A Memorable Project

This past weekend, I completed the work I'd been doing on the 1969 Triumph T100 for a customer. An old friend named Steve, himself the owner of a 1970 Bonneville, helped me fine-tune the carburetor, make a few more adjustments, and suddenly it was finished. We took turns running it up and down the long, winding road Lisa and I live on, to insure everything was set. It most certainly was.
As much of a headache as it was at times working on such an old bike, the thrill of blasting down the road on it was visceral. Kick-starting it to life, getting on that throttle, hearing those straight pipes howl, and the hard shifting up and down through the gears, on the left side no less, brought out feelings I'd never experienced on a bike before. Honestly, prior to this bike, I had never ridden a motorcycle as old as this one. My dad had a '72 Triumph TR6 when I was a kid, and that's the oldest bike I'd ever been on, prior to this. So I felt my inner "hooligan" welling up as I roared up and down the road on her.
Don't get me wrong- I love the feeling of raw acceleration on my Triumph Sprint, and the powerful torque of my big Yamaha Royal Star. But this bike made me feel like James Dean or Marlon Brando, a "Wild One" on two old classic wheels. I was grinning ear-to-ear with every run.
I used to think the old bikes were cool to look at, to hear, to see on the road, but I never wanted one for myself. Too much work to keep them road-worthy. Now, after getting this one back on the road, I'm not so sure I'd turn one down if the opportunity arose. To be sure, you need to carry a tool kit along if you ride one of these for any time or distance. But for fun around town, and down winding, country roads, I could definitely channel my inner hooligan for another chance to ride, or even own, one of these old classics.

Fresh Meat

This past week I met a guy named Kurt, a friend of Tanya, an old student of mine from back in my First Baptist Snellville days. Kurt owns the above 1969 Triumph T100 motorcycle. He asked my help in getting it running again, having heard I've done a few motorcycles over the past few years. Intrigued, I agreed to ride up to his house and have a look at the bike, and see if it was something I could help with. Not exactly a master mechanic, I asked my father to join me, who along with my mother was coming up last week to celebrate my last (and hopefully final) chemo treatment. Now, I had an old Triumph "master" to give me his assessment as well. Dad's owned various old Triumphs since the days of his youth, and knows these old bikes very well.
We arrived at Kurt's home, and were ushered to this gem sitting in his garage. He also owns a 1966 Mustang fastback, which he's owned since his youth- it was his first car, and he kept it. Very cool! Kurt said the bike kicks over (literally, it is a full kick-start), runs for about 40 secs, then quits. Immediately we suspected either debris blocking fuel flow to or even through the two petcocks, or a carburetor gummed up. The old British Amal carbs were notorious for having issues, yet Dad had worked on plenty over the years. He's helped me with several carb jobs, a few tank reseal jobs, and we've tackled petcock rebuilds, so knowing I had his experience to help me, I agreed to take it on.
I came back Friday and picked up the bike in the rain (we've had a bit of that lately), and got it back to my little "shop" at home. Looks pretty good, down in my man-cave, I must say!
Getting into the old Amal carb, I was able to take it completely out and apart, gave it a thorough piece-by-piece cleaning, then reassembled it.

Pretty cool, doing an old carb off a vintage Triumph that's almost as old as I am- almost! Next, I'll need to tackle the tank, give it a cleaning, then go through the twin petcocks. Hopefully within a week or so, I can wheel it back out, give it a kick-start, and she'll not only start, but run. And run, and run.
I have learned a lot over the past few years of finding/fixing/flipping motorcycles. And it's helped having an old veteran motorcycle rider and mechanic as a father too.
Looking forward to breathing life back into this baby!