T140D Bonneville Special HydeSnyde Special

[pendraig]

I have owned this bike since 1984 when she started her life as a stock (with dealer supplied sissy-bar) T140D Bonneville Special. After buying a new Hinckley bike in '97, she has mostly slept in the corner, unused yet not unloved for the past 13 years. Three years ago I decided to get her out of mothballs, but just about everything that wasn't metal had gone to $h:+. I decided that since I had all of this crap to replace, I was going to tart her up a bit. The original seat had gone to crumbles and mouse turds, so I found a (drop-side) T140E seat on eBay. The alloy tank came from a guy in England who had really dented it up pretty badly. I cut holes on the underside and in the tunnel, had my friend Art straighten out the dents, and my friend Dave welded up the holes I had made. I got rearsets, oil cooler and "M" type handlebars from Norman Hyde. Installed an NOS wiring harness, with a Voltpak rectifier/zener diode replacement unit. Had aluminium air cleaner sides from an early oil-in-frame TR7 Tiger machined to accept the parallel mouths of the Amal MkII carbs.
Latest mod was yesterday when, during a shakedown run, the welch plug fell out of the tach drive. On the advice of an old Triumph hand , I put a couple of pennies and a dime inside the drive housing as shim/thrust bearings for the gear and spindle and then drove a nickel in (a perfect interference fit) in behind them as a new welch plug. Works great, cost me 17 cents!

 

[Big R]

Man, that thing is pretty slick lookin. Any other pics?

 

[Screwed and Tattooed]

nice bike , I want a triumph so bad

 

[beatnic]

Looks nice, can you post some other pics.

 

[pendraig]

Looks nice, can you post some more pics/

A couple more. Am now photobucket literate (Till I forget how it works again, keeping stuff like valve clearances, points gaps and tire sizes are more suitable cargo for my mind.)

Runs and handles like gold. Can drift along anywhere above 20mph with no hands on the bars. Brilliant at roll-outs (ie, you come to a stop, feet on pegs, clutch-in in 1st gear, let the machine fall over, drop clutch and apply throttle just before hitting the ground and 'roll-out'.) I think that I detect just a slight hint of clutch slippage, just an instant of revs increasing without the bike leaping ahead when snapping the throttle open in 5th gear. Gonna tighten up the clutch nuts each one click and then start shopping for plates if that doesn't make her happy. Having her back is like finding a long lost friend. Maybe a long lost girlfriend who got hotter looking since last time you saw her.

 

[sebatron]

that's an awesome functional bike, i love it

i also dig the shit out of mechanicals that can be fixed with stuff lying around - using a coin as an welch plug? gold.