This, our friends, is where the fun starts.

This is where you get down to the nitty-gritty, where you start taking things down to their elements. This is the point when you discover what kind of shape your project is actually in underneath all the layers of oil, dirt and muck that a life of sitting ignored in a corner has invited.

It’s only taken us a pair of good work days to get to this point, and despite our cold, frostbitten fingers from working in Editor Backus’ mildly-heated shop, we’re pretty happy with our progress.

Our 1971 Triumph TR6C Trophy Special now looks like what we fear we’ll find every time we go look at a bike out of the local classified ads that’s labeled as a “mechanic’s special.” Day One cleared the bike of its seat and painted bits, the carb, airboxes, rear shocks, pegs and various oil hoses. After a handful of engine mounts were removed, the engine made its way out the right side of the frame with surprising ease, even though our manual explicitly said it should come out the left side.

Day Two focused on carefully unhooking the original wiring harness and non-stock Boyer ignition, pulling the wheels, fenders, rear swingarm, handlebars, front fork tubes, head stock, kickstand, centerstand and anything else still attached to leave nothing but a bare frame. We’ve bagged and labeled all the parts, and anything that looked to be assembled in an uncommon order or manner was photographed before it was taken apart. So far, we’ve only added a few washers and bolts to the list of needed pieces, which isn’t bad considering we’ve reduced the Trophy to an engine/transmission assembly, a frame, a couple of wheels and a whole lot of Ziploc bags full of parts.

The tank and side covers have been shipped off to Craig McGlothlen at Precision Motorcycle Painting, and he’s in the middle of painting our pieces, as you can see above. When finished, the tank will be Pacific Blue with white scallops, and the side covers will be finished in black.

The unexpected

There have been a few surprises in our journey. Once we’d taken the rear shocks off the bike we discovered that they were bent, but since we’d already planned on replacing them with new Hagon units from Dave Quinn Motorcycles, that’s one discovery that hasn’t caused us much worry. We also discovered the centerstand was missing a bushing, which explains why the bike would flop back on its rear wheel when put up on the stand.

We’d been under the impression that the paint on the frame was in relatively good condition, but underneath all the grease and sawdust we soon discovered a frame that was missing more paint than it had left, not to mention a “repaired” gas tank mount. While we’ve pondered a variety of solutions, in sticking with our “rejuvenation versus restoration” sentiment, we’ve decided to sand, prep, prime and paint the frame ourselves.