VELOCETTE MAC TRIUMPH CAFÉ RACER HARLEY 45 VICEROY TOO!
ISSUE 159 JU ULY 2017 £3.60
Running, Riding & Rebuilding RealClassic Mottorcycles
WHAT LIES WITHIN
42 TRIUMPH T160 TRIDENT ..........................6
TRIUMPH CAFÉ RACER ................................ 60
Triumph’s T160 is big news and big money these days. Frank Westworth samples the delights of Devon aboard a shiny as-new triple
Inspired by memories of his old Goldie, John Swanston created a modern day café racer; a bike built from leftover bits and discarded components…
NORTON DOMINATOR................................24
TIDDLER TREK ............................................. 66
Roving reporter Richard Jones meets a classic enthusiast who’s brought a featherbed Norton back from the brink of oblivion; a man with a passion for preserving the past…
Allen MacKinnon and his pals chose to celebrate a significant birthday by riding around the Scottish Highlands and Islands on old British bikes. Just to make it even more interesting, they restricted the bikes to 250cc or less…
MOTO GUZZI V50....................................... 34
If you’re still searching for a classic motorcycle which is light and lively; ruggedly practical and reasonably priced, David Bell suggests Moto Guzzi’s middleweight V-twin… HARLEY 45 ..................................................42
It’s amazing what you can assemble from boxes of bits. Odgie accidentally bought a sidevalve Harley. So after deriding them for years, is he won over by the archetypal American V-twin? VELOCETTE MAC.........................................50
You might imagine that every farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in existence must surely have been emptied by now – but no. Still more old motorcycles emerge from the depths of neglect so that people like Stuart Francis can rebuild them… TRIDENT POSTER!.......................................58
It’s true. We made a bigger picture of the Trident. Mainly because it’s yellow
REALCLASSIC 159; PUBLISHED IN JULY 2017
RC REGULARS THE CONTENTS PAGE ....................................3
A truly eccentric collection of motorcycles. Something for everyone WE’VE GOT MAIL! ........................................14
Loads and loads and loads. Everyone loves letters: write more!
VMCC LIBRARY ............................................ 76
Imagine you’ve repatriated an old British bike or brought a barn find back to life. Before it can return to the road you have one last hurdle to overcome: the all-important paperwork. Without verification from a marque club or enthusiasts’ organisation your old bike ain’t going nowhere. Matt Swindlehurst gives us a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes at the Vintage Motor Cycle Club’s library…
EVENTS ........................................................80
Sizzling roads, cloudless skies and heroic suntans await anyone riding to all these events READERS’FREE ADS ....................................82
The usual fascinating mixture of machinery. TP almost bereft of chocs, however. National crisis imminent
BMW R80...................................................... 86
When you buy a cheap bike on eBay there’s always a chance that one of its minor problems might be something major. Stephen Herbert is not a man to be discouraged by such trifles, however…
PUB TALK ...................................................102
250,000! The latest RC circulation (we wish), the price of the latest Brough or Vincent at auction (not this time), or just last year’s immigration figures (boring)? No, it is the distance that the PUBs (bike and rider) have travelled together in the last 50 years (approximately). Unfortunately both are beginning to show their age
GASKET GLORY............................................ 92
Dave Blanchard needed to rapidly replace a gasket but the correct component didn’t fall conveniently to hand. So he creatively came up with a tasty solution instead… VELOCETTE VICEROY .................................. 96
Customers were buying cheap’n’cheerful Lambrettas and Vespas like hot cakes. So Veloce developed a top quality, beautifully engineered British equivalent. Why wasn’t this snazzy scooter a runaway success? Roger Slater investigates. Part Two, in which he rides it!
SUBSCRIBE
TALES FROM THE SHED .............................108
Project bikes are always a disaster; ask any magazine editor…
TURNTO
You won’t find RealClassic on the shelves in UK newsagents. If you want to enjoy regular RC reading then take out a subscription and join us in the RealClassic Club.That way, each issue costs just £2.50. Bargain!
P114
TODAY & SAVE
4 I JULY 2017
More old bikes online: Real-Classic.co.uk
WHO’S DONE WHAT REALCLASSIC is penned by people like you, and polished by Rowena Hoseason and Frank Westworth of The Cosmic Bike Co Ltd, and Mike Baumber, Libby Fincham and whole Mortons production team at Horncastle Up to the minute event reports and more bike features are posted throughout the month at www.Real-Classic.co.uk TRADE ADVERTISERS for the magazine or website should call Helen Martin on 01507 529574, email hrmartin@mortons.co.uk EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES should be sent to Frank@RealClassic.net or to PO Box 66, Bude EX23 9ZX. Please include an SAE if you want something returned or a personal reply SUBSCRIPTION INFO is on pg114. Call 01507 529529 to subscribe or renew or buy back issues SUBS QUERIES, late deliveries, or changes of address should be directed to 01507 529529, or email subscriptions@realclassic.net ALL MATERIAL in RealClassic is copyright its authors, so please contact us before reproducing anything. RealClassic is printed by William Gibbons & Sons of Wolverhampton. Our ISSN is 1742-2345. THIS MONTH we’ve been reading WINTER DOWNS (classic crime set in WW2 Sussex with a heroine named Bunty or somesuch); THE BLADE THIS TIME (21st century Kafkaesque psychothriller); BLACK OUT (Icelandic investigations); THE SAINT JUDE RULES (a rogue agent romp); KING MAYBE (a thief with his heart in the right place, and MEDUSA (superb Scandi crime) MEANWHILE AT THE MOVIES we preferred The Mummy to Wonder Woman (we like our female protagonists to walk on the wild side); defied the critics by thoroughly enjoying King Arthur and Baywatch, and in box-set heaven reached season four of Game of Thrones. Say what!? You can’t execute Tyrion! RealClassic is published monthly by MMG Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, LN9 6LZ, UK. USA SUBSCRIPTIONS are $58 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI. 54921. Postmaster: Send USA address changes to RealClassic, Motorsport Publications LLC, 715-572-4595 chris@ classicbikebooks.com
FROM THE FRONT
T
he Shed currently has a guest motorcycle – a rare notion. This one’s a twin, a pushrod air-cooled twin, of which there are lots of others in there, but it’s an Italian twin this time. Cylinders arranged in a V. Aha! So it’s a Moto Guzzi, is it? Nope; it’s a Morini, parked next to Rowena’s Guzzi V35 – so a brace of Italian 350 Vees. And what a fine machine it is, too: more next month. Riding the 3½ provided several opportunities for what passes for thought in my sun-baked cranium. At a predictable tangent, too. Remember the 1970s? Remember the derision from the Press about the UK’s motorcycle offerings – Triumph and Norton by then, mostly – being hopelessly outmoded and outclassed by the far-eastern imports? Remember also that those same Press guys almost universally admired Italian Vees, the only one of which to sport a more modern ohc engine being the least reliable… I told you that my thoughts had been lateral! Back then I rode almost exclusively ancient Brit, mainly because ancient Brit was cheap and affordable, while anything Italian was not. I also rode eastern European, for similar reasons and with variable results – I switched to a cheap used Jawa because it should have been more reliable than the ancient Brit. But it wasn’t, so I replaced it with a brand-new MZ, which was. And was also my first-ever new bike. Glory days, of course. Riding the Morini along the sinuous lanes which are so common down here, I wondered whether those derided Triumph twins with their ohv top ends could actually have been developed further. And if they had been how well they’d have stacked up – not against the ohc multis from Japan but against the aircooled ohv opposition from Italy. Certainly, the Commando is as decent a ride as any contemporary big twin from Italy or indeed from Germany. Some of this thinking had been prompted because unconsciously somehow I’d been riding down small roads which we’ve ridden a lot on Rowena’s Triumph T100C – another
CONTACT US! BY POST: BY EMAIL: TP@RealClassic.net ONLINE: www.Real-Classic.co.uk
ohv air-cooled low-tech twin, and in truth the Triumph is every bit as competent as the Morini. That changes when we hit the main roads, heading home so that this magazine could actually get finished! Once onto the A39, the amusingly named Atlantic Highway, the Triumph’s limitations become unavoidable. It really is screaming when pushed to 70-75. I’m uncomfortable with that. No doubt lots of folk habitually ride their 1970s Triumph 500 twins like that … or they claim to. The Morini has more gears than the Triumph and although it has little extra performance to offer at 70mph it feels a lot less stressed. I’d not want to tackle a long motorway journey on it, but there’s no doubt that the extra years of development and the extra gears make a huge difference. Which set me to wondering… I have a memory that I once rode a late Daytona fitted with a 5-speed box, but… But no. I can’t remember anything else about it. Just food for thought. Ride safely Frank Westworth Frank@realclassic.net
THE NEXT ISSUE
RC160WILL BE PUBLISHED ON AUGUST 7th, AND SHOULD REACH UK SUBSCRIBERS BY AUGUST 11th
Triumph’s T160 is big news and big money these days. Frank Westworth samples the delights of Devon aboard a shiny as-new triple Photos by Rowena Hoseason
6 I JULY 2017
More old bikes online: Real-Classic.co.uk
TRIUMPH T160 TRIDENT
I
have a chequered history with Tridents. No… Make that something about love/hate relationships. Hmmm… One of my few remaining Bucket List Bikes is a T160 – but I’ve managed not to buy one so far. This is because I ran one for a long time a long time ago, and have never actually recovered. Let’s get this straight right away: Tridents are excellent motorcycles. Several RealEngineers have told me that they shouldn’t be, but a decently running triple is a great riding machine. The engines are smooth, powerful, and packed with character and charm, while the bicycles handle and steer very well indeed. The earlier and later ones even have decent brakes – I cannot get excited in a positive sense over the triples fitted with the conical hub 2ls anchors, sadly. Although I’ve ridden a few which have worked very well, I’ve ridden another few which were a little scary. Like other charismatic old motorcycles, Tridents have attracted
Subscribe and save: Real-Classic.co.uk
a dedicated band of devotees, and I have discovered and rediscovered many times down the years that any scribbler who criticises the bike risks piles of opprobrium descending from a great height upon them. Which has made me cautious about reporting on Tridents. In turn, this means that I’ve developed a tendency to report what the owners think rather than what I think of their bikes. It’s best not to cause needless offence, and in any case an owner knows more about their bike than I do. Usually. Sometimes… An irritating fact is that I’ve ridden several awful, awful, awful Triumph and BSA triples. Balancing that is the conflicting fact that I’ve ridden a few utterly excellent machines from that strange stable, and when they’re good … they’re very good. You know the rest of that ancient saying I’m sure. As well as the usual motorcycle encounters which characterise a bike journo’s life (we ride a lot of bikes which are not our own) I have also owned and covered sensible mileage aboard a reasonable assortment of triples, ranging from a very early model Rocket 3, a four-speeder with the BSA Group’s excellent 1968/69 front brake, via a small flotilla of T150 Tridents, with all three of their factory anchors, and of desperately variable quality, up until the last one, a 1975 T160, which was a brilliant machine … when it ran well, which it almost never did.
JULY 2017 I 7
At the heart of things. The last of the old generation triple engines, the T160
Possibly the most famous feature of the T160 is its electric leg, here tucked neatly away under a shiny stainless cover. The only hiccup of the day out was FW’s inability to understand how to use it
It’s the last of its line, and as the 1975 world was packed with four-pot bikes, maybe someone at Triumph felt a need to avoid pipe envy
8 I JULY 2017
The vaguely unwilling NOS Lucas electric motor has been replaced by a rather more effective modern alternative; the Madigan conversion. Now, look closely. The new starter is considerably smaller than the Lucas original, despite being rather more lively in operation. Ian Johnston simply extended it with a dummy Lucas cover so it looks ‘right’ when under the smart cover
It cost a fortune on expert attention. I bought it as a running wreck, passed it to a triple expert for a rebuild, and got back a beauty with just about all the TR3OC’s goodie list of improvements fitted to it. Brand new Amal carbs, a new starter motor, all bearings renewed, pistons, valves and even twin discs with Grimeca calipers up front. It looked delicious. It started on the button. Every time, even from cold. It idled reliably and once run in it ran around beautifully. It also drank oil. Lots of oil. Oceans of oil. At one point I spent a weekend hooning around North Wales in the company of a pal on a GT550 Kawasaki chopper – not the world’s most performancepacked powerbike – and achieved 30mpg. And 30mpp of oil. After that somewhat entertaining and prolonged thrash the old soldier was smoking like a Chinese steelworks … but it still started and ran perfectly, complete with tickover too. And the handling and braking were exceptional, and the engine was as fast as ever. Long long story, no room for it here. It was eventually finally fixed and we parted company. I was genuinely sad to see it go. It destroyed all its crank bearings about a month later. Parting can be a sweet sorrow, apparently. And that experience has prevented me buying another. That, gentle reader, is the truth. Great bikes, just not great for me. Back a while now – some time last year – I was relating my Trident tales of woe and longing to Phil Humphrey, who owns several Tridents, and whose Triumph TSX I’d just been
More old bikes online: Real-Classic.co.uk
TRIUMPH T160 TRIDENT
Left & above: The drive side, displaying the unusually compact primary drive casings. The compact thing is due to the absence of the alternator, which – unusually – lives inside the timing case on the triples. This machine has benefitted from the replacement of its unobtainium duplex primary drive with a triplex system as on the earlier Threes. Lovely job; works well, too Right: As well as their ‘chokes’, the carbs respond well to a gentle tickle. Observe the little lever here; lifting it operates the middle carb’s tickler. Science, or engineering?
out and about on for an RC story. We laughed and joked, and admired one of his own machines – up for sale, because that is what he does – which was a T160, with several unsubtle modifications, including hippy bells and a remarkable side panel badge. If I can find a pic of it, there’ll be one nearby. He suggested that I might like to buy the bike and make it right, using the considerable expertise that’s out there nowadays and the very many mods and upgrades which are available. My reply was along the ‘Thanks but no thanks’ lines. I may have trembled a little, but I was certainly polite. And I did in fact buy a Triumph as a direct result of that day’s outing … a TSX. And before you laugh at my lunacy, the TSX has most of the stylistic … ah … charm of the T160, without the triple’s … ah … character. So. Imagine my delight when that same Phil Humphrey dropped a line inviting me to take a day out on a properly restored T160. Seriously! I was delighted. I always … almost always enjoy riding other folks’Tridents. They are as varied as Norton Commandos, with much depending on how well they’ve been maintained and / or modified. Phil – who trades as Totnes Classic Motorcycles – is something of a Triumph fan, particularly of the late triples, and decided to offer a small run of entirely rebuilt and improved T160 Tridents. Hence the invite to ride one: all publicity helps. Even more usefully, the bikes have been rebuilt by Ian Johnston, whose own bikes are no strangers to magazine features, and who
lives and works in nearby Devon. But never mind all that. Lovely sunny Devonshire day. I’m sitting in the full stare of the sunshine on a bright yellow sunny Trident. As you can hopefully see from the pics, the thing’s a stunner. Gleam everywhere. The mid-1970s were the pinnacle of gleam, before the fashions changed, engines became ever more enclosed and painted engine cases replaced polished alloys. Chrome is everywhere on these machines. If I were a sociologist, it might be possible to trace the rise in chrome with the growing dependence of the major manufacturers on hot US states. On the other hand… maybe it’s the reverse effect: as motorcycle sales slowed in countries with soggy, damp, salty climates and bikes became toys rather than transport,
Subscribe and save: Real-Classic.co.uk
so it became OK to load on the chrome? Who knows? No more delay. Investigate the location of the choke lever – amusingly bolted to the left-hand of the three Amal Concentric carbs. Of course it is. Raise an eyebrow to Ian, who’s standing nearby complete with what appears to be a smug smile. ‘Tickle?’ I ask, innocently. He raises an eyebrow and shrugs. My old T160 preferred a tickle and no choke, so that’s what I did. The outside two carbs are handed, so their ticklers are easily reached, and whereas earlier triples relied on either a long tickling finger or indeed a tickling stick for the middle carb (you can work this out, I’m sure) the T160 has a neat lever to depress the centre tickler. I use it, so displaying great model knowledge, so forth. No one notices.
JULY 2017 I 9
Push the button on the righthand switch block. Nothing happens. Stare into the distance. Sigh. Push the other button. The engine stone-cold spins easily, fires up immediately and settles to an unhappy, lumpy tickover. It all feels extremely familiar. I hold the engine at maybe 1200rpm on the throttle. Real men have no need for choke levers. Real men can operate a twistgrip, so forth. And after maybe a half-minute, the throttle can be released, the engine quickly warming to a decent tickover all on its own. These engines sound superb, and this one is smooth and quiet, gurgling away beneath me with that familiar alloy top end valve conversation headlining the aural experience. Clutch. Light. These clutches should be light, they’re a diaphragm spring design, pretty modern for their day. Gentle step onto the left-side gear lever. A click. The rear drive chain tightens. This is very familiar. On my own T160 – remember that despite its faults I rode many thousands of miles on it – the rear chain did the same, with an extra clang from contact with the chainguard, which I never could get rid of, despite replacing the entire guard. Possibly the frame was bent. Who knows? The clutch doesn’t drag, which is a good sign, and the tickover stays the same, steady and subdued. Into the street we go, heading east. Whether or not you’ll consider a T160 to be comfortable or not depends largely on your own tastes in riding positions. I find them fine, although they splay my knees more than T150s and much more than
The binnacle for the clocks first appeared on the T160, but later became standard on Meriden twins. Neat and plainly historic NVT ‘wriggly’ logo on there, too
Rocket 3s, presumably a feature of the mild frame redesign from T150 to T160. But it was entirely familiar, as was the delicious low key valvegear thrash from below. Really was like travelling back in time. That said, the silencers, while appearing to be standard issue black cap or ‘bean can’ devices, were in fact rather more noisy than is usually the case. Not an unpleasant noise at all, just with more of an edge to it. And all controls fell readily to hand and foot, as you’d hope. I always enjoy writing that. But in fact they do. When Phil had told me that this machine had been ‘improved’ (always a dodgy term, improvements being so subjective) I had wondered whether it had been fitted with Legend-style rearsets,
which are remarkably comfortable, even with UK bars. But no: this machine has reasonably high bars and standard rests. Well suited, providing a well-balanced riding position. Perfecto for that chap – or indeed chapess – of a certain age and stiffness of back. The throttle is familiarly heavy, as you might expect with three carbs, although the machine has been fitted with Venhill ‘featherlight’ cables, which should help. I didn’t notice of course; it all felt very ‘Trident’ to me. The gearbox also. Although basically the same box as used on one hundred million twins, the addition of the diaphragm clutch makes it feel as though there’s also an added precision – although that’s more likely to be due to the happy fact that everything in the
COMPLETELY REBUILT Le eft: Stripped right do own: the bare T1 160 crankcase Be elow: Solid, sim mple, strong: stteel fork yokes; th he top one co omplete with th he mounting bo osses for the ne ew-for-the-T160 in nstrument biinnacle
Above: While the Triumph heavy twins shifted to the full duplex oil-bearing frame for 1971, the heavy triples continued with a frame based around the mid-60s twin device. Nothing wrong with that: it works very well Right: As with the main frame, the swinging arm iss basic, but basically sound
10 I JULY 2017
More old bikes online: Real-Classicc.co.ukk
TRIUMPH T160 TRIDENT
Above: Lucas switchgear has many fans. Possibly… Right: Lots of people mock the high US bars, but in fact they perfectly match the footrests and are very comfortable on country roads. They may be a little tiring on a long motorway ride, but who’d buy a Trident for long motorway rides?
gearbox, including the selector mechanism, is new. Hard to judge. Back when I was a proud and occasionally happy T160 pilot, one of the ongoing bogeys on the horizon was the shortage of primary chains. Unlike earlier triples, T160s use a duplex chain, rumoured to be from a Triumph car, of which there were almost none left in the mid-1990s, apparently. This machine is running a triplex chain, part of a Clive Scarfe conversion which permits the use of the standard T150 primary drive. Very neat indeed, and very smooth, as you’d hope with a new chain running on new sprockets. A timely reminder, were one needed, th hat this is mechanically a new machine. And it felt like it in the suspension department, riding g with
OK, so T160s didn’t have a cloth-covered loomss, but they look nice…
considerable firmness. Out into the countryside, then, and away from the street clutter of Ian Johnston’s home town. Riding at a flickering 30mph isn’t actually a particularly pleasant experience on an asnew triple. It improves as everything wears in – personal experience again – but it’s easy to forget all the tight and taut stuff, the pondering which gear to use because third is a tad high and second a tad low, the moment you pass the end of limit sign and see the gloriously bendy and open A3072 unrolling before you. It leads to the A377, which is an excellent road for fans of the British bike way of going – custom made for Triumphs, they say. I was in third, being a quiet conservative kind of town rider, so flicked down a gear and wound the throttle. There was no need to worry about revving the engine, apparently, so off we went. Third is a fine, long gear, stretching well past the A-road limit before fourth feels like a good idea. And that’s all the gears you need for roads like these, keeping the howling, sizzling triple well on song as you simply delight in the handling. Real chuckaround stuff, as I was remembering with some little glee. This is a 750, and it tramps on well – remember at all times that it’s a 1960s engine design in an un nsophisticated bicycle, although this only reaally intrudes when you brake hard. I’d fit a seco ond disc up front. Oh yes. Yo ou noticed that I’d not mentioned that there’s a fifth gear? Its use brings to light a rather different Trident. You get a choice. You can n consider fifth gear as an overdrive, suitable for dual carriageway cruising – which it handless well – or you can combine it with up pshifting through the lower gears 20mph or more lower than the easy-revving engine is happy with. You can be comfortably into fifth
Subscribe and save: Real-Classic.co.uk
One that got awayy: FW and the first of Phil Humphrey’s T160s to catch his attention
gear by 45mph. I’m not sure why you would, but you can. And the strange thing here is that the engine can pull like a lorry. At least, it can if it’s nice and hot. This one was lumpy when pulling hard at sub-2k rpm until it was warm – maybe three or four summer miles. It was fine dawdling along like that, but crack the grip and it would choke and splutter a little. Once hot? No problem. What else should I tell you? A final thought, maybe. It’s easy to forget how busy the triple engine feels compared to the twins from which it’s derived. It’s worth remembering – if such things are important to you – that the triple was developed from the 500cc twin, not the 650. And it feels like it. It really wants to work. Put another 5000 miles on the bores and this will be a flier. Lovely bike. Plainly I should have one!
JULY 2017 I 11
Above: The three Amals apparently need a choke to enrichen their lives. This is it. Neatly labelled, if obscurely situated
Parking up for the photos produced a few comedy moments. T160 sidestands always terrify me; the bike leans over like a drunkard. And the stand brackets have been known to bend – even break, if you’re very unlucky, depositing an expensive heavy machine in an undignified heap. Entertaining more for onlookers than for owners. My own never fell over, but it often looked like it was going to. This Triumph has had its stand lug reinforced. Life was too heated for me to clamber underneath to see exactly how, but it has, and apparently it’s not a tough mod to make. Now you know.
A delightful coda. Time to ride back after Rowena of this parish had operated the photographic device. I pushed the starter button and was rewarded by an ominous click. So I resorted to the kicker. I know about batteries. I am unfazed by batteries and Tridents are easy enough to kick over, even by an elderly infirm gentleman like myself. Every time I kicked the engine fired. Just the once. It was very hot. Ian was nearby, grinning. I glowered and glowed. He strolled over, took the bike from me, held the button down. The engine rattled around increasingly quickly and fired up, running perfectly smoothly. I
Below: The timing case contains a high output 3-phase alternator, and on this machine there’s also a Boyer ignition under the little chrome cover
Above: Although the silencers are the famous ‘black cap’ or ‘bean can’ variety, the extra hole appears to make them a little louder than the originals Left: 1970s chrome overload was particularly evident at the front, where everything which could be plated was indeed plated. Better here, because the rim and spokes are stainless, which might ease the polishing. Single disc has to work hard with a heavy, fast rider, apparently
Three threes make sunny fun for FW, Ian Johnston and Phil Humphrey, all triple mounted … Ian’s is however a TriBSA triple…
12 I JULY 2017
More old bikes online: Real-Classic.co.uk