TRIUMPHTRIDENT1000.CO.UK
Triumph T150 1000cc Special
The Build
February 2022 Update
The frame is now back from Performance Powder Coatings near Canterbury. It looks superb!
I can now start the build! First thing is to bolt the frame halves together. Attach the centre stand followed by the swing arm and shocks, battery holder, oil tank, front fuel tank mount, oil cooler, fork yokes, grab rail and various other small items including sorting out the custom electrical tray which will take the coils, relays and rectifier.
Then up to a rolling chassis with forks and front & rear wheel.
The 'bike' will then go off to have the engine built into it. Apparently it's a lot easier due to the shear weight of the engine. Ordinarily I'd do it myself. However, I have built twins before, but never a triple, and I know they are complex and need very careful assembly, so I'm not going to attempt it this time.
So there'll be a small gap between the updates as I will also have to get the bike off for the custom exhaust to be made.
Generally though, things should now continue at pace!
Plywood template for rear passenger foot peg and silencer mounting. Not quite right as new rider foot peg position means passenger feet will be too close. Back to the drawing board for some tweaks.
At last a basic rolling chassis.
A problem has arisen. What I thought would be a straight swap of T160 rear end into the T150 seems to have gone a bit pear shaped. I don't know how or why but Central Wheel have done the rear wheel offset and it's way too far to the right. I make up special aluminium guides and, in conjunction with a plumb bob, determine the exact centre of the frame and how much the wheel needs to be moved back to the left. It's about 8mm. Central Wheel will do it for free, but I have to pay for postage both ways and an extra £40 for them to remove and refit the rear tyre!
Luckily, I find a local company (VIZMOTO) in Lydd, on Romney Marsh who can do it. It's a set back and extra cost, but I need to get a rolling chassis built to give me the motivation to carry on.
In the meantime I get cracking further on what seems to be a very complicated wiring harness. There's 3 parts: accessories like lights, indicators, horn, instruments etc, charging and electric start. I hope I'm doing it right!
The rear wheel is altered and back. I have all the brakes hoses, so on go the wheels, hoses, yokes, handlebars etc.
It's taking shape, but once again I've come to a standstill as I need things like the mudguards back from the paint shop so I can sort out final brake hose routes, fit rear indicators etc. I'm getting nervous about finding an engine builder as everyone seems so busy, and I'd like to get it done as locally as possible.
While I'm waiting I send off the seat for re-profiling and I buy a standard exhaust. I hate the looks of factory exhaust, but I will need to get an MOT eventually so that I can ride the bike to someone who can make a bespoke system for me.
May 2022
I have the painted parts back! They look great, and I'm pleased with my colour choice. Thank you to Paul's Paint Shop in Rye, East Sussex. I can now fit a few more parts, connect and bleed the brakes and connect a few more wires.
On the engine front progress is slow. In fact, that's nearly all that's holding me up now from finishing the build. It seems everyone is just too busy, certainly those who are in easy reach of where I live.
To that end I have decided to start on the engine build myself. I'm pretty confident with most of it. I'll at the very least do the bottom end and see where I go from there. The stuff I'm not so sure on are things like pushrod seal crush and I know that the clutch needs to be carefully assembled and set up. With regards to the former, I'm investigating adjustable pushrod tubes which should make life easier. I'm hoping the engine build won't be full of horrible surprises, especially since nearly every component is new. So I'm swatting up and watching YouTube videos whenever I get the chance. One thing I will need is a reverse gearbox camplate from Dave Madigan. He's yet to send them for heat treating. I'm reversing the gear change lever to suit the moved back foot pegs, but I'd like to keep the one down four up gear select if I can.
Billet 82mm standard weight crankshaft with steel conrods
Left: Brackets for oil cooler, horns and tank mount. Right Close up of tank mount and re-positioned fork stops.
Left: Rear mudguard supports and frame bracing and grab rail brackets. Right: Close up of rear master cylinder bracket.
A bit of a squeeze! Lots of wiring and components as well as oil pipe have to be routed. Different petrol tank mounting point makes things tricky.
Painted parts look great in SEAT 'LAVA' Blue.
FASTEC fork brace is a quality item.
Above left: Altered K100 inner plastic mudguard sprayed satin black and fitted to main steel mudguard. Above right: More modern style rear light looks to be based on the original Lucas type, only looks much better.
'Modern' Hinckley footpegs look loads better than the standard rather ugly and heavy items (inset). Custom spacers are made from water cut alloy
Special tool for fitting gearbox needle rollers to exact location makes the job a doddle
First stage of the engine build. Note heatshrink to protect conrods. Crankshaft pinion is way too tight a fit
June 2022
The first attempt at building the bottom end turned out to be a (needless) disaster. I did a dry build, but only lightly tightened the crankcase bolts. Everything span freely and I was excited to crack on. I used the excellent and very sticky Wellseal on the joint faces. Unfortunately, the moment I torqued up the drive side the crank became so stiff to turn I had to use a socket to rotate it. This was not good. When I just loosened the bolts the crank rotated freely again.
Rather than thinking it through, and going by my past experience of building twins, instead I went into instant panic mode!
I tried to get the drive side crankcase off before the Wellseal made life difficult. It took me hours of tapping, heating and general cajoling to get the damn thing off. Stupidly, and unnecessarily, I'd used bearing fit on the crank end which made it so difficult and stressful I though I might have a breakdown.
When I finally got everything apart I had the onerous task of cleaning off all the Wellseal , plus cleaning the crank and internals of the cases. I logged on to Triumphrat.com to try and get an answer and also spoke to Chris Rooke who is something of an expert on building triples. Chris suggested trying again, but fitting the drive side first. Meanwhile the Triumphrat forum had come back suggesting I tap the end of the crankshaft to get it to free up. I suddenly realised that I have had to do this on past builds. Consequently I also realised that I had spent hours trying to get the cases back together when I needn't have.
Anyway, I guessed the 'problem' was due to the billet crank being machined to such close tolerances. This meant the drive side bearing was a pretty tight fit on the crank. So when the drive side casing was fitted it was pushing the crank right over to the timing side and I can only think the flywheels were binding slightly on the centre bearing mountings. Giving the crank a couple of hefty taps on the timing side end with a large rubber mallet slightly re-centred it and 'hey presto', it rotated freely again. Phew! I only hope I haven't done any damage to the cases when I had to take it all apart. But, I think I'm OK. However, another consequence of the close tolerances of the crank is I'm now finding it extremely difficult fitting the crankshaft drive pinion. It's just too tight, despite heating up the pinion. I have decided to order a can of freezing spray to apply to the end of the crank to see if that helps. So for the time being I've come to a standstill...
July 2022
The problems are resolved and I can finally fit the pistons, barrels, head, Dave Madigan adjustable pushrod tubes and rocker boxes. Even this wasn't straightforward as I found out too late that the tappet adjusters I'd been supplied with were too short, so I couldn't fit any lock nuts. I discovered that there was a longer set available. Being mushroom head I couldn't just unscrew and replace them so I had to remove the rocker boxes. I then found out that the crankshaft pinion nut wouldn't do up all the way because it was too long! There is a shorter version available! Is someone trying to tell me something?
Anyway, I finally reach that milestone when the engine (albeit part-built) can go into the frame. I can now proceed to fit the oil lines and thermostat and fit and test the starter motor. I need to modify my rear downtube panels (to hide the gubbins normally hidden by the airbox) and adapt a T140 type chain guard to fit.
August 2022
The progress is slow, but steady. It's the waiting for parts to arrive, be modified, painted etc that slow things down as usually one job can't commence until another is complete, and they're all interrelated.
The starter motor is in, but then I find the carb float bowl drain bolts hit the starter cover. I spend ages making up longer inlet rubbers. I hope this won't affect carburation. Trouble is longer inlets mean less room for air filters and it takes hours of on-line research before I can find any that are suitable. Even when I do find some I have barely 2mm from the back of the left filter to the battery side cover.
Another problem is bleeding the rear brake. Yet another Meriden design miracle where the bleed nipple is conveniently placed on the inside (spoke side) of the wheel. Nigh on impossible to get to. In the end I just unbolt the calliper from the carrier plate to get to the nipple. I also change the rectangular brake fluid reservoir for a round Brembo unit. This way I can use a pressure bleeder to force the air out. It seemed to work, but the real test will come later.
I decided to send my clutch to be rebuilt by an expert who I got in contact with after a chance enquiry about something I was selling on ebay. A very helpful man by the name of Keith Berry. I have the clutch back, but I can't fit it until the gearbox is built, and I can't build the gearbox until I receive a reverse camplate from Dave Madigan!
He's going to send me one from the States, although it is as yet untried in a road bike. I do hope it works OK otherwise it's a lot of work to have to strip everything to change it!
The one last, but most important, part of the jigsaw is waiting for Armours to sort me out some longer exhausts. I'll eventually get a complete bespoke system made, but initially I just need something to get me started up and MOT'd. It will also help me to ascertain how good the silencers are and whether or not the noise levels are acceptable.
Keihin 27mm CR carbs with slimline filters
It's a tight squeeze to get them in!
October 2022
I now have the reverse camplate from Dave Madigan! So the gearbox build gets under way. However, as is typical with this project a job which should be very straightforward, especially considering all the parts are new, was anything but. The camplate went in easy enough, without having to remove the high gear, then I put all the gears in. I manually rotated the camplate to check the gear selection, but for the life of me could not get it from second to third. I knew everything had gone in correctly, so after loads of swearing and anguish I decided to strip it all out and see what the problem was.
Now when you put the gears in you have to locate the selector forks with a hardened steel rod, with a flat on one end, which locates into the back of the gearbox. I'd given it a very light tap to make sure it was home, but when I came to remove it it just would not budge!
I tried heat and wrecked the jaws of two sets of mole grips, but to now avail. The rod was so hard that the grips just couldn't get a purchase. I just could not believe how stuck the rod was. Had it gone in at a slight angle and jammed?
After hours of pulling and twisting, in sheer desperation I decided to grind a couple of flats on the timing side end so the grips could get hold of something. I figured if I could rotate the rod it might break free.
Well eventually it came out, although the rod was now scrap. To my relief there was no sign of damage to the hole in the crankcase.
I couldn't work it out until I measured the rod. Bizarrely it was fractionally larger one end than the other! I subsequently ordered a new old stock item which was a perfect fit. To say I was a bit pissed off having spent about £650 on the brand new gear box internals is putting it mildly.
I then reassembled the whole thing using the standard camplate. All gears selected fine, so the problem must lie with the new camplate. I ran the pegs of the selector forks through the tracks on the original camplate and it was perfect and smooth. However, on the reverse camplate the selector forks were jamming in places.
After emailing Dave Madigan, I decided to very carefully relieve the inner edges of the camshaft tracks and then polish off with emery cloth. After some fettling I managed to get them to run smoothly. I rebuilt the gearbox for a third time and this time all the gears selected. I really hope it's going to be OK. I'll only find out once the bike is on the road. If it doesn't work I'll have to strip it and use the original camplate, but that's an awfully lot of work...
Once the internals are fitted I index the gears, using the opposite tooth to the one in the manual and fit the outer cover.
I discover at the last minute that my expensive T160 kickstart lever hits the side of the painted oil tank cover. I decide to ditch the kickstart (I'll have to blank off the hole). I could move it around one more tooth on the spindle, but then perhaps I should put more faith in my £800 electric start conversion?
Next I fit the clutch cover, clutch, inner chain case and uprated oil pump. After that I work out the my sprocket spacing which indicates I'll need a 10 thou shim behind the engine sprocket. So I place an order.
In the meantime the exhausts come back from Armours for one more trial fit, and are sent off again. Hopefully for the last time. I can now tweak my exhaust hanger/pillion brackets and get them sent to SCISS for water cutting out of 6mm stainless steel. They were then sent off for polishing and the spacers, should I need them, powder coated.
After assembling the clutch I found that even with careful cable routing it was too heavy for my liking. It's possible that it will feel lighter when everything is spinning, but I decided to bite the bullet once more and order a hydraulic clutch kit from LP Williams. It's very expensive, but I fitted one to my T140 engined TRIBSA and it worked a dream. Only problem will be trying to get a Magura master cylinder/lever that matches near enough to the Brembo. The smallest Brembo I can get is a PS13 (13mm piston) and I need one with a 9.5mm piston. I found a Magura Hymec 167 and ordered a black lever. It looks similar to the Brembo.
While awaiting my exhausts I do some finishing jobs. Various nuts and bolts need tightening. oil is added to the oil tank, gearbox and primary drive. I remove the spark plugs and link up two batteries to give me more amps. I used the starter motor to turn the engine and was delighted to see oil returning to the tank.
I programmed the Acewell speedo so it gives an accurate speed reading. This is done by turning the wheel one complete rotation and counting how many times the wheel drive gearbox rotates. Then the bike is pushed one along for one rotation of the wheel and the distance measured. Both these figures are entered into the Acewell, and that hopefully is that.
Next I tighten the rear wheel spindle (after bleeding the rear brake again), pump up the air assist forks to about 15psi, and check the tyre pressures.
December 2022
The exhausts finally arrive and are fitted. At the joins with the silencers I use early Hinckley Triumph Thunderbird cover plates to cover the clumsy looking exhaust clamp.
And thats it - it's finished!
Now all that's left is to start it. I must admit to feeling really nervous about this part. So I put a few pints of unleaded in the tank, apply the choke lever, switch on and press the button. It turns over with the odd cough, but no more than that. The choke lever doesn't stay down so I press it again and apply the starter. It seems like ages, but the engine slowly splutters to life!
Initially it sounds rather lumpy, but the engine suddenly picks up. I put this down to not holding the choke lever down long enough to fill the (rather large) float bowls. I guess I was so nervous I just wasn't thinking straight!. After adjusting the idle screw the motor settles down to a very satisfying and even tickover.
Hyde half-race camshafts should complement increase in engine capacity
Due to it's sheer weight the engine will go into frame part-built
Exhaust mock up. Pipes are too short so longer ones need to be fabricated, although there will be a complete new system eventually.
Exhaust and passenger hanger template needs more work
Special panels to fit to rear downtube
Shortened rear brake pedal. Knurled footplate is from XJ750
Starter motor ready to fit
It's getting tantalisingly close
Everything is connected and hopefully working. New round Brembo brake fluid reservoir means I can use a pressure bleeding kit
Brand new gearbox cluster
Standard gearbox camplate on the left, reverse camplate on the right
Gearbox is indexed using the upper 'thin' tooth. The gearbox is indexed in first gear, but this image shows it in neutral.
Clutch basket converted for electric start by Les Whiston, assembled by
Keith Berry
The rather open peashooters give out a very deep boom. The neighbours are going to love me. I may have to get some slightly more restricted ones, but that might only be if I get a better looking exhaust system made.
I run the engine for about 20 minutes, then let it cool in order to re-torque the head. It's amazing how it loosens up. Re-torquing also requires re-setting the valve rocker clearances. Unfortunately this is a job that will have to be done a couple of times more.
So now all that's left is to test the bike, and most importantly the gear change, and if all goes well get an MOT and apply for a registration number. Unfortunately the weather has turned so bad that I can't see this happening until the new year. But, at least it's running!
