Saturday, July 28, 2012

The End of Many Things!

The 2010 Cross Country season was over, Max and I had won our classes, which should have meant many grins and a massive amount of weight removed from various shoulders. No. Instead, I was in my shop throwing the most hateful looks I possibly could at a Triumph T100 that had been converted into an off road bike. Just staring at it wasn't enough, I would gather up a heap of hateful look and heave it all on at once. Much more effective. We had a Lost Weekend coming up to cap the end of the year so I had decided to ride the thing the mile or so to the car wash and give it a nice clean. I was nearly there when a distinct rattling began to be audibly apparent. In my head there was much yelling, "DAMN YOU, OIL PUMP!!!!" as I pulled into the car wash. Opening the tank showed the level at or near proper location....this meant the feed side had given up this time. I know what your thinking, "I've never had a problem with Triumph's horrid, crude, antiquated plunger pumps, you must just be the worlds sloppiest Triumph owner", and your prolly correct. However, this process had involved three different pumps (the original, another used one, and a fancy new jobby), resetting of balls on seats, lapping seats+resetting, removal of oil tank and cleaning at least 3 times, replacement of all oil lines, three different filter set-ups, plus a complete flushing of all oilways during a bottom end rebuild caused by pump failure. I may be the worlds sloppiest Triumph owner, but I've put in the time, damn it. Across the busy road from the car wash is a Honda shop, so after giving it the wash it needed anyway, I pushed the bike over and walked home to get my truck. To say I was miffed is an understatement, I wanted to set the horrid thing on fire and throw it at another Triumph, thereby starting a chain reaction that would eventually consume all the worlds Triumphs with plunger pumps in a grand conflagration. Yeah, I may have been pretty upset. Back home I just stared at it hatefully for sometime before I cleared the pump (this was a pretty quick exercise due to a modified timing cover that didn't upset the timing when you needed to remove it to deal with a pump every few days), fired it up, and it was still rattley. Peachy, damage done. At least the season was over and I quickly decided if it blew up at the Lost Weekend I would let that be the punctuation to this little sentence. The bike was duly loaded, and we were away.

We had a good number of people convene at our Durhamtown haunt. Usual suspects from North Carolina included Jay, Marcus and Alex. Various parts of Tennessee were represented by Tony (T-Read), and Larry. Florida put up Max, George and me, with a first LW appearance by James
Who was dubiously mounted on one o' them Spanish two stroke things,
Larry was also was in possession of a dubious Spanish two stroke thing, the starting process of which required a 3763 step ritual, which included kicking
pushing
 "poking with a stick"
the patented "screw you gravity" maneuver
more kicking
any finally appealing to various deities
I didn't see much of day one, I was poking at the Triumph, trying to determine how bad and where the damage was,
I mainly just did a couple short runs by myself, but despite the usual autumn crispness, everyone else seemed to be having a pretty incident free good time.
The second day, after a mighty attempt-to-start-a-bultaco session, I said to hell with it and went out with everyone. As almost always seems to happen, we met up at the far end of the park at the bottom of the hill climb
With everyone present (minus Tony, who had had to leave early) we decided it was the perfect time for a nice Georgia woods family portrait
Then, it was back to camp for vittles. I was beginning to think the Triumph might actually survive the weekend, it was noisy, but not nearly as bad as at Carolina when it had consumed itself. I began upping the pace a bit and enjoying myself when on a straight stretch of road about half way back there was a measly lil' "tink" and forward motion stopped. Luckily for me I wasn't by myself, unluckily for Jay and Alex, one of them would get to tow me out. Straws drawn, the field tank Triumph was hitched up to Alex's teeenyy, tiny BSA single for the long drag home. We nearly came-a-cropper only once or twice, but managed to not kill ourselves, while the little BSA valiantly managed to not be torn in half hauling over five hundred pounds of stricken Triumph and its pilot, emerging to the reward of hot dogs and beer
The Triumph was once again given accusatory looks
I was pretty sick of the thing at this point, and the thought of pulling it all apart over the winter filled me with dread. I instead decided to take a different tack (read about that here) for the upcoming season, leaving the Triumph for some future day when I could stand to touch it. Not wanting to take up space at home, it sat in a corner at work for the next year and a half, mostly forgotten
Eventually, I got the proverbial wild hair, pulled the engine and decided to get it running, mainly to get it out of the way at work. The hated plunger pump went away, replaced with a Morgo rotary unit. The crank was reground, new rods, big ends, and mains purchased. Parts scavenged off it to put on the AJS were replaced, and it was eventually ready to start. One afternoon, fuel on, oil in I gave it a kick, "blump", it was gonna start! Second kick "blump, blump, blump". I figured the next kick would do it....but if you're waiting for a happy ending, it aint coming. I went to press down on the kickstart for that third time and it was locked hard. At first it seemed something in the kickstart or gearbox had locked up, it being so sudden and solid, so covers were taken off as I followed the path from lever to 'box, nothing. More covers, 'box to primary, still nothing. Heart beginning to sink as I got closer to the engine. Something in the bottom end was locked up. As far as I could tell, something had survived cleaning the crank after the blow up and subsequent grind and had been shoved out as it tried to start and galled a big end. I was done. You may at this point level all the charges of incompetent Triumph owner at me you want. I couldn't care less, I was not pulling that engine again. I took it home and left it outside the shop until I decided what to do with it. I joked I was gonna bolt it to the wall, the wife didn't realize I was joking and suggested I should mount it on the center beam so it could be seen from both sides. I stared at her, it wasn't the response I was expecting. I made a bracket. Max, though I feel he disapproved, was roped in to help get the 40 ton beast up there. Here he is, verifying that it is, indeed, a Triumph bolted to a beam
To be honest, me and the Triumph never really got on with each other. I enjoyed racing it, and was usually impressed by its toughness given the abuse it was subjected to, but I didn't love it. In the end it put me in a bit of a quandary because I knew I probably wouldn't ride it again. I never considered selling it, because in the state it was it would bring so much less than it was worth to me, being my first dirt-bike and the one I'd spent so much time on over the previous few years. I didn't really have space for a bike I never thought I'd get running again in the shop, so it would have been relegated to the shop's loft, a place from which few things return. I guess what I'm saying is I'm lukewarm happy its on the beam. I won't have to feel the regret of having sold it, and its mostly preserved in a nice climate controlled space should I get the (highly unlikely) urge to hoist it down and get it running. But I've pondered how to end this post for a long while, because there is a small part of me sad its up there on that beam. However, there's a HUGE part of me GLAD its up there, so I guess I'll just wish it a happy second retirement. Made from the bones of at least two other bikes, it was enjoying its first long slumber when it came to me, dragged out of a shed, old, worn out, its mismatched parts held together with zip-ties. It was bought for cheap because it was fully expected its life would end after it got wrapped around a tree. It was meant to be disposable, but it kept going despite me and despite itself. Its a real bike now, not a bitsa project. Its broken, but whole, it has its own stories. I guess I'll just let it sleep a while.