Vintage Triumph, Norton, Indian and Honda riding and the Red Baron gets a new seat and pipe.

Riding our local roads around North Texas with a bunch of guys on vintage bikes, stopping for barbeque and some impromptu grass track racing, ending with an evening cool front blowing away the hot summer day…about as good as it gets. Adventure rider and writer Jon Beck was in town chronicling a road trip from LA to Texas with his longtime bud Jason Lee, and we met up for a ride. Jason was riding his 1948 Indian Scout, a bike that despite its age and restoration, gets ridden hard. Jon was riding Jason’s “Goldie,” the 1971 Triumph TR6C repaired in the last post, buddy Ben D’avanza was on his 1974 Norton Commando, John Green on his 1970 Honda CB750, Fabian Campos on a modern Honda XL650, and I was on the Jack Wilson 1967 Triumph Bonneville. Knobbies on Jason, Jon, and Fabian’s bikes, but the rest of us were rocking street tires and feeling the fresh-cut grass slide on the turns.

Getting ready to roll. There was no specific plan, but we found plenty to do.

Jason giving the ‘48 some hot laps on the grass. Even with knobbies, grass can be a little unpredictable.

John Green surveying the bikes after our ride.

Goldie. the ‘48 Indian, and the ‘74 Commando on the roadside in Argyle, Texas.

The Red Baron was back in the shop for a banana seat, sissy bar, and low pipe mods. I wanted to do the seat and sissy bar combo a while back, but it took a couple years for owner Ben D’avanza and I to coordinate a time to do it. The cocktail shaker muffler sounds great and flows well. The kickstart lever and brake pedal were slightly re-bent to clear the pipe.

The seat cover came from a discard custom seat another customer left with me, and I thought it was the right vibe for the build. Ben had the sissy bar, and it was modified to be part of the one-piece seat mount.

Mocking up the parts and photo-testing the profile. The seat pan was made from cold rolled 16 gauge steel sheet. The high pipe is still on at this point. The original 5/8” diameter exhaust was designed for a 50cc engine and is too restrictive for this 90cc engine. The new pipe is a 7/8” and makes for better top end power.

Ben found this LED powered Maltese cross tail light to finish off the look.

Still kind of awkward and fugly…just the way I like them.

The Wilwood brake calipers and rotors are in for the 1993 H-D FXR build. More on that in the next post.

Wiring a Triumph TR6C, FXR fender mounting, CL360 passing through the shop.

Jason Lee’s 1971 Triumph TR6C desert sled, “Goldie”came to the shop with no spark. A rapid battery discharge indicated there was a parasitic drain. The tail light would come on randomly when the bike was parked, and no amount of adjustment to the brake switches seemed to make any difference.

Here is where the problem starts. The wiring on this bike appears to be all custom, and further investigation found the brake switch wires were both hard wired with the power from the battery! This means the brake light would be constantly on with no way to turn it off aside from battery disconnection. The fact that the tail light was only on intermittently did not make sense until the tail light was taken apart.

Here is the tail light wiring and the explanation for intermittent lighting. All three wires were ground either partially or completely through, and would ground against the aluminum housing enough to light occasionally. A new set of wires was grafted in and along with a re-wire of the front main switch, everything is functioning correctly.

She runs and rides like a dream, with a loud throaty roar and a ton of pull.

Some mounting brackets for the 1993 Harley-Davidson FXR rear fender, made from 1/8” plate and 16 gauge sheet steel. Capture nuts were welded to the backside to simplify installation.

The fender brackets make for a clean minimal install.

The fender is mounted and a longer seat pan is being worked out. There will be some springs under the tail of the seat to complete the look.

Some ribs were put in the pan using the Jet Tools English wheel. The shrinker/stretcher was run around the back edge to strengthen and smooth it out.

Another familiar bike, this 1974 Honda CL360 came in for a fuel delivery issue and points adjustment, and left running right again.

The 1957 Triumph Freebird returns from Bornfree 11

Just back from Bornfree 11, the 1957 Triumph Freebird is getting some further tweaks like a brass air filter. There was a minor engine fubar (push rod slipped off the rocker arm) that was fixed a couple days after I got back, and we are running strong!

There are points from the front and back where the levers and cables all but disappear. Getting the bars to look clean was one of the goals on this build. The Honda internal cable throttle and bar-end levers with strategic exit points on the bars keep everything tidy.

After coming back from the show, some tweaks were done like the bars angled a little lower, kickstand re-bent, left header pipe lengthened slightly on the muffler end, and a new yoke style lever on the rear brake panel (the one that was on there is a side-pull style opposed to the yoke style that does not torque the lever or bend the pull-rod as much.)

Once the engine was running right, an air filter had to be made before the final carb tuning could take place. Made from .050 and .032 brass sheet, the Amal velocity stack is inside and the threads are used to mount it to the carb. Everything was done by hand and eye, not using even a ruler or compass. There are ways of pressing or spinning metal to get a similar result, or even CNC, but the hand-made individuality of the pieces was what I wanted for not just this part, but the whole bike.

It would be hard to not make it out of brass at this point. Also noticing once again how artfully Jason Small made the paint line on the tank.

The brass hardware from the original Amal 389 carb fit the new carb perfectly. It does not bother me to see the scratches and nicks on it.

Salt shaker muffler grills.

The amber capped kill switch works fine.

Some ground-level details. There is a pipe that runs between the oil tank and battery box, connecting with the oil tank vent on one end and the engine crankcase vent on the other. An upside-down “Y” comes off the tube just above the sump level and drains to the catch-can/chain oiler. The primary cover vent also drains into it via a separate tube. The voltage regulator can be seen below.

Once again, the levers disappear. The seat cover design by Paisley of Penny Goods Leather echoes the tank package rack. I was just going for the ribs down the seat in the traditional form, but she came up with this design and it looks so much better because of it! The Small Time Motors paint job by Jason Small continues to blow me away as well. It was definitely the sleeper strategy to bring such subtle colors to a chopper show. The response was about what you would expect…about one person out of a hundred dug on it.

I do not mind the signs of use as long as it is honest. The appearance of leather grips after some use warms up and humanizes the bike. The Wade Oliver Wilson engraving on the levers and kick start pedal was a big hit at the show.

Just a little lowering of the bar ends makes for a better profile and fit.

Another example of hiding a cable in the silhouette of the bike on the front brake cable. making it a little longer or shorter makes it more noticeable.

Detail of the pannier inside. Once again, I did not ask for some of the detail like the inner canvas pocket, but was stoked with the outcome!

I always want the tail end of a bike to have a certain look. Tidy and sexy is the only way to describe it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Happy with this one.