Friday, December 12, 2014

Smarmy Crumpet

So it was only a matter of time before I drug a British bike home. To be honest I'm surprised it's taken this long. So here she is. A 1969 T120R Bonneville. 


It's got a bolt on hardtail section and 6 over fork tubes. Rear wheel is laced to a 16" Harley rim and it came with a octo oil bag. Otherwise generally stock. Some butt head welded the fender to the frame and added some flamey bits on the axle plates so there's a bit of frame clean up that will need doing. 


Eli and me had to bring it into the garage through the house cuz I've got the main door boarded up for winter, but all good.


Bike came with tons of extras including a full gasket kit, all new cables, new headers, and a bunch of other crap. 

The plan was to built it quick and maybe flip it in the spring to fund a H-D 45 project, but I've been scared into doing a complete engine tear down by British guys who warn of catastrophic failures due to dirty sludge traps. This lovely bit of engineering genius is at the heart of the engine accessible only by pulling the flywheel. British buggers. So if I'm gonna put that much effort in i may end up keeping it. We will see. 


So. So far I have disassembled the bike, started cleaning up the wheels with rust remover and such. Got the old crusty tires off which was an absolute struggle!, hacked off the fender and cleaned up the frame, and now I've got the top end of the motor torn down. Gonna try and get into the bottom end next week.