Long Term Thident Cafe Racer Project Coming Up

The cylinders are angled forwards Burgs, it’s a T160 with the starter motor removed.

FE
That's a lot of trouble to go to removing ES and changing back to right hand gear change, why I wonder?

The Tri-ville is interesting just up the road a bit, around 10 hours or so fast driving, will be interesting to see the finished project.

Why remove the electric start? Cos it’s a Cafe Racer and the electric start parts weigh more than a small capacity Japanese motorcycle engine! And the battery required to power it weighs as much again! That’s why I removed it from my old T160!

Why revert to right hand change? Well firstly this ain’t a big job, and I guess he did it cos he’s got a shed full of right hand change bikes. It also saves weight by removing the cross over shaft and associated mechanical detritus inside the primary cover.

But it may not be a T160, it could also be a Rocket 3 fitted with T160 covers. Either way, I’m pretty sure it is an angled engine, not upright, and is therefore not a T150.

Fast Eddie said:

But it may not be a T160, it could also be a Rocket 3 fitted with T160 covers. Either way, I’m pretty sure it is an angled engine, not upright, and is therefore not a T150.

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It is a T160 engine with a T150 primary drive etc.
https://www.storik.co.uk/triumph-rafale/

OK good points.
Did a trial fit to see what likely should happen, put a stud through the bottom rails and lower case hole, looks like it will fit OK but not sure on the gearbox sprocket height to the swing arm pivot point, need also to throw the assembled cases in to make sure clearances are ok elsewhere.
In the photo it looks as if the centre line is higher than the swing arm pivot but it's only the angle of the photo as it is basically on center.

Will have to knock the front engine mounts off to do this, as they keep getting in the road.


Burgs

Better stock up on hacksaw blades Burgs...

Hi FE.
Angle grinder with thin slitting blades are best, pretty straight forward, the damaged case came in handy, it is ventilated in the front and pushed into the gearbox, must of made a bit of noise, although an iron man BSA I had in a F500 speedway car I was testing before a race, let out a smallish bang and when I stopped and got out of the car, the crankshaft and remains of the case were laying on the ground, head and part of the barrel were still held by the head steady.

Emailed

Heres some other turkeys conversion , https://classic-triumph.com/project-tri-ville/ . might help .

Think the ' Factory ' job had the frame rails spread for the center case / sump .
Its in ( was before torched 0 the National motorcycle museum . Will tryn finda picture .

stuufed for now . Plenty of pictures of it in Triumph History books. Anyway .

Frames a copy of this . If your a real man , youll do it as a Flat Tracker .

A bloke in Auckland had a T120 in a early T 150 , so twin bolts in , meaning holes match .
Cross measure lower rails .

Inspiring Matt.

Burgs that makes me think, junk your oil in frames and get a pre OIF Triumph frame and make it look like a 60s Bonnine!

If you still want Cafe Racer, think Thruxton Bonnie....

Fast Eddie said:

Inspiring Matt.

Burgs that makes me think, junk your oil in frames and get a pre OIF Triumph frame and make it look like a 60s Bonnine!

If you still want Cafe Racer, think Thruxton Bonnie....

Click to expand...

AKA Slippery Sam.

But the frame rails wont work for the dry frame and the rails need to be widened on the OIF,

Ok what I have found so far, to get the engine bottom mount through stud to fit, I had to cut the righthand rear side frame gusset to allow the engine to move back towards the swing arm, but then the left hand front lower rail interfered with the lower left hand crankcase bolt and the boss on the crankcase, right hand side still had clearance.

From there I noticed that the engine is sloping backwards in the frame (something I hate) I also noted that the left hand rail was bent inwards a bit and it also was hitting against the front of the crankcase like as if it had had a shunt in the front, this stopped the engine from sitting level.

Bolted it all up tight on the bottom through stud and setup a hydraulic spreader between the front down tubes and spread it out to equal the right hand side, this allowed a bit more room at the front but the engine is still tilting backwards as well the gearbox centre line is well above the swing arm pivot point; my 650ss has the gearbox below the swing arm pivot and the rear wheel axel is also lower than the swing arm pivot so in reverse of a featherbed frame?

From an engineering point of view that would reduce the lightness on the front end on acceleration and affect handling?

Hi Geoff I have the original Trident frame but someone has cut the front lower section out, comparing the two frames I preferred the OIF.

At this stage I am looking at cutting off the two rails and bending up two new rails that will allow me to position the engine correctly and know that everything is straight and true.

Matt and FE, the problem is the front lower crankcase bolts and bosses, there is simply not a enough clearance to allow the engine to sit level (unless you cut and flat plate the rails) plus as above comments regards centre lines of swing arm pivot ect, not sure what Storik and the QLD guys have done though to get it to fit or whether they were worried about how it handled?

When you look a the lower front rails of the Trident frame they are basically parallel till they get past the crankcase then they swing into the single down tube, this would give them the clearance needed, but that frame looks too much like a flexy flyer IMO, be interesting to know how they got them to handle years ago, but history tells us they certainly did?

So next step is to set up the frame on my 2" thick bed plate off one of my CNC mills, make up some stands to accurately locate the swing arm pivot and steering head, bend up some new side rails out of 1 1/4" DOM tube to suit, whilst working out the correct alignment of the centre lines for the gearbox, swing arm pivot and rear axle, not much when you say it quick .

But as I said earlier, I have 4 other projects I am working on so this one is at the planning and gathering of parts and a bit of work here and there when I have time!

Burgs

Burgs,

I built & still own an OIF T160 ten years ago using a 1977 T140v frame & wheels. All I needed to do to fit the engine was cut off the front frame mounts, machine the bottom bolt holes on both outer crank cases back & countersink for a couple of c/s socket screws. The engine then drops straight in between the bottom frame rail mounts. The original RH rear mount plate fits with either 5/32" machined off the inner gearbox cover or by using spacers. A new LH rear plate is easy to make, as are the front mounts & head steady. The gearbox & rear wheel sprockets line up with no mods & the centre exhaust runs out between the frame rails slightly offset to the left by approx 1/4" as in an original T160 frame. I also moved the oil filler to the top of the frame as I didn't think four pints of oil was enough for a tuned 930 triple.
I know you are using a T150 motor, but as far as I am aware the crank cases are the same as a T160, with the exception of the 15 deg. barrel angle.

Martyn.

Looks like a T160 motor converted to right side shift, starter removed and chaincase replaced with T150 type
sam

Hi Martyn
Good point on the countersunk screws, I have ground out the back of the side stand lug to give a bit more clearance, but the case is now hitting at the front on the left hand rail, I will remove the bottom stud and the cases and see if I can measure the rails as I think the left rail at the bend has been shunted back some how, I need to get the frame on my bed plate so I can check.
I have already removed the front crankcase lugs, back right hand gearbox mount I had to cut out about 10mm out to give clearance to the gearbox, otherwise the bottom through stud would not fit.
Biggest Issue I see is the T150 engine will still be sitting tilted a bit backwards and looks terrible, on the other hand with a T160 you would have been able to get away with the 15 degree forward slant with the engine tilted back a bit and you would not notice.

What was the line from the gearbox swing arm pivot and the rear axle like, did the gearbox output shaft end up sitting higher then the swing arm and axle?

I assume the T140E (1980) frame is the same as the earlier T140 frames, the swing arm looks to be a bigger section?

I agree with the oil capacity, we try not to ride too much in summer here bit hot, been 40 C for the last few days, spring autumn and winter is the best for us, but temps still warmish.

Sam yes the Storik is a T160 with the changes as you have mentioned, the Tri-ville project is a T150 engine.

Only noticed that the head is off a T160, not that should make much difference to the plot.

Burgs

Sounds like the info is rolling in .
Did you check the link for the pitchers ? .
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Ann Drew threw twin front down toobs in his T 160 - Frame .
To clear the center pipe, on the 3-1 .

So if yew hava Triple frame with bits missing , you can put TWO in .
Like a 60 / 62 Bonnie .

Incidently the T150 Teardrop tanks the same dimensionally as the 60-62 T 120 ( bar badgers )

Tho the center bolt ' Slim Line 2 1/2 ( U S ? ) Gal. teardrop tank looks the goods on the triple ,
and is even good for 80 miles .

Jim Rice BSA Triple flat tracker pictures to look at ( dunno if it'd g in a A50/A65 frame ??
and people that dont use big open flowing bends/ curves on BSA / Tri headers should be thrashed .

The 71 3 gallon OIF frame teardrop tank looks great in my opinion, much better than the later box type or 2.5 gallon types , it's much more in proportion to the bike. They are becoming hard to find now.
Burgs
Take a look at triplesonline.com go to gallery and check out johnnyrvf Trident T160 to see how good the OIF triples can look.
sam

Hi Matt
Ok the twin down tubes I hadn't thought of in the original frame, but I like the idea of the OIF. 80 miles not good on a tank of fuel, one of my many trips to Phillip Island was with a chap with a Ducati Monster he had to stop every 100ks while we could do 300ks plus, my cousin said it was like a Pub crawl without the buzz!
Cousin has a flat tracker 750 with 8 Valve head Kawasaki Upside down forks, ES cases light as, and goes well, not sure of the frame but looks like a Trackmaster but is not.

Down loaded some T140 frame dimensions and imported to my CAD programme for reference, and scaled but something is wrong could be because they have been scanned on old software and out of shape?
Usually I get good results when customers send their drawings in as PDF or JPEG files doing this, but these ended up a couple of inches out.

Too hot, my beer is hot before I can drink it 40C again today, and my office is not air-conditioned, but our two dogs are sitting in the house with air conditioning, think something is wrong here
Best regards
Burgs

Burgs, some more inspiration for yers...

https://classic-triumph.com/project-tri-ville/

HI Fast Eddie
Sent them an email yesterday, hope they reply, they may be on holiday as Australia Day here!

Set the frame up on my table to do some real measurements and found that with the bottom rails flat to the table the engine is tilting back about one degree, the steering head rake is 27 degree, should be 28 and 4.3" trail, this wasn't an accurate measurement as I need to find where I put my bar that goes in the steering head, only checked the outside of the steering head housing.

The swing arm is either twisted or the frame is, so next step is to machine up some accurate mounts along with a longer 5/8" stud so I can set the swing arm pivot bores up parallel to the table then I can check all other dimensions relative to the swing arm bores.

I may have to drop the front down a bit to get the engine looking correct, which will alter rake and trail, not sure if a good thing or bad at this stage.

Anyhow lots of fun, 43C here to day which wasn't much fun beers clod though.
Regards
Burgs