Commando vs Trident - long term reliability (2016)

Thanks for all the responses. The shared experiences are pretty consistent with my own.
My Commando at 40K mileage may have been an outlier, but not by much.
I didn't thrash it, and it didn't sit for overly long periods of time, and I always kept it maintained with fresh oil.
I think the average Norton was probably a 20K bike.

Now my $.02 on Tridents. I did and still do like these bikes, but for irrational reasons.
I had one about 15 years ago, spent some $ to have the top-end refreshed. To my dismay, in less than 10K miles it was leaking like a sieve, burning oil and starting to lose some power as well. To those who claim to know such things, 10K miles is the norm for a Trident. If that is true, it is laughable and the Triumph deservedly went belly up.

From a rational perspective, the Norton is clearly the superior street bike of the two for the all around street rider. Despite its shortcomings, and it had a few, the Norton may have been the second best all around bike of this period.

Regards,

Faircloth

A Rob North Special would not be all bad. A couple of years ago I had a conversation with a guy at a race meeting who was developing a Trident. He was carrying a spare motor and his good motor had cost him $24,000 up to that time. It was on 14 to one comp.ratio and had problems getting the ignition system to cope. It had also pulled the back out of the crankcases and been repaired.

I think that if your interest is in going radical, the commando engine is a much better proposition than a Trident. With the commando it is easy to keep the revs down and concentrate on getting more torque. It's mainly revs that kill engines and Triumphs are often very fragile.

A few years ago I was riding with one of my buddies who happened to be on his Trident. After a stop he asked if I wanted to swap bikes for a while. Having never ridden a Triumph of any kind of course I said yes. This guy rides quite a bit more....sedate... than I do, so I was thoroughly unimpressed with the Trident as we just slogged along until I had an opportunity to get the revs up a bit. I became very impressed when the motor really came alive at about 4500-5000 RPM. Most impressive. But I still wouldn't trade my Commando for it.

'Nuff said...

Nathan

the Horror...

Early Tridents had a faulty gearbox, because those rascals at the factory used a 650 box that was not up to the task, I had to tow a heavy Trident off the motorway behind my 500 Velo all the way home to Teddington and busted my clutch in doing so-never again.

Bernhard said:

Early Tridents had a faulty gearbox, because those rascals at the factory used a 650 box that was not up to the task, I had to tow a heavy Trident off the motorway behind my 500 Velo all the way home to Teddington and busted my clutch in doing so-never again.

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Odd - the 4 speed Trident box used the exact same bits as the 650 (except the main shaft which is longer) throughout production. There was a problem with the early 5 speeds, again this was common to the twins and triples, so I'm not certain what you are referring to here.

There was also an earlier mention of the T150V having "swivel lash adjusters" - as far as I know this was only used on the T160. It's possible that a few very late production T150Vs might have used the T160 adjusters, or perhaps the bike in question had been fitted with aftermarket ones?

SteveBorland said:

Odd - the 4 speed Trident box used the exact same bits as the 650 (except the main shaft which is longer) throughout production. There was a problem with the early 5 speeds, again this was common to the twins and triples, so I'm not certain what you are referring to here.

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My thoughts exactly. Never heard of any gearbox woes from the four speeds, other than people wanting to fix a 5 speed and being warned off off the early (1972?) and look for a later one. It is also my understanding that a late T140 five speed will drop right in, If you change out the mainshaft. OK, nothing ever "drops right in" But it does fit.

SteveBorland said:

Bernhard said:

Early Tridents had a faulty gearbox, because those rascals at the factory used a 650 box that was not up to the task, I had to tow a heavy Trident off the motorway behind my 500 Velo all the way home to Teddington and busted my clutch in doing so-never again.

Click to expand...

Odd - the 4 speed Trident box used the exact same bits as the 650 (except the main shaft which is longer) throughout production. There was a problem with the early 5 speeds, again this was common to the twins and triples, so I'm not certain what you are referring to here.

There was also an earlier mention of the T150V having "swivel lash adjusters" - as far as I know this was only used on the T160. It's possible that a few very late production T150Vs might have used the T160 adjusters, or perhaps the bike in question had been fitted with aftermarket ones?

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Late T150vs were fitted with the floating ball tappet adjusters from the factory, my first triple was so equipped
Some late ones also had T160 type kickstarters.

sam

My 1973 had ball adjusters. The final T150v were assembled in 75 so it wasnt really a late one.
73 and 74 are very similar. Not the most collectible but the easiest to live with.

Interesting. Are you certain that these were fitted ex works and not by an owner? Ducati were well known for inconsistencies between the parts list and what was actually fitted, did not realise that this also applied to NVT in 73-74. I would have thought this to early for the T160 parts to be available on the factory floor.

Off the top of my head, I don't recall if the T160 was actually planned for a 74 launch but was delayed due to the industrial problems of the time - perhaps this would explain the above cases?

/Steve.

Hey TexasRed -

A long time ago, I bought a brand new Trident, in April 1976 to be exact. (this was in Canada).

I was a kid with some cash in his pocket and my roommate had a Commando, and I owned a Norton 650SS.

The Trident was supposed to be the the cat's meow, but what a disaster! If i recall correctly, I bought the 1975 model, with a nice burgundy and white tank, an electric start, and a 5 speed gearbox (or maybe it was the T160? - I have been trying to forget this episode in my life)

At about 2000 miles on the clock the bike started to smoke badly. I took it to the local (120 miles away) official Triumph authorized service representative. He said he could not get warranty authorization because the company was bankrupt, and he couldn't get any response despite repeated calls and letters.

He said the pistons had initials carved into them, as did the rods - apparently the result of sabotage during labor troubles at the factory. The head was messed up too. I was without the bike for several frustrating months while the shop and i both went back and forth with the company trying to get something done.

Finally, it was repaired under warranty - after close to a year of BS with the company, and me complaining to the gov't consumer protection agency and anyone else who would listen. Then, other crap happened:
- points ignition system puffed out a cloud of smoke and fried itself while I was riding 20 miles an hour, melted a few feet of wire in the process
- the bike threw a rod on the far left cylinder, creating a hole in the crankcase
- etc., etc., etc.
- the fun just kept on coming ......

Worst piece of crap I have ever owned. I bet I didn't even get 5,000 miles out of it before i gave up in frustration and sold it (felt bad for the new owner!)

My Mark 3 Commando, on the other hand is purring like a kitten at 30,000 miles on the clock, and took me up the interstate at a comfortable 75 mph today as a matter of fact - without any drama.

If someone offered me a '75 Trident tomorrow for free, I'd run in the other direction as fast as I could.

Maybe others had decent experiences with mid-70's Tridents, but definitely not me.

A lot of Australian historic racing bikes have pre-unit Triumph gearboxes because the 5 speed Trident cluster fits. However I don't think many know about the two pairs of gears Phil Pick was making which improve the gear spacing by moving 2nd and 3rd up a bit.

Onder said:

My 1973 had ball adjusters. The final T150v were assembled in 75 so it wasnt really a late one.
73 and 74 are very similar. Not the most collectible but the easiest to live with.

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There was no T150v assembly in 1975, T160 production started in November 1974 for release in early 75. There had been a running prototype in 73 but with the many problems at the factories with tooling up etc release was delayed.

In one of the posts above sabotage was mentioned, and it certainly happened. All triple engine assembly was at the BSA Small Heath factory right from the start, the Triumph motors were then taken to Meriden for assembly into Triumph frames, obviously the Rocket 3 motors were put into frames made at Small Heath . As there was a lot of animosity between the factories the the chance for sabotage was readily available.

All T160 production was at Small Heath , frames, motors, final assembly.

It's a real shame some of the bikes were "less than reliable" from the factories, but with modern ignitions etc they can become they bikes they should have been from the start.
sam

In 1982 I bought a mint T150V in Melbourne from the first owner. He got it in '76. Engine number was NK which is after T160 production started. It had various T160 parts on it like the kickstart and ball adjusters. The Norman Hyde rep in Brisbane said it had been assembled from parts in the factory, which seemed logical. A great bike.

komet said:

Engine number was NK which is after T160 production started. It had various T160 parts on it like the kickstart and ball adjusters.

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According to the factory records*, the last NK prefixed T150 left the (Small Heath) factory on the 2nd of December 1974. The first T160 (XK 00257) was completed ready for dispatch on 7th of December 1974.

*(Information supplied by Clive Blake on the Triples Online forum).

"NK" when applied to a T150 is build date October 1974. A T160 with an "NK" prefix would have been built early October 1975. From around mid-October, the prefix changed to "NN".

komet said:

The Norman Hyde rep in Brisbane said it had been assembled from parts in the factory, which seemed logical.

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But probably not correct.

I stand corrected. I should have said there are T150v registered as 1975. Likewise I have a
Enfield that was mfg in May 1969 but not stamped and shipped until early 1970 and it is
registered as a 1970 model.

" He said the pistons had initials carved into them, as did the rods - apparently the result of sabotage during labor troubles at the factory. The head was messed up too.

Unfortunately true. My brother bought a new Trident in Melbourne Australia around this time. He had gear box trouble and opened it to find it stuffed with metal shavings and swarf.

No way that happened by accident.

But after he fixed it (he was a fitter trained on locomotives and large industrial machinery) he rode it all around Oz including Melbourne to Perth return in a week.

I remember reading about Guzzi police bikes being shipped to the California Highway Patrol with no rings on the pistons, and Jeeps being delivered with Coke bottles in the doors. I know stuff like this goes on, and it's not just doing a crappy job of assembling things, but purposely trying to wreck stuff. I worked worked at an Oldsmobile dealer (RIP) back in the early eighties and when the X bodies (Omegas) were released, we couldn't tell if some of the cock-ups were intentional or not! They were that bad. A sad chapter for anyone involved, but that's just the way it was.