Petrol head thread!!!

[billy rubin]

still need some bits. headlamp, brake pedal, cables, seat . . .

easy stuff in principle, but to find something that bolts on to a 60-year -old motorcycle puts you at th emercy of the people who have held onto that stuff for that many years.

but everybody benefits, inthe end.

[billy rubin]

heres the motor



its a 1966 T120R bonneville, a standard 650 triumph unit. i have the guts from a 1970 gearbox and primary drive to go into it, a 1969 two-carb cylinder head assembly, a 1970 crank and rods. i'll rebore it to 060 over, find some pistons, put on some mikunis and an ARD magneto and see where we end up.

new, it looked like this:



we ll be satisfied with lots less

[Dark Lightning]

Gad, that's a pretty bike! I'm looking for a replacement for my soon-out-of-warranty econobox. It's probably good for many years of service, but I know that the first electronic part is going to be $1k; it's just the nature of the beast. I'm looking at this 1950 Studebaker pickup
 on CL with a gleam in my eyes.

[billy rubin]

dude

the 50s studebakers were the best looking pickups of their era

no running board but everything worked right

classic

buy any of them you can find

[Icarus]

I would love to get my hands on a 1950 Studebaker truck.....or a 1940 Willys pickup like the one I had when I was a kid.

We could fix either of these with a pair of pliers, a screwdriver and some bailing wire. My 1956 Dodge Dart got better gas mileage than my 2004 Honda with all its snazzy electronics. The little Dodge did not need an electronic scanner to tell me what might be wrong. Neither will the Studebaker.

[billy rubin]

i am a firm believer in attempting to be proficient in any technology upon which your life depends

so i try to understand electricity, permaculture, construction, hydrology, motors, and so on

i love the studebakers

but life is short

[Dark Lightning]

What holds me off from buying it-
1. No disc brakes, though I've driven thousands of vehicles not so equipped as a mechanic
2. Nobody else in this household has driven a stick shift vehicle (except for my wife, once, just before I sold my '64 Impala hot rod convertible)
3) Rarity of parts
4) $13k

I can unload my econobox for enough to pay for it. Call me crazy; I may end up buying it just for the cool factor, though I'd be just as happy with a '67 Chevy long bed step side, similarly equipped. At least those parts (of all types) are readily available.

Flip side- some neighbors adore my '70 Chevy 3/4T Longhorn Custom Camper, but they like Old Studes better. Maybe I could buy it and flip it. Not greedy, just a thought. 

[Icarus]

Tank might find some interest with this article

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/68597260?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

[Tank]

A thing of beauty!

[billy rubin]

damn

too much going on.

th efuel tank fell out of the pickup. the transmission died in the chevy. the minivan took a deerstrike and has lousy suspension bushings anyway.

so im riding the 1997 buell cyclone to work, the wife is nursing the shuddering minivan, and the number three son is looking for transportatiopn.

the 2007 ninja that he races has a transmission that wont shift out of first. so i resurrected the 1969 BSA thunderbolt, which has been running but waiting on details for a while.

he put the 6 volt coils in it that ive been putting off (the electronic ignition needs 6 volt coils for a 12 volt system) and then i went through it.

ran good today-- good oil return, decent throttle response, nice machine for 55 years old. but when i got back i lowered the idle to a normal rate and the opilpressur elight went on.\


opps, i said. so i put a pressure gauge on the idiot light port, and it was 20 psi at idle. good pressure. but when i took it out and warmed it up and came back, all i had was 7 psi.

not as good as i wanted.

so there are onl;y three possibilites. thecheapest is if the oilpressure relief valve is bad, which is fifty bucks. i have one from a triumph i may be able to fit to see if it improves anything. thats US$60. if thats not the problem, the its a worn oil pump, which is US$500.

if that isnt the problem, then its the shell bearings on the timing side that are worn. that will be much more expensive.

so im waiting for the pipes to cooloff. tomorrow ill fit the oil pressure relief valve, withouit much hope. i really think its the oil pump, which is weak point on the old 650 BSSAs.

but who knows. pretty bike, tho

[Tank]

A beautiful money pit.

[Icarus]

Source of Spare parts for Billy?..........................

https://imgur.com/gallery/almac-n-o-cementerio-SM5nXso

[Tank]

This is Triumphs latest attempt to recreate that beauty. Not sure it works that well?

[billy rubin]

Source of Spare parts for Billy?..........................

https://imgur.com/gallery/almac-n-o-cementerio-SM5nXso

that looks like my warehouse

maybe not so extreme

[billy rubin]

This is Triumphs latest attempt to recreate that beauty. Not sure it works that well?

by all accounts theyre excellent motorcycles.

it san interesting story. triumph died of various causes in the 1980s, and ws eventually resurrected by a property developer who bought the site to put up houses and then discovered he had a motorcycle factory. he ewntered th emarket with brand new machines built with no connection to the past and was very successful.

but they were at great pains to disassocite themselves from the original leaky, vibrating, and outdated predecessors. wouldnt have anything to do with the old customers or their stuff. this lasted until someone with a brain said, wait a nminute. do you realize were turning our backs on 100 years of brand identity?

so they started styling some of their machines to look like the old stuff, and they did very well. its kind of odd to me, though, because i look at them and say, why is their fuel injection module doctored up to look like a 1960 monobloc carburetter? and why do they have cooling fins on the cylinders of a liquid cooled motor?

but they have a winning forumula. today lots of their stuff is made in thailand, but thats the way of the world. very different paradigms now







the changes are interesting to me, because they dont push any of muy buttons, and the reasons are complex. these are more advanced machines in every way that relates to their basic purpose-- faster, better handling, more reliable, more comfortable, and so on, but they have moved into a technological realm which i have long ago not chosen to enter. my stuff is old, cantankerous, needs attention, maintenance, and is inferior in terms of one set of uses, but satisfies everything i need in a machine. every day they depart farther from the dominant culture.  its not a luddite proclivity-- i use state of the art parts and tools to get what i want. its that i have goals that are not the same as those of the modern designers and i dont see any need to adopt a different set of values.

in the end, its a push-pull between utility and philosophy that diorcts lots of choices that we make, and i prefer to follow a certain path even when it diverges from what might otherwise make more sense.

go figure