My first experience of the dubious pleasures of owning a thoroughbred British motorcycle was back in 1977 when I was of tender years, still at college struggling on a grant and various hand-outs and innocent enough to still be impressed by the myth of the legendary vertical twins made by BSA, Norton, etc.
At that time I was hanging out with a crowd of people who only rated British machines and anything east of the North Sea was subject to ridicule and abuse - Jap crap, Wop rubbish etc. Strangely enough, the Kawasaki Samurai was excluded from this blind patriotism and held a certain street credibility.
Two years previously I’d suffered the indignity of a random and indiscriminate attack in the city of Carlisle - criminal injuries paid out what was then the vast sum of £400 for a broken wrist, heavy bruising and. injury to feelings. Being naive back then and a potential skinflint (as now), I was looking to spend as little as possible, so I started in the Bike Belt of the Midlands - the New Road, Birmingham to be precise.
Bob Joyners Motorcycle Emporium revealed various exotic bikes, in the corner (a regular hiding ground for bargains and pig-in-the-pokes alike) lay an unloved looking Triumph 5TA (a 500cc OHV vertical twin to the young) of middle sixties vintage. Very little was original, the heavyweight guards, headlamp, nacelle, etc had been dumped, but the steed appeared tidy and oil-tight, although the latter was not to last for long. £120 poorer I was the proud owner of a British classic.
Reared on Jap bikes, the gear and brake lever were the wrong way around, which caused problems when a dog ran out in front of the bike - changing down instead of braking had little effect on retardation thanks to the low compression motor - the beast appeared to skim through the spokes like machine gun bullets through a WW1 plane propeller. My heart assumed a position not many inches from my tonsils. Even when I was used to the rear brake, the braking wasn’t up to much because the front was just a SLS job and prone to fade.
Performance was pleasantly rapid but no change of underwear required. The motor could pull smoothly up to eighty when the vibes would become very bad - bulbs blew, mudguard stays fractured, but it never became terminal because the motor would switch itself off after too much abuse by the simple expedient of detaching the HT lead.
Controls were basic but functional - no indicators or silly things like starter motors. Maintenance was simple to perform with a minimum of A/F and Whitworth tools. Oil changes were rarely needed because oil loss meant it had been all replenished before oil change intervals.
Despite the unit construction engine, the gearbox had its own oil, the level checked by removal of a nut on the underside of the engine and seeing if any oil came out - it rarely did and another bolt had to be undone and oil poured in until it came out of the first hole. Primary drive was by a duplex chain with a tensioner that doubled as a drain plug - or would have if the thread in the chaincase hadn’t been stripped.
The oil leak steadily became worse and deposited the oil just in front of the back wheel, despite smoothing down various engine surfaces. The handling was reasonable at sub-80mph speeds, but wobbled a little at higher speeds, and would occasionally get caught out by the excess of oil and perform a lurid slide.
I never did manage to operate the choke, engage foot on kickstart and hold onto the bars all at the same time, but the motor would fire up willingly enough after tickling the Amal carb and a few prods of the kickstart. This was despite Joe Lucas’s provision of a wretched 6V battery which barely had the power to cope with the slight demands of the headlamp good enough to facilitate being seen but not to see.
The battery became so tired that I often had to push start the beast - effortless in itself, but something that didn’t impress young females. Eventually, I resorted to carrying a 6V Honda 150 battery in a canvas bag on my back (it wouldn’t fit anywhere else) complete with a set of jump leads. This was probably even less impressive but at least I could be sure of starting the thing.
One day, when coming back to London from the Lake District, a most sickening sound came from the motor. I pulled over to the hard shoulder, undid the filler cap to be met with a face full of oily steam. I cursed both my bad luck and my mechanical ineptitude. Luckily, after ten minutes a transit van appeared and dropped me off quite near to my home. With the demise of the motor ended my desire to own a British motorcycle - undoubtedly an interesting experience but one, I think, that I would not like to repeat.
Paul Jenning