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Retro Custom 67 T120 Project

69K views 129 replies 40 participants last post by  Cosmoline 
#1 · (Edited)
Very excited to have brought home this girl today from the back woods of Maine! Starts on the first kick, runs and drives fine, matching numbers, 11k miles, supposedly even has original tires and brakes. Quite a find! She'll be getting a full restoration and returning to her former glory very soon. Planning to do a fairly mild retro custom build while also restoring and preserving all the original parts should I ever want to go the concours route. Stay tuned for plenty of pics and progress reports. Now on to the photos!

Bought from this fine fellow (Coburn Benson) who used to own a Triumph dealership in the 60's & 70's in Haverhill, MA:


Here's a shot of his shop back in the day:


All loaded up and tucked in for the ride home:


Coburn included some extra parts he'd been hoarding as well and included a bunch of paperwork, documentation and manuals. Check out the red one, it seems to be a hand typed engine overhaul manual for the 650...


And some various shots of the 67...






Stay tuned as this project progresses!
 
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#68 ·
I'm getting ready to send the rims out to Buchanan's to be laced, balanced and trued but before I can do that I need to get the rims and hubs powder coated since I want them to be black and it makes no sense to try to do the powder coating once Buchanan's is done with them.

Anyway, before I can do ANY of that, I needed to disassemble the wheels/tires. Getting the tires off the rims was a huge chore. The tires were rotted out junk anyway so I decided to cut them off rather than risk harming the rims by prying them off. I went at them with the angle grinder w/a cut off wheel and a pail of water to keep the smoke to a minimum.

Getting the brake assemblies off was fairly easy, but getting the bearings out was another story altogether, the manual states that they make a special tool to get the wheel bearing lock off, but I decided that I wasn't going to pay a bunch of money and wait for a tool so I made my own.

I just took some 1.5" flat stock that I had laying around, cut a length about a foot long, drilled a couple holes the right distance apart, tapped the holes and put a couple of cap bolts in that were long enough to stick out the other side. Voila! An instant Triumph wheel bearing lock spanner tool!

Drilling...


Tapping...


Bolts in...


All done...


Worked like a charm!


Even works great to knock out the crush plates...


Once the bearing locks were out the rest was easy and I went to town degreasing and cleaning everything up...



Oh yeah, the seat I've been showing was temporary. Today the new seat pan came in and it has a much better shape - fills the area nicely...





Thats all for now!
 
#69 ·
Last night I had myself a little spoke de-laceing party on my couch while watching TV...


Back wheel done...


Front wheel done...


Ready to be degreased and sent out for powder coating...


Today I degreased all the wheel parts and took everything down to the powder coating shop. I'm lucky, they're about a quarter mile from my house and do amazing work. I should have everything back in less than a couple weeks.

I also ordered the new shoes from Universal, a pair of Firestone ANS 4.00 x 18's for the front and back. Should be here before the powder coat is done, then I ship everything off to Buchanan's for final assembly...



That's all for now!
 
#70 ·
I was going to start tearing down the forks today since that would be fun, but I decided that as boring as it is, I really needed to clean up and organize all the wheel parts that didn't go out for powder coat. And by clean up, I mean degrease, buff with the wire wheel, and oil. So that's what I did this morning...



And then this afternoon my doorbell rang and a nice girl dressed in brown handed me a box. Inside that box was my engine stand. I was going to weld one up myself but they're cheaper to buy. Anyway, I decided to spend the afternoon making a table for the stand. I made it 3' x 3' x 3' in the same fashion I made the workbench except with 4x4 legs since I plan to mount casters to it...



Forks tomorrow!
 
#72 ·
Got the new rubber today from Universal Tire...



Also finished cleaning up the front/rear axles and all the associated parts...



And I also had some time to pull off the front forks and got them mostly disassembled...



Anyone know how to get the dust sleeve nut off the bottom member? I have the right spanner but keeping the fork stationary in the vice while applying enough pressure to the sleeve has me worried that I'm going to do bad things to the bottom member. I wonder if it's just really seized up and needs more time for the penetrating oil to work it's way in. Any advice appreciated.

Thats all for now!
 
#73 · (Edited)
I got the sleeves off, just bored out a hole about the same OD of the member into a scrap piece of 4 x 4 I had, sliced it down the middle and used that to clamp both sides of the member into the vice so it was solid.

One of the sleeves came off easily, the other was locked up tight. Once I finally got it off I confirmed my suspicion about the left side - someone had previously cross threaded it on. The reason I thought that might be the case was because the right side sleeve was threaded all the way down and you could maybe see one thread. The left side had about 1/4" of thread showing.

Worse yet, the threads on both the sleeve and member seem to be dicked up. The left sleeve wont spin on the right member and the right sleeve wont spin on the left member. The right sleeve and member spin up fine though.

So I guess I'm shopping for a left sleeve and member unless my machinist can repair those threads.

The good news is that so far this and the hacker paint job on the gas & oil tank are the only things that seem to have been screwed up by previous owners (knock on wood).

Later.
 
#74 ·
The good news is that I took the bad fork member and sleeve down to my machinist buddy, he said he'd get it fixed right up for me.

The bad news is that my back has been nagging at me for a week or so and seems to have decided that it's going on strike by taking the breath out of me whenever I twist. SO, it looks like I'll just be doing some reading and parts ordering until it feels a little better.

I've ordered some new upper fork covers that don't have the big headlight mounting ears off the 120TT since I'm going to be bottom (not side) mounting the new headlight (see below)...



I also ordered a couple of extra fork spacers so I can drop the front, new fork seals, new modern sealed bearings for the f/r axles, a roller bearing neck conversion kit, and all the hardware I needed to mount up the seat pan: biltwell hinge, weld-on perches, springs, etc.

My girlfriend bought me this big, gorgeous book for Father's Day and it's AMAZING, I highly recommend picking one up for inspiration...



So I'll be sitting here reading my book, watching tv, and waiting for parts to arrive until my back gets a little better.

You stay classy San Diego.
 
#75 ·
Trying not to tweak my back any further, I'm just doing some small stuff today...

Getting close to the finish line on the speedometer refurb, primed and painted the instrument cup, indicator needle and mounting bracket plus I got the new glass and gasket installed in the refurbed chrome bezel...



And giving the fork tubes some wire wheel love - before/after below...

 
#77 ·
Hello from lala land - my back still sucks, but the doc prescribed some vicodin which is helping. Finished up the speedometer today and got a shipment of goodies from Lowbrow...







Clockwise from top left - F/R brake shoe springs, F/R wheel bearings, Roller bearing neck conversion kit, weld-on seat spring perches, biltwell weld-on seat hinge, 4" seat springs, front fork seals, lowbrow free sticker & comb ;) ...

 
#78 ·
Hello from lala land - my back still sucks, but the doc prescribed some vicodin which is helping. Finished up the speedometer today and got a shipment of goodies from Lowbrow...







Clockwise from top left - F/R brake shoe springs, F/R wheel bearings, Roller bearing neck conversion kit, weld-on seat spring perches, biltwell weld-on seat hinge, 4" seat springs, front fork seals, lowbrow free sticker & comb ;) ...

 
#79 ·
Hey man, sorry to hear you have back trouble. I hope it will get better soon, I suffer from degenerative disc disease and my back has been hurting for 20 years. You kind of get used to it and just find different ways of doing things to avoid aggravating it.

Hopefully the parts from Lowbrow will give you some renewed drive and the pills from the doc will take some of the pain away. I know how you feel.

Cheers Dan.
 
#82 ·
Slowly getting back to work. Welded up the solo seat perches and forward hinge today so I could mount the seat pan. I'm not the world's prettiest welder but at least they'll hold well. The 4" springs shown are too long, I'm going to switch them over to 2" springs instead.





 
#83 ·
Solo Seat Part Deux

I decided that I hated the way the seat springs were set up so I changed everything up. I read that Chevy valve springs worked well so I got a pair of them for a whopping $4.36 and went to work re-tooling the setup. I'm not completely done yet but the pics below show things about 60% done...

First I had to thread the seat perch posts so out came the die...



All done...



Then I needed to weld a washer to the valve spring so I made some cuts in the washer to get it tacked on. I left one area open because the spring didn't hit there anyway...



Clamped the spring to the washer and welded it up...



Ground down the welds and test fit it on the perch. Perfect!



View from top looking down into bolted on spring...



Did the same procedure for the other spring...



Shots with the seat down...







Next, I need to machine a four 1/2" deep cups to capture the top and bottom of each spring and weld some angle iron at the correct angle to the seat pan so the springs hit at the proper angle and can be mounted from the top as well. I'll post more pictures when that's done.
 
#88 ·
No, steel since I may wind up wanting to weld them to the seat pan and/or perches, not 100% sure yet. I don't want to call much attention to them since I'm trying to keep this bike looking somewhat stock so whatever I do will eventually be powder coated black anyway.
 
#89 ·
OK, back is feeling better and lots of parts have come in. Decided to get the front end all buttoned up. The TLS front setup that I bought cascaded the need for a whole bunch of other parts since it's about 1/4" wider - so I needed newer upper and lower triple trees. I also decided that the fork tubes were too far gone and installed a new set. I was able to get the bunged up fork slider threads sorted out myself with a small needle file, a loupe and some patience. My machinist was just too busy and I'd rather have him spend time machining my seat spring cups.

Anyway, I seated the fork seals in the dust sleeves with a big ol 34mm socket. No problems...



I also added an extra black plastic spacer on each fork tube, cut down the springs an inch and a half, heated, bent and ground down the ends for a flat surface, bead blasted, primed and painted them up.



Turned out pretty great I think. Shown here during a test fit...



I also needed to fit the TT style upper fork covers. Comparing them with the stock elephant ears it's easy to see that the TT's are longer by about a half inch or so below the tabs that the lower tree bolts through (marked in blue tape)...





So I put a cutoff wheel in the dremel and lopped the extra off, filed the bottom perfectly flat and chamfered the edges slightly. I also needed to elongate the mounting tab bolt hole so the bolt wouldn't catch but just slightly. Here's a shot of the finished TT cover...



And below are a couple of shots of the whole fork assembly put together. The lower members and trees have yet to be powder coated black. I'm going to leave the dust sleeves stainless. Basically, everything will be black except the tube itself and dust sleeves...





Oh and my custom spoke order from Buchanans showed up today so I can finally drop everything off to be laced, trued, tires mounted, etc. More on that next time.



Have a great 4th everyone!
 
#90 ·
Dropped off my hubs, rims, spokes, tires with Brittech to be laced, trued, mounted, balanced, etc. It'll be a couple of weeks beIn the meantime, I figured I'd rebuild the brakes. Front /rear shots of both. I think I've done it correctly but if anyone spots anything out of place, please let me know - thanks...

Front inner:



Front outer:



Back inner:



Back outer:



Also, I'm leaving tomorrow for a week of much needed vacation at the beach. Later!
 
#91 · (Edited)
I'm back from vacation and back to work. Back feels good too. :)

I still have a bunch of stuff out to various places - machinist is STILL working on those spring cups (what a lazy dude) and my wheels should be all set by mid next week.

In the meantime I figure I might as well start surgery on the old Indian oil tank I want to use. It has a bunch of mounting brackets and clearance indentations that wont be necessary on this build, plus I need to expand it's capacity so I can put at least a couple full quarts in her. I bet I'll have at least 20 hours into this component alone by the time I'm done but the shape fits the area so perfectly that I fell like it's worth it.

Here's what I'm starting with, an early 50's Indian Scout tank in good condition...







I figured out which areas I needed to keep and which I didn't, and marked it off with some tape as a cut guide, broke out the dremel with a cut-off wheel and started cutting...







Now I have two halves. The front filler side and tubes I'm keeping and the other goes into the scrap metal bin...





Degreasing 60+ years of old engine oil...



Once that's done, I'll strip off any remaining paint and start forming the back half out of 16 ga sheet metal. More pics on that later.

A couple other things of note - my awesome girlfriend bought me a cool shop clock...



And I think I've decided on a paint scheme, here's a mocked-up preview - paint will be gloss, not flat...

 
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