Featured Resurrecting 1966 Tiger T100ss

Sorry SuperDave but I’m not going to be much help here but I really can’t identify the brake plate in your picture. I think it’s the annular ring on the edge that’s throwing me because I haven’t found a pic of a Triumph SLS hub from your model year like it. Without exception the ones I’ve looked at are quite a plain finish without any real detail as the picture of mine attached.

I can say though that the SLS brake of the T90 hub of that model year would be 7 inch diameter. But it would also have been in a 18 inch wheel.

Sorry I can’t help.
Dave.

 

My apologies for that. I’ve obviously got it wrong, It can’t have been a 7in TLS with bottom feed at that time. Sorry!

 

There’s a lot of the shiny bits having to be replaced on this refurb and the bits that I’ve bought in so far look great in themselves, but having studied other similar jobs they don’t look quite so good when you fit them with old nuts, bolts and fittings that are rusty or damaged. The trouble is that replacing all the fitting parts as well, doubles up the cost and does nothing for the ‘originalness' of the bike as a whole.

There’s several parts on the front brake that I’m doing now ‘frinstance, that need replacement from an aesthetic point of view. Mainly the two external levers that operate the shoes. They have been painted over rusty and the paint is now flaking off. It’s these two bits that have convinced me that I should have a go at replating some of the bike parts myself. The pushrod between the two levers is bent and it looks too long to be the original. Buying in a complete plated lever and rod set would be quite expensive

I had found a couple of local ish firms that could do the plating and chroming but when I went back to them a couple of months ago I found one had gone out of business and the other no longer did re-chroming. So, while I can’t do chroming I thought that I’d give the Nickel plating a go. Consequently I’ve bought most of the requirements to do some of the Nickel plating on the various parts and I’m currently setting it up to see how well that goes.

 

For a first attempt at plating it hasn’t gone too badly. It’s certainly a long winded process but at least I’ve produced some sort of a result, even a bit better than I expected. I chose to get the TLS brake bits done as I need to get the brake hubs fitted in order to get the wheels sorted.

For an initial practice I started off with the rear hub QR spindle which has been knocked about a bit and required removal of hammer marks on the nut end. I’ve only plated that end of the spindle as that’s the only part that shows. There’s also a spacer that locates the wheel adjuster which received the same treatment. On to the brake levers which have defied my efforts to get rid of the surface pitting.
Anyway… the process is:-

Clean and degrease the part.
Wire brush back to bare metal and buff out rust pitting.
Degrease with brake cleaner fluid/aerosol.
Degrease with Hydrochloric Acid for about 10 mins.
Wash with purified water and dry off.
Connect up and immerse in electrolyte fluid in a plating bath.
Turn part regularly for an overall, even coating. Plating takes about half an hour.
Remove, wash and dry off.
Lightly Buff polish to finish.
Repeat.

At the moment th end results are okay if you don’t look too hard. I think the brake levers might benefit from another treatment as the coating looks darker (thin?) in the pitted areas. It might improve with practice.

 

Another half-hour in the plating bath for these two bits and polished up a bit. Marginally improved.

 

Another half-hour in the plating bath for these two bits and polished up a bit. Marginally improved. Pity it doesn’t fill the pitting though.

 

I’ve managed to plate all of the bits on the front hub that I’m not going to replace with new. The rest of it like nuts and washers that hold the exterior brake linkage are beyond redemption. I’ve cleaned out the two roller bearings in the recommended manner and they seem to be generally smooth and no real evidence of any excess play or roughness. So I’ll re-grease and refit them. The brake hub friction face seems to be quite good with little wear or tramlining, and I can’t see any evidence of cracke around the spoke holes.

The brake linings are about half worn while there is an unworn portion on one of the shoes. That, I guess, may be due to the bent exterior link rod, or the absence of both of the shoe abutment pads, or a sticky cam pivot in the backplate, all of which are getting replaced or reworked. Weirdly I’ve found that I’ve got a pair of unused shoes that I bought about 25 years ago, to replace the ones in the Bonnie, and then had promptly forgot about. They are of the bonded lining type which I’ve tried bedding into the drum surface. Unfortunately when I offered them up to the backplate I’ve found that the end of the shoe abutment is about .040thou wider than the originals and stick against the pivot when assembled up. So for the moment I’ll use the cleaned up originals.

The drum outer heat-dissipation grooves were showing a bit of surface rust which I’ve cleaned off and repainted with a heatproof silver paint. The other thing that I hadn’t previously noticed was that the brake backplate seems to have been powder coated all over. It should really be a polished or bare aluminium finish. I’ve tried paint stripper on a small patch, but after 2 hours it hadn’t even marked it. One of the features of that type of brake backplate is the outer ring which always ends up highly polished. I’ve managed to get the plastic coating off that ring and back to bare metal, with a small powered hand sander and re-polished it, but the remainder of the plate I’ve cleaned up and repainted with ‘Silver Sheen’.

 

Thanks darkman.
I’ve just offered it up to the forks and it seems a good fit at the spigot that engages with the right lower leg. It doesn’t look as if it needs any material shaving off to get the right connection. I must have just struck lucky with the year/build of the parts.

 

Oh! BTW, A guy needs as many gaiters as he can get.

 

I’ve started on the stopper at the other end now. It looks like there’s been some sort of previous interference with the bits that I’ve got. I’ve cleaned off the parts to get to get rid of a thick, partly dried out grease that coats everything. The brake backplate firmly resisted removal and I had to drive it off past a burr occasioned by a hammer blow just in the wrong place. Once again the shoes are about half worn but there’s no dust in the drum. But there is, for some unknown reason, grease smeared all over the backplate and the shoe linings have also had their share and are probably best replaced.

I haven’t yet stripped out the hub part of the QD wheel but that’s full of what looks like Molybdimin grease so I can’t yet tell how good the bearings are, or not. And I’ve yet to get my head around destroying a washer of some sort to get the bearings out ???

 

Thanks for that Baza. I wasn’t too sure about the wear on the teeth but at least they’re not hooked and I can’t see too much wear on the ramp. They looked good enough to my eye for another turn and I didn’t fancy the cost of a new drum, but I’ll be replacing the chain. I’m not sure if there’s an oil feed to the chain on this one. I’ll have to check that out.