered a few bits today so I can build up a rolling chassis & a few others I've been meaning to get for ages & keep forgetting. I think I've found so many of these run electronic ignitions these days too, I ordered points & condensers for her too so I had them ready, £48! for two sets of points & two condensers, I'm still used to them being about £2.95 each.

[paulplom]

I thought they still were! The last time I fucked about with points was in around '95 on a G reg fiat uno. The little screw holding them in place wouldn't tighten and I had to whip the cap off and nip it up every hundred miles or so.
Good old days..

[Hooli]

I believe it's getting harder & harder to get decent ones, hence the price from decent suppliers.

I might end up going electronic eventually as they are meant to be replaced every 3k according to the schedule. Whatever happens I won't be fitting a Boyer ignition as I went through three in 8k when I first got the bike, they just don't work no matter what others say.

[xtriple]

Mine had Boyer and was fine. Also had a Powerbox and that was too... So I am going to blame 'operator error' as that seems the likeliest answer!

[Hooli]

I've got a powerbox & it's been brilliant, but the ignitions were useless. Wired exactly as they said, with the right type of plugs & leads they'd blow the output transformers in about 2k miles. I upgraded to points after I got bored of sending the units back for repair.

[Hooli]

I'm happy with today's results, it's what winter bank holidays are for right? I finally feel like I own a bike not just a pile of bits again.

I just need to rearrange the kitchen so I can get in the freezer now.

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[DodgeRover]

Bloody silly place to have a freezer if you ask me

[christine]

At a farm I go to, ( I did a post on the other channel about getting his old 3 wheeler Morgan up and running remember ? ) Well, his brother was killed on a motorbike in the sixties .. All their old motorbikes were put in a shed , OMG barn find type ..and the far safer Morgan was bought !! Now in his late seventies, he's been clearing the farm . I told my mate, who's an old skool biker in his sixties , but going on 20... He went and bought one from him , and restored it over the last 18 months .. He took it back to show the farmer a few weeks ago , who was over the moon to see it restored and sent me a pic .

BSA B31

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[Hooli]

Minor progress today, it's now taxed!

I went to the post office & got it changed to historical free tax & declared it MOT exempt. Now the long wait for the replacement V5c to arrive.

Oh & I got some paraffin as I'd run out, so I can wash the crank out before fitting the new sludge trap.

Finally, I've read 'Tuning Triumph Twins' by Stan Shenton. I'll ignore most of it as it's way too technical for what I want to do. But it's nice to know what could be done & that the few bits I have done such as polish the conrods are the correct things to do.

[Hooli]

Not a huge amount of progress on this as I've been lazy when not doing other things. But I have cleaned these up, considering they had a good 1/16" of hard carbon & the same of oily sludge on top I'd say they've come up quite well.

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