Featured New To Vintage Classics

Super88
Welcome to the family. Fantastic pictures and what a bike to own. As for the vent pipe yes it does run along the left side of the rear guard and is held by some metal clips.
Joe.

 

Super88
No not many people kept the breather pipe there. It was big and ugly running along the rear guard. If you look on the rear guard see if there is about five holes perfectly drilled then that is where the clips fitted and held the breather. The clips are just like a c clip and you can still get them.
Joe.

 

I owned a TR6 way back in 1970 and can confirm that the breather tube (or vent) ran along the left-hand side of the rear guard (when sitting on the bike). Can't think why someone has swopped it over to the right on your bike.

Lovely looking bike though! Welcome to the forum and happy motorcycling.

 

Greetings and welcome to the forum, Super88. Thanks for posting the great pics of your "new" (to you) Triumph. And welcome to the Triumph family, too!

 

great looking bike if your bike has the rear facing froth tower on the oil tank here are some pics showing how the oil pipe was fitted when left the factory.

 

Just to add a note - that chrome Thunderbird emblem looks very much like the one that would have originally been fitted on each of the half-skirt enclosures (bathtubs) that would have been original equipment on that model and year of Thunderbird.

The 6T Thunderbird of that era - I think the final year of production was 1964/5? - has a significant personal meaning for me and remains (in my rheumy, old eyes) one of the most beautiful machines Triumph ever produced. Originally black and silver it would have had the famous nacelle headlamp; chrome tank rack; the half skirts and the long, iconically shaped silencers. The bike was the equivalent of a 3.4 Jag. Mk. 2 ..... refined styling, ultra-smooth, quiet and quick - not 'rorty' quick, but quick enough.

My very best friend from my school days in the sixties, bought a brand new one in 1966 or '67 - I'm fairly sure it was, by then, New Old Stock and he got a good deal on it. He had, of course, wanted a Bonneville but the price was out of his reach and his fairly strict parents would not countenance a "sporty" model! I have an absolutely hopeless memory but I have occasional, vivid flashbacks to some moments in my life and the day I saw Paul's Thunderbird for the first time is still clear more than 50 years on. He ended up putting Wal Phillips fuel injectors on his bike in a quest for more power and in a 'test session' on the East Lancs. road whilst racing some sports car or other, he blew the butterfly valves out of both injectors!

Paul and I had some great times on our bikes (I had a very ratty and ropey old '58 T110 with a slickshift 'box!) tearing up the Sutton and Rainhill areas of "Sint Ellinz" where we lived and generally being wannabe rockers! Paul and I remained 'bezzy mates" despite being hundreds of miles and a number of lifetimes apart. Sadly, he died quite suddenly more than 10 years ago and I still miss him. The romantic in me wants to think that he's still riding that beautiful Thunderbiird - in original, standard trim and with its single carb - through the quiet suburbs of a better place!

RIP Paul 'Polly' Poulton.

 

Hi bike looks great im working on a similar bike from 1965 which some fool thought would look good in post office red !!!! same as yourself im not doing a show bike just a good looking rideable classic .cant find the lovely burnished gold paint Good look with the refurb mine has kept me almost sane over the lockdown months cheers from over t ills

 

Hi bike looks great im working on a similar bike from 1965 which some fool thought would look good in post office red !!!! same as yourself im not doing a show bike just a good looking rideable classic .cant find the lovely burnished gold paint Good look with the refurb mine has kept me almost sane over the lockdown months cheers from over t ills

 

As a matter of interest this is what a new Thunderbird 6T would have looked like on a dealer's showroom floor in 1964/5 ...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/528...MInNfHrsSN9AIVxpTVCh1u0QGtEAQYAiABEgIXMPD_BwE

See what I mean about the refined styling? Almost the ultimate evocation and amalgamation of all those wonderful - and wonderfully contemporary and unique - Triumph styling signatures ... half tub skirts; long silencers; nacelle; tank rack; valanced front 'guard. Beautiful.

Edit :- looks like the US export model didn't get the valanced front muguard/fender ....

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264277153373

 

Super88
No if i were you i would pay heed to our Darkman. He is invaluable here to most peeps restoring the older bikes. And i am pretty sure it is exactly as he showed. I do think i got mixed up by later Bonnie's.
Joe.