The Later Years of Triumph Motorcycles

By Hughie Hancox
Published on October 8, 2013
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In
In "Tales of Triumph Motorcycles & The Meriden Factory", Hughie Hancox details his time working with the classic English motorcycle manufacturer. In this excerpt, Hancox recounts meeting Triumph Motorcycle enthusiast Steve McQueen.
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"Tales of Triumph Motorcycles & The Meriden Factory" follows the author's life-long passion for classic English Motorcycles, and his adventures of restoration and appreciation of the Triumph classics.
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Steve McQueen and the rest of the American ISDT. Sid Shilton is second from the right.
Steve McQueen and the rest of the American ISDT. Sid Shilton is second from the right.
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A nightmare: the Triumph 650 Bonneville, which suffered from frame breakages, oil leaks, poor breaks and front mudguards falling off. Warranty costs rocketed.
A nightmare: the Triumph 650 Bonneville, which suffered from frame breakages, oil leaks, poor breaks and front mudguards falling off. Warranty costs rocketed.
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The new Triumph 6CA unit, with independently adjustable contact points, making ignition timing setting much easier.
The new Triumph 6CA unit, with independently adjustable contact points, making ignition timing setting much easier.
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Clint Eastwood with co-star, Tisha Sterling, during the making, in 1968, of
Clint Eastwood with co-star, Tisha Sterling, during the making, in 1968, of "Coogan's Bluff." Clint chases the 'baddie' (who's riding a Triumph 500cc Tiger) on a Triumph TR6 through Central Park.

With Tales of Triumph Motorcycles & The Meriden Factory (Veloce Publishing, 1996), author Hughie Hancox offers an engrossing memoir of his time working at the Triumph Motorcycles factory. Through his vivid writing, Hancox shares with readers his passion for classic English motorcycles, and his labors in motorcycle restoration. In this excerpt from “(Bad) vibrations”, Hancox remembers Triumph’s trials with high frequency vibration in the engines of later Triumph Motorcycles, as well as his encounters with Hollywood stars Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood.

You can purchase this book from the Motorcycle Classics store: Tales of Triumph Motorcycles & The Meriden Factory.

Bad Vibrations and the Trials of Motorcycle Repair and Restoration

By this time we were experiencing vibration problems, resulting in the 650 machines cracking brackets, mudguards and petrol tanks. This was vicious, high frequency stuff that we couldn’t seem to cure by altering the balance factors. It wasn’t unusual to have a new bike of only three months usage come into the repair shop, accompanied by its owner to talk to and show the management the problems. One such chap emptied his riding suit pockets of literally dozens of light bulbs he had fitted as the filaments inside kept being vibrated off. One of the bikes I worked on had a split along the length of the rear mudguard, straight down the centre. When I removed the rear number plate and the mudguard mounting bolts, it came off in two halves!

Our only option was to put our trust in the experimental boys and hope that they could tone down this high frequency stuff to a more acceptable level. After all, road speeds were increasing all the while and the Triumph twin engine, as old as it was, had to live in this environment. Most of all the 650cc problems coming in now were to do with vibration and, at one point, we even ran out of the F7004 petrol tank which was the four-gallon, homemarket item fitted to the TR6 and T120. This tank had the single mounting ear at the back and, as a regular as clockwork, off it would come. The stupid thing about it was that you knew the part you were fitting as a replacement under warranty was going to go in just the same way within a few weeks. All we could do was take out the engines, strip the cranks, rebuild them and be ultra-ultra careful in the balancing to get them smack on at an 87 per cent balance factor. The crank had to remain stationary on the knife-edges in any one of the eight positions required. This would at least rule out the crank in any further work should it be necessary. We also ensured that all the nuts, bolts and studs that held the motor and engine steadies could be pushed in by hand, and none of the holes were out of alignment. It’s so often the case when you are trying to put an engine back into the frame that you find the last couple of studs half a hole out, and then the temptation to bang them in with a big hammer becomes too great. You do it, and end up with only threads on one half of the stud or bolt; you can’t start the nut and you’ve forced the thing into the hole, causing stress.

We were always told to take our time and make sure to push all the studs or bolts through with our fingers (you may even have to jiggle the motor about in the frame a bit). If you can’t push a bolt through, open the offending hole out a little with a round file until you can; then and only then, start to tighten everything. I’ve seen so many chaps fit unit motors, put the back engine plates on, but before putting the nuts and bolts through they’ve tightened the front and bottom through studs, which makes life very difficult. We also tried rubber-mounting exhaust systems, but that wasn’t at all popular, because you had to leave the joint at the cylinder head loose, otherwise it would crack the cups off the pipe. Not very good, so we reverted to the normal fitting.

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