Triumph Bonneville

I suppose it all began when I lent my much hated and accident prone Kawa 305 to a mate. Said mate threw it down the road. I hated that bike and I was quite pleased when he reported that he’d gone down avoiding a Marina doing something illegal. Whilst waiting for the insurance to cough up I bought a Yam SR500 so I could keep on despatching. The SR was too slow and I had my eye on a GSX750 when the money finally came through. I happened to speak to my brother who was trying to buy a house to install his enlarging girlfriend in; he just needed £500. I can’t remember if it was him or I who had the bright idea that I should buy his Bonnie.

But somebody did. He assured me that it was reliable and I could come down to Plymouth to pick it up. And that’s how it all started. It was the beginning of April and I’d had a hard winter, so I figured that if all I had heard about British bikes was true, and that they were all unreliable pigs, then I could at least resell it in London and with the profit buy an even better big Jap beasty, and anyway, I needed a bit of a rest so I could spend some time pottering around posing.

A couple of weeks later I sold my SR which showed its displeasure by blowing up; I had to give half of the money back. We went off to Plymouth on the coach and after the usual pleasantries I was introduced to a T140 750 in the living room. My brother was working overtime, another brother helped me put it back together. We soon had it in one piece save for the Piranha electronic ignition - I’m absolutely lost when it comes to electronics. My brother finally turned up and wired it up, jamming the black box between the too small battery and its box. Outside, after much pushing and shoving the bike fired up.

My wife was viewing my brother as some kind of shark, myself as a bit dumb and the bike as a complete wreck - she might have had a point, the back tyre was bald, the shocks knackered and painted gold, the finish was tatty, but, as I kept telling her, it absolutely oozed street cred. We loaded it up, wrapped up in waterproofs against the rain that was falling and I attempted to kick some life into the beast. Nothing doing, flat battery I muttered to the watching crowds. I pushed it down the hill, running alongside, leaping onto the seat I caught my leg and we crashed onto the road. Not a good start. Disentangling myself, I managed to get it upright and after another bump start it roared into life. I picked up the wife and we were off.

My bum went numb after 20 or so miles, a product of the silly seating position (this one had the small export tank and euro flat bars), but apart from that I was quite pleased. The motor pulled well, although I was surprised to notice that it appeared to have less torque than the Kawa 750 twin I used to own. However, what I really liked was the exhaust note at tickover. It did, of course, vibrate, but I could live with that - it’s almost an asset as it keeps one’s licence intact; if you insist on speeding you really pay for it with white fingers and numb feet, not to mention fillings dropping out.

I found that it was OK up to about 75mph, so we settled down to eat some miles. The handling would have been good had not the back tyre been so bald. I was just thinking that the brakes were quite powerful when the back one gave up. By the end of the A303, it was raining heavily and visibility was going. I had a deep mistrust of Lucas (Prince Of Darkness) electrics, but had to turn on the lights. Thirty miles later the left cylinder quit. When we hit Chiswick the other one went dead, we coasted to a halt. I bought a can of WD40, sprayed everything and it started up first go - it lasted until we were four miles from home. We called the RAC and a Hamrax van came, the guy took one look at the rats nest of wires and refused to have anything to do with it except for transporting it home.

The next day I went out to take stock of the situation. The back brake failed because the pipe had worn through next to the tyre. I figured the old ignition required replacing. I bought a Lucas Rita system for £50 and a really cheap back tyre. I found a brake pipe off a Mini that fitted. I took the bike along to Hamrax, having guessed the timing it was just about running. The last few yards I had to push it. They didn’t have anyone available to fix it but he found it wasn’t charging - I felt like an idiot because I'd replaced the wrong bit. I tried to sell the bike to them, but instead he gave it a free ride home in the van.

The next day I had urgent business in East Grinstead, so I charged up the battery and took the charger with me. The plan being to stop off at Sparks on the way back. I took things very easy because it was obvious that the timing was way out. Unfortunately, I was delayed and it was getting dark on the way back. Five miles later I glanced down to see that the exhaust pipe was glowing red. I throttled back to tickover, the last thing that the battery needed as it had no back up from the alternator and, with the lights on, it was soon drained.
It started to rain as we rolled to a halt. I pushed it several miles before I came to a motorcycle shop. Locking the thing up, I threw the keys and a note through a letterbox and started the 25 mile trip home. Of course, all public transport had by then stopped, I arrived home at about 3am.

The next day I rang the shop and the guy said he would look at it. Later, I rang and he said he’d do it the next day, the next day he said tomorrow, the next day he said he was going to get his dad to totally rewire it - from the way he said it I got the idea that he’d be doing it for a year or so. I grabbed a battery I had on charge and dashed out, caught a bus to Victoria, a train to Putney and hitched a lift to the shop. I got the keys off the dummy, threw the battery in and it started up second kick. The guy had the nerve to charge me a fiver. I made it to Sparks, even though it was 6pm he started work, sorted out the timing and found the alternator was only putting out 5V. Luckily, he had another alternator in stock, so we put that back in and I was at last the proud owner of a working Bonneville!

Four days despatching wore out the clutch, but at least plates only cost £2 each. Then I had a stroke of luck - we shared a flat with a car mechanic who was once a motorcycle mechanic who was familiar with the Bonnie, in fact, he was incredibly enthusiastic about working on it. Kept going on about real motorcycles.

After the clutch, nothing went really wrong for ages. However, with dry roads I soon discovered the total lack of ground clearance on the left side and that in traffic it’d become incredibly hot - one day I switched off and it kept on running. Still, lots of people noticed it, even taxi drivers talked to me (almost unheard of that) and a girl even suggested that I might like to take her down to Brighton on the next Rockers reunion, I had to decline on the fear of the painful death I’d have suffered at the hands of my wife.

One day I had a delivery to Meriden, I figured the old girl would be happy to visit where she had been bolted together. Not a bit of it. Hacking up the M1 we came to a contra flow system with no hard shoulder. I was just thinking that this would be a really nasty place to break down when the motor stopped working. The only place I could stop was on a drain cover. Traffic roared past my head as I tried to fix the engine, lifting the timing cover revealed that an oil seal had gone and the pick-ups were swimming in oil. I presumed that this was the problem, seeing as it started up with the cover removed.

Donning my helmet I awaited a gap in the speeding traffic. It never came. I revved to the redline and dropped the clutch... the rear wheel slipped on the drain cover, fishtailed until it hit the tarmac, then the front wheel went light and we shot in front of a large lorry that somehow missed us. My heart rate was still doing double time when the engine went Brrrrrrrr.

I found another drain cover. This time I found the real fault, a battery terminal had come loose. I had to repeat the hectic take-off business, but this time did it in front of a small car. The engine stopped running outside the flat, when I returned from delivering the letter. The next day I fixed the oil seal and fitted a new battery, the old one boiled when the terminal came loose. I found that the only way to keep it going was to wash the bike each morning so that I could see which bits were about to fall off.

After 5000 almost trouble free miles the right piston ring went. I treated it to a new set of barrels. While I was waiting my mechanic friend insisted on reconditioning the head. I was a bit short of money by then so he paid for the valves, springs and guides. Once back together it went really well. On one ride to Plymouth I had the A303 almost to myself, it’s one of the great fun roads in the UK and perfect for the Bonnie - I will never forget that ride, it was complete magic. After that ride I decided to sell the bike, quit while I was more or less ahead. A friend almost ripped my hands off to get the keys in his eagerness to own it. I’d already advertised it and the phone didn’t stop ringing for a week,

I have to admit that it’s not an ideal despatch bike, it was the only one I owned that I was pretty certain something would go wrong with during the day. But I miss people wanting to help me or just talking to me, shops lending bits, enthusiasts insisting on buying bits so the job can be done properly and it certainly put the adventure back into life. So I have to conclude that Triumphs are special these days, and even if they aren’t serious bikes I had one hell of a lot of fun on mine.

Max Liberson