‘65 Triumph T120R Bobber - “Ticket To Ride”

I got out to my buddy Aaron’s place today and cleaned up my engine castings. He built a DIY vapor blasting cabinet last year and it’s works very well. Ready to build an engine now.

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I also found my next project too.
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I also took some time to polish of the engine covers. Not bad for some gross looking castings when I got em. The primary cover is a repop but a it’s a nice one.
 
Got the Front end loose assembled today. A bit fussy to go together as tolerances are pretty tight. But it went.
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Now I’ve got a bit of a problem with my front wheel. I can’t get a tire on it. I’ve tried a Dunlop and a Shinko and neither will go on. And that’s using a commercial pneumatic tire changer. It’s a Moto Iron wheel from TC Bros and while it looks like a nice quality rim the last couple of inches of bead just will not stretch over the rim lip. I’m not sure what to do... I either need to try another shop with a different tire machine and see if another machine can muscle the bead on or send the wheel back to TC Bros and either have them put a tire on it if they can and send it back or just refund me and try another rim. My wheel guy changes tires on 4-6 bikes a day and said he’s never had a tire not go on.
What was the solution to mounting your front tire? looks like you got it done.
 
I spent a little time yesterday and got the bearings pressed into the engine cases along with the seals. Hoping to get over to
My buddies by the weekend to balance the crank and get the bottom end of the motor and transmission assembled. I should have my rear wheel built and be able then to put the bottom end in the frame and start fabricating the rear brake caliper and master cylinder mounts and get the oil tank and battery bracket welded. By the time I do that I’ll have my plan for the seat figured out. Will do something custom there.
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Got out to George’s place and prepped my Rods and and balanced my crankshaft. One rod was significantly heavier than the other by 15 grams so I had to file and grind at it and re-polish it. That took a while. Then we weighed the big end and little ends of the rods and did a little math to figure out how much weight to add to the crank and located my heavy spots and drilled out the crank until it came to rest in random spots and then proceeded to install the new shell bearings and install the rods on the crank. Today, I’m going to get the rest of the bottom end together.

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Managed to get the cases joined and the cam chest and transmission all put together. The transmission fought back hard but we were able to finally get it or rather George finally got the shifter indexed correctly... Later this week I’ll work on the primary side and get the motor back to my place and finish it up there.
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Meanwhile, here’s a couple of pics of George’s amazing bikes.
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I got the rear master cylinder mount and battery bracket welded to the rear frame. And managed to powder coat the oil tank and got it’s brackets mounted also. Still waiting for my rear wheel. I want to get it mounted along with the bottom end of the motor so that I can figure out what spacers I’m going to need to make/have made to have the tire on center and the sprockets line up. Gobs of parts still arriving near daily.

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So was able to wrap up the bottom end of the motor today. I chose to go with a belt drive / dry clutch on the primary. These 650 are so prone to leaks in the primary I just decided to not even fool with it and go straight to the solution.

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I’ve moved the motor back to my place and will finish I there. I’ll get the cylinder installed pretty quick to make sure the bottom end doesn’t end up with any crap in it.
 
I was able to get the cylinder installed and with the help of my friend Charles, get the motor mounted in the frame in anticipation of getting g my rear wheel back this a week and aligning the rear and front sprockets.

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I started fabrication of a front fender. Can't decide if duck bill goes front or rear facing. Or to cut the bill off altogether. Gonna try to wrap up those mounts tomorrow
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I started fabrication of a front fender. Can't decide if duck bill goes front or rear facing. Or to cut the bill off altogether.

For what it's worth... and in my humble opinion... try duck bill to the rear and then if you don't like that cut it off.
 
Rear wheel finally got done today. I’ll start fitting the disk and sprocket and figuring out spacer sizes. Sprocket will def need to be spaced out. Hopefully a standard size I can just order rather than having to have made.

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