Featured New Member, New Build

Ta Chaps.
All welded and route for electrics sorted. Once I get the copper pipe under the mudguard we should be good to go. Oh yeah, painting to do as well

 

Dartplayer - yeah, the tank came up ok, funny that as I clear coated two at the same time. The other pitted due to condensation ??? that one must've been warmer than the garage. Maybe I should get a heater or move somewhere warmer down your neck of the woods.
Sprinter - running cables under the mudguard, I bend a 3/8 inch copper pipe, it's easy to bend by hand and stick it in with glass fibre or silicon that hardens to keep it there. I can then run the wiring through the pipe an know that it's safe away from the tyre. It's a good way to run wiring as you can re-wire easily later on if you fancy different or extra lights etc.

 

Nicholaj - I think I remember the seat coming from Motorcycle Storehouse.

https://www.motorcyclestorehouse.com/ - you can only order through a custom shop but they are very quick and not pricey like the Sherman outlets

although I see you already have a seat base, foam and leather stretching for you then, enjoy

 

Rear is an Avon Cobra 200/60. As requested, the frame builder gave me room for a 200 and a goose neck rather than a longer rear end. Engine had to be off set, which is easier than a jack shaft.

 

Here's the copper pipe fixing under the mudguard. It comes on a roll and is easy to shape and then stick in place with glass fibre. Holds the wires safely away from the tyre. I could've run the back light wiring up the sissy bar as i have one on this bike but hey ho, done now.

 

And here's the painted and wired up mudguard, all looking good. Lights all work with the little bates lookalike back light. Just link up the petrol tank and hopefully it will fire up and run with the twin carb on the Tiger head (probably try once it warms up in a few weeks). If it's iffy I'll put the single carb back on.

 

Thanks Gang.

That one is all done now, put the single carb back on, electric wizardry speedo on. Just waiting the all clear now. So, any old end up back to the build of the Amen frame.
Spot welded the seat bungs and bolted the seat base on - this will need a bit of sponge and covering. Fixed the small bates headlight (I really like these, they also have a main beam blue bit of plastic in the top which doesn't work so I will drill this out and make it the oil pressure warning light) and fixed the even smaller bates rear light over the number plate back and sissy bar.
I've never built one a plunger frame before so didn't really know how much room to give the wheel. But as Amen had already built in mudguard brackets I just went with what they had. Lining up the back wheel to the centre and front sprocket was a fiddle. I'll need to get someone to make me up some spacers now I know the lengths required (made up with triumph spacers and washers at the mo). (Still undecided as to whether I want to keep this and may sell as a project, but it's keeping me off the streets for a while.)



Gotta sort and fix the electrics box, sort the oil bag and figure out where the coils are gonna go... onwards and sideways etc





Edit: just noticed I've put the front wheel back on the wrong way round, was looking at ways to sort the weenie drum front brake cable and stop.

 

Did the spot welding on the oil tank bungs and seat bungs. Welded on a couple of bolts to the oil bag and it all sits rather well now. The seat is the base from an old one I had hanging about which had a horrible crocodile cover over the original plastic cover - hence the two rows of rivet holes. The Amen oil tanks that came free with the frames in the 70s have a convenient battery tray so the tank is one of those Harley horse shoe types. Not a lot of protection though with the sprung seat so I think I'll get a twin coil unit and stick that in there while putting battery, ignition, etc in a battery box under the oil tank.
Slowly slowly catchy monkey...



By the way, just in case you were wondering, the rubber hose on the clutch housing is just held there for now. The other end is connected to the crankcase breather, which I connect on when building these early Triumph twins (this is a 1964) as the hose is a right git to get on once the crankcases are together. Early engines breath out the end of the inlet cam through a butterfly disc on a spring, later engines breath out of the top of the primary case.

 

Continuing with those jobs that go along with bike building that seem to take longer and longer as I get older. A couple of zorst brackets and a couple of engine head to frame brackets took all day! Made the head brackets to fit onto the double head bolts as a single sling, they look better than the little brackets normally used and also just in case I want to mount the coils on them.

 

Bleedin chilly today so only carb rebuilds and rocker oil line.

 

Sat around drinking tea in the garage this morning deciding whether to go for forward controls or stick with the Trumpet footrests. I could see that the original builder (in the 70s) had an issue with the footrests as originally the left and right are of different lengths. So, as the Amen frame is really quite square the builder needed footrests of the same length. His solution was to get another left hand footrest, turn it over and bolt it to the right side. The footrests were therefore always skewed up and down, they'd been bent to try to correct but with the big round rubbers on just looked silly.
So, I was thinking to build some forward controls. It's really quite difficult to get the forwards to operate well with a drum brake on the back as you want to pull on the drum lever rather than to push as the rod will always flex a bit.
This build is never going to be any good at stopping with the mini drum on the front and a pusher drum on the back. I had a chop without a front brake back in the 70s and I left it in a ditch after almost coming a cropper. Admittedly it was the thread on the brake rod stripping, so I had no brakes, but it was always a pretty poor operator at the best of times.
I'd either rather have a disc on the back or at the very least a brake lever that is pulled rather than pushed. So I settled on trying to fix up the oddly shaped Trumpet footrests.

 

I was a bit worried about trying to bend the footrests as they are cast and you never know where they come from. Original Trumpet footrests are malleable cast iron, which is, I think, a process of heating them in such a way as to remove the carbon content. This means they are a lot less brittle and can be bent fairly easily with a big bar (old fork leg) and a bit of heat, NOT with a great big fuck off hammer. I wouldn't like to try this on any Indian imports, or maybe I would, just to check.



Here's one of the footrests in the vice being bent. Try this without heat and it lifts the bench as well, with a bit of heat they bend fairly easily. I remember you could bend them with a fork leg while they were still on the bike but probably best get them off to ensure the engine plate isn't bent as well.

 

I think the PO tried to bend on the bike as the straight section (in the rubber) was bent. Fairly easy to bend in the vice if you include a bar and then some pressure. Obviously take the rubber off before any of this is tried.



I then clean up the casting join marks, it only takes a minute or two and looks miles better even if you intend to paint them.