Featured Tiger 90 Rebuild

Valves and springs installed.
The new springs had colour marking on them, blue on the outer spring, yellow on the inner.

 

Leak test on the valves is good. The fluid is white spirit and i poured it in before lunch and it was still there after lunch. The Triumph manual says it should stay for a minimum of ten seconds, which seems too short an amount of time.

 

Parts laid out before putting the head on.

 

Cups and seals on cam guide block.
I’m suffering from upside down syndrome, again.

 

Seals in the head.

 

Tunnels and head gasket on.

 

Head on, and the four outer bolts are finger tight. The push rods were numbered when i took them out, and are returned to their original positions.
The two inlet pushrods are down, ready for the rocker box to be bolted on.

 

The exhaust rocker box proved difficult. The inspection caps were locked solid, but succumbed to a plumbers wrench, the lock stops for the caps came out on the studs, and the inside is thick with oily carbon.

 

Exhaust rocker box assembly cleaned and ready for assembly.
- new gaskets, oil seal, copper washers.
- threads chased.
- oil galleries in rocker spindle, alloy case and rocker arm cleaned and blown through
- gasket faces cleaned

 

Inlet rocker box assembled.

 

Inlet rocker box on the bike, valves open and close all right. In the pic the right hand valve is open. The rocker spindles and rocker arms all show some wear, as expected, but have plenty of life in them. The rocker adjusters have very little adjustment in them, but that will change when the head is fully bolted down.

 

Exhaust tappet adjuster has taken a hammering. It will be replaced, but i will use this until replacements arrive.

 

I don’t have the tool to compress the O ring while i push the rocker spindle home, so I’m using the cable tie trick. As my old boss said “50% of the time, it works half the time”.

 

Some good news, i have a spare rocker adjuster in my box of bits. It is for a 3TA but i bought it to go on an Ariel as it just about fits and is better than no adjuster. Bonus points will be awarded if you can guess which Ariel I fitted it to. Picture is of several adjusters, the one on the extreme left is the knackered one, next to it is the new one.

 

Head torqued down, tappets adjusted, oil pipe to the head flushed through and attached, tappet covers screwed in.

 

Carb and throttle cable on. There is a choke slider for the carb with a cable and lever, but i’ve never needed one on other bikes with Amal carbs with a tickler. Also undecided about what air filter to use, the one that came with the bike is ropey, but could be saved.

 

Cracking good sparks on both plugs.

 

The beast lives! Fired up today with no issues. Noisy as it doesn’t have silencers. It coughed on the first kick which is nearly as good as a “started first kick”. Here is the video.

 

Update: It just needed more carb tickling to start, that’s what i’m farting around with at the beginning of the video.
I wasn’t revving the balls off it, not having any silencers makes it sound like i was.
The thumbs up is where i check the oil tank is getting a return feed. i could have just looked at the transparent return pipe.
I ran it for another minute, with no oil leaks, no knocks or rattles, and no smoking (apart from some oil residue burning off on the head near the exhaust).