I'd slung the bike to the back of the garage over a decade ago. I sort of knew it was there, waiting for my tender attention. What ignited my enthusiasm was finding a TS185 engine at an autojumble for £40. The seller told me it'd been running when the frame snapped and threw him off. Well, he would say that, wouldn't he? But it turned over on the kickstart and seemed all there. I haven't yet reached that stage of cynicism which immediately makes you think the piston is missing if the mill turns over!
I lugged the engine home and set about excavating the old TS from the back of the garage. An estate agent would write this down as a three car garage. True, but only if you put them behind each other. All kinds of weird stuff in the depths of my garage... I often pondered the chances of finding a Vincent engine there - no, but there was half a Panther engine, two Ariel Leader motors and a couple of Tiger Cubs in bits. A few days later I had the TS out where I could work on it.
It was complete, sort of. Anything made out of rubber was rotted. Rust had blitzed the metal and the chrome. The engine was, as far as I could recall, seized - it certainly didn’t turn over. At that point all I wanted to do was fit the new mill, connect up fuel and ignition, to see if it'd fire or not. But once I'd started cleaning off the rust on the frame I was way gone...
Two weeks later I had a passable rolling chassis - cleaned, painted, newish tyres, battery, etc - all sourced from the depths of my garage so no extra expense just work, work, work. The motor went straight in, although all the old engine bolts had snapped so it was held in with some old British bolts I had handy. The spark and fuel were flowing, all I had to do was work the kickstart.
Some time later she fired with a scream at maximum revs, huge plumes of burnt oil bursting out of the exhaust. The throttle cable was sticking open, once that was fixed she idled OK and the haze was reduced to mere MZ levels (I've got two of those in the garage, as well). A quick potter around the local roads revealed that all was working as it should be.
MOT, tax and insurance followed. I'd tidied the bike up further, getting the new paint gleaming, although the rims were silver rather than chrome and the pitting in the forks was filled with Araldite. From a few yards away it looked newish. Which was good enough for me.
Riding the TS was quite interesting. The engine made about 20 horses, but nothing at the lower end of the rev range. Preferred to be thrashed everywhere, which was fun when in the mood but a little tiresome when I wanted to potter around town.
It wasn’t the kind of bike that could, anyway, be easily ridden at speed. Worn out suspension and small drum brakes combined to make the ride both choppy and liable to go right out of control. Most fun, thus, was had in second and third gears where acceleration rather than outright speed ruled. This did nothing for economy - an outrageous 40mpg!
The motor rattled and slapped a bit, but I couldn't hear any of the bearings knocking. The gearbox was so slick it was like new. The haze of pollutants wasn't too intense as long its neck was wrung from time to time. Filtering through traffic at low revs, the engine would occasionally falter, needing a quick blip on the throttle to clear the plug of oil. Plug life, itself, was only about 500 miles. Starting and running became erratic if it wasn’t replaced at this point. No amount of careful cleaning and tampering would extend its life - yep, you can see I was brought up on old British bikes, when it was often necessary to keep old parts going way beyond their natural life.
Whilst the Suzuki was adequate for commuting and back roads, it was off-road where the machine really shone. Well, sort of. The chassis was nicely set-up for pottering along gentle trails but the motor still wanted its head. I ended up travelling 10 to 20mph faster than I really wanted but this just proved how easy the lightweight TS was to control, rather than throwing me off.
Unfortunately, the mildest of rides led to a bike completely covered in mud which got into every nook and cranny - an unbelievable hassle to clean it up again. And rust soon started blistering my new paint job. This is just plain stupid design but one that modern bikes emulate to exactly the same extent.
I decided that the best thing to do was to put a new front end on to improve it’s ability on the road. By new I mean, of course, different - i.e. whatever was available in my garage. That turned out to be a conical drum/fork off a seventies Triumph twin. Didn't go straight on, but nothing a few spacers and collars couldn't sort - quite handy having my own lathe and milling machines! To match suspension travel at each end a pair of shocks off, I think, an XS400, were put on the back.
That done the bike was much improved, a little bit lower and much more taut. The front TLS stopper was very powerful in the context of the 185’s 230Ibs rather than the Triumph’s 400lbs! I had to be very careful on the lever in the wet, as the changed geometry encouraged the front wheel to slip away viciously on slippery surfaces.
Handling was, overall, improved, mostly down to the much firmer ride. Top speed was only 75mph, due to the off-road based gearing that allowed me to move off in third! The chain and sprockets were already well shagged (I'd worked all the chain’s tight spots out using penetrating oil and then soaked in Linklyfe) but I'd preferred daily adjustments to spending any money on new stuff.
Although the machine was fun to ride, the poor economy didn't endear it to me. I used to get close to a 100mpg out of my old Bantam, which I think was just as fast as the Suzuki. OK, the motor might've been a bit worn and the carb on the way out, but I could recall that my original TS never did better than 50mpg - which was almost as unacceptable (I must've been less of a miser back then).
As it happened, a local lad was keen on the Suzuki and his old man had an ancient Panther in his shed. Another rust bucket but the engine turned over... a straight swap was done! The lad crashed and wrote off the TS five weeks later. He reckoned the motor seized on him but I suspect he just went into the bend too fast. Before the end, he’d come past my house on one wheel at maximum revs...
The Panther’s engine needed a full rebuild, but I had some spares and it only cost £300 to put back on the road. This is a real earthquake machine but it does turn in 90mpg and tops out at 70mph, so not too bad. Anyone want to buy it?
George L.