Honda-SOHC
SOHC.co.uk Forums => Other Bikes => Topic started by: royhall on March 18, 2016, 08:45:25 AM
-
Not been on the forum too much lately as I have been busy rebuilding a Triumph 3TA Engine.
After a couple of years with Honda parts these Triumph things are just primitive. I was just saying to someone that they are built like old garden machinery, so imagine the mirth when we came across the name cast into the crankshaft flywheel.
[attachimg=1]
-
Ha ha that's brilliant...
-
Yes, I know what you mean by primitive. I still have this Norton Model 50 on my bench trying desperately to summon up the enthusiasm to finish the damn thing - it's stopping me from getting on with my favourite Hondas. Even the original parts don't fit properly and dare not mention the pattern stuff. I am only a mile or so from the North coast of Orkney and it wouldn't be too much effort to fling the whole lot in to the Atlantic! Problem is of course it's worth good money when finished.
On a positive note about Qualcast - back in the day they were a very well respected company producing first class products in cast iron, used by many top level companies (and Triumph!)
Ian
-
Your right about Qualcast, short for Quality Castings. They also make top quality lawn mowers. ;D Know what your saying about parts not fitting. The number of bits the machine shop is now making bespoke for this 3TA is growing daily, and so's the rebuild costs. Everytime I touch it I find something else broken/worn out/machined wrong etc, sure kills the enthusiasm. How a pro would go about pricing a rebuild on one of these heaven only knows.
-
Yes it could be a nightmare for a pro restorer. I'm very fortunate that I served an Aeronautical apprenticeship and now retired, have a large centre lathe and universal milling machine plus tools I've either collected, had donated or made over a 50 year involvement with all things mechanical.
The unit Triumph twins were a bit better than some offerings from other Brit manufacturers. Hence the birth of the Triton all those years back. That's the very reason I've ended up doing this 350 Norton - I first bought the engine which had lain under a joiners bench after being turfed out of a Norton to make way for T120R Bonnie engine. I then collected all the Norton stuff to make a bike!
Ian
-
Put some pictures up Ian, sounds interesting.
-
Hi Roy,
It's on my web site with lots of pics and descriptions of making bits.
www.stallard-engineering.co.uk
Ian
-
Yes it could be a nightmare for a pro restorer. I'm very fortunate that I served an Aeronautical apprenticeship and now retired, have a large centre lathe and universal milling machine plus tools I've either collected, had donated or made over a 50 year involvement with all things mechanical.
The unit Triumph twins were a bit better than some offerings from other Brit manufacturers. Hence the birth of the Triton all those years back. That's the very reason I've ended up doing this 350 Norton - I first bought the engine which had lain under a joiners bench after being turfed out of a Norton to make way for T120R Bonnie engine. I then collected all the Norton stuff to make a bike!
Ian
I was talking to the guys at classicbikes.co.uk at market Drayton , they said they dread working on British stuff because the machining carried out during production was so poor, oval holes that you have to try to seal with a circular seal etc, if you go on their site you will see that their stock bears out their dislike of British stuff, that said a properly sorted pre unit bonnie takes some beating in the desirability stakes 😀.
-
Ah, yes!
The desirability stakes, without wishing to hijack Roy's original post, Bonnies, Goldies and Rocket Goldies, along with lots more British iron, certainly are expensive, for me though not really desirable any more. To be fair though, they were made on very outdated, tired machinery without the benefit of CAD/CAM for repeatability and development of next years model usually meant a new colour scheme.
It's very time consuming to 'engineer out' many of the original flaws and even preventing cables from flapping about or bits habitually unscrewing themselves can be a challenge. When I compare the Norton with the GL 1000 GoldWing I am tidying up to use, only 15 years newer, the Wing is light years ahead.
Ian
-
This 3TA (1959) of mine is the same age as a Honda C76. The Triumph is Noah's Ark whilst the Honda is Starship Enterprise.
It may be a unit engine, but most of the engine and gearbox parts are the same as the pre unit. Some dating back to the 1930's, with crank, cams and gearbox running in plain bushes.
You would think that would make for an easy rebuild, but the opposite is actually true. Some of these bushes are so hard to change they have been in the engine from new, and are so worn they have damaged the hardened shafts which are no longer available. These require the machine shop to grind down the shafts then make bespoke bushes to suit. All pretty tedious really.
Alan told me about a guy that rebuilds these for £250 plus parts. I guess at that price he's another guy that only changes the easy stuff. There's no way you could rebuild one of these properly at that price. Beware the unwary I guess.
-
Roy/ Ian....very interesting conversation as I served my Engineering Apprenticeship in a Salford Company which made Textile machinery from 1967 to 1972 and most of the machine tools in the factory were pre war. The Company decided to make another product line and set up a new Machine Shop with brand new multi spindle lathes and centreless grinders etc, and I was lucky enough to work in there for a year or so.
When I came out of my time (newly married with a nipper) I chased the money and moved to an American Compressor Manufacturer in Trafford Park.......what an eye opener - banks and banks of multi spindle lathes, exotic milling machines and best of all, CNC Lathes and Work Stations which completely machined crankcases on every axis......and once they were set up, the repeatability and accuracy was superb. I was in seventh heaven.....and as a Machine Shop Inspector, my job was easy peasy as most of the Machinists were brilliant at their jobs.
Some 10 years later I worked on a Norwegian Joint Venture with Phillips Petroleum (same Compressor manufacturer, but at their Wythenshawe factory) and had to deal with Pump Manufacturer Mather and Platt in Manchester.......I walked into their factory and was gobsmacked to see that much of the machinery was driven via a belt on an overhead shaft running the length of the shed. Most of the machinery there was also pre war...........what an eye opener.
If only BSA/ Triumph/ Norton etc had put some of their fat profits into new machinery/ manufacturing techniques during the good times in the 50's and 60's.......they may have fared better when the Japanese set their sights on the UK, and what is even more telling, Triumph's MD, Edward Turner visited Japan in 1960 to see the Japanese Motorcycle Industry at first hand but didn't seem to bring back any ideas which might have delayed or stopped the Japanese advance and eventual eclipse of the UK Motorcycling Empire.
-
MCTID
Interesting path you have followed with insights into different companies. By coincidence but relevant to your experience; when redundancy forced my uncle in Manchester to leave the Bradford colliery (main roadway was under Picadilly station) he worked at Mather and Platt, but cleaning the cars of those very same directors who had their workers producing pumps on antiquated machinery. The cars he cleaned? Jaguars, Daimlers and a couple of Bentleys.
The brother of a good friend of ours was head hunted from Unipart many years ago by John Bloor and tasked with setting up the Hinckley Triumph factory. He bought the then very latest machine tools from Japan and even visited (and possibly collaborated with) Kawasaki Heavy Industries.
Success for the product came naturally of course.
Ian
-
And it really was a lack of investment that ruined it all, I give you the Norton 500/4, watercooled, designed 1953, built 2017, or at least it will be by Andy Molnar as a special project, actually Norton did build the engine in the 50's but it never made it into a frame, why?, because funding was withdrawn of course, British management couldn't see beyond its nose in those days, if completed it would have trounced every other race bike in the world with an estimated 80bhp, and led to god knows what in road bike development , oh well!
(http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/jj582/POR1983/Mobile%20Uploads/image_7.jpeg) (http://s1269.photobucket.com/user/POR1983/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_7.jpeg.html)
-
Its not just the bikes though.
The parts list I'm using is a reprint of the original Triumph book, and its useless.
There are parts galore missing from it, there are parts that have the wrong number assigned, there are also contradictions about part numbers between pages. This is the effort they took on the paperwork, non at all.
And to cap it all, over the 59 years since it was first printed nobody has bothered to put it right. They just keep churning out the same old crap. I think there may be a parallel there.
And it wasn't just the bike industry, Austin Princess anybody. :'(
Here's an excerpt from the Triumph factory workshop manual, another reprint. This is what you are supposed to regrind your crank to. Anybody see a problem with it? ::)
[attach=1]
-
A 10 thou regrind is only 1 thou down on standard and the same pro rata for the others, can't be bothered to do the metric conversions.
I had an Austin Princess, but the earlier 4 litre R model, rather than the Wedge.
My mate had a new Austin All aggro and you couldn't open the front doors when it was jacked up, not because the Jack was in the way, but because the shell had twisted!
In defence of British Engineers though, (I are an inginere) we have had and still have some really innovative ones.
Frank Whittle
Christopher Cockerill
Mike Costin/Keith Duckworth (Cosworth)
The aforementioned Edward Turner, not just Triumph, but also responsible for the V8 Daimler engine fitted to the Mk2 Jag
And many, many more
As has been said before it was greedy profit takers who refused to invest because we were untouchable 'Great Britain'
No change there then!
Ian
-
Ah Roy memories of Wednesday afternoons when I was supposed to be revising for my 'A' levels but instead spent weeks on end stripping down my mate 'Shep's' 3TA (previously he had a Royal Oilfield Crusader Sports). Seem to remember there has a piddly little double piston oil pump . One afternoon his mum came home unexpectedly to bake buns and found the crankcases in her oven (we were getting the bearing out) and she hit the roof. Remember also seeing the Qualcast marks on castings and thinking 'lawnmower'. My mate used to wind me up about cost of parts for my CD175 sloper compared with his 3TA .. problem he was forever buying Triumph 'cheaper' parts and I never needed any Honda ones as my bike was utterly reliable! His never had the 'bathtub' fitted ...does yours have it? Think we discovered the crankshaft 'sludge trap' after trashing brand new shells and a regrind :-[ :-[ 'Peters of Hull' sold the Triumph parts and was also a Honda 5-Star dealer.
BTW for anyone interested my Dropbox link for Edward Turner's Japan visit in the 60's ... sorry about the scan file sizes !!
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/h7gwhdcesqsy9s6/AABWGK0eMvErNbJosSR0gbQla?dl=0
-
I are an enigere too, and I had an Edward Turner 2.5 V8 but it was fitted to my Daimler 250 V8 Saloon not a Jag! :), ( I also saw one fitted to a 1400bhp top fuel dragster but that's another story!)
P.S. Roy, leave an assortment of SOHC spares in the hollow tree at the end of my drive or you will never see your 3TA thread again!.
-
I remember that dragster, cant just think of his name think it was Russ Carpenter. He was a regular at Santa Pod and always had a bikini clad woman oversee his burnout, the mans got class. Ironically that engine in it's early days was built using 8 re-machined Triumph Bonneville pistons. Full circle I think.
-
As I remember it the V8 only went in Daimlers never Jags
-
As I remember it the V8 only went in Daimlers never Jags
I'm also pretty sure all the Jags had straight sixes back then - I think all Jags did until they introduced the V12 - but did the Daimler use the same bodyshell as the Jag?
-
Not sure if the shells were completely identical, but it wouldn't surprise me if we are talking about the 70's jag XJ and Daimler Soveriegn. They had different grilles and badges, but shared a lot of common panels, wings, doors, boots etc, as they were the Leyland years :'( like the morris oxford and Austin Cambridge, only the grilles and badges told them apart externally!
-
As I remember it the V8 only went in Daimlers never Jags
I'm also pretty sure all the Jags had straight sixes back then - I think all Jags did until they introduced the V12 - but did the Daimler use the same bodyshell as the Jag?
That's right, it was basically a mk2 jag with the ET V8 dropped in it, different grill and seats, they were almost all automatic (as mine was) the rumour was that this was done to keep the performance below that of the jags, it sounded fantastic at full chat, great car wish I'd never sold it
I ran it as a wedding car for a while, the one behind it was my fathers .
(http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/jj582/POR1983/Mobile%20Uploads/image_8.jpeg) (http://s1269.photobucket.com/user/POR1983/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_8.jpeg.html)
-
These models were pre XJ. Not exactly sure but I'd guess we're talking mid to late 60's. Probably around the same time as the Oxford and Cambridge, and their very similar cousins the Wolseley (was it the 16/60?), Riley (4/75?) and MG Magnette.
-
Ash....thanks for the info on Edward Turner's visit to Japan. Very interesting..........but isn't it typical of the British Motorcycle manufacturers that they dismissed the Japanese threat......to their ultimate regret - and shame.
Funnily enough I have a 1957 Triumph T110 Frame which was originally despatched to the Japanese Triumph Distributor Mikuni Shoko.....it came to me via the USA so perhaps it was taken home by a US Serviceman after his stint in Japan? I'll guess we will never know whether it was imported for a Customer or for 'evaluation'.
My elder Brother sent me to The 'Honda Shop' in Eccles when I was about 14 (1964) to collect some brochures for him on the 125 and 250 Honda's - complete with Electric Start and Indicators. I recall at the time that they were considerably cheaper, better made and equipped, and more reliable than anything which the British Motorcycle Industry was offering at the time and the 250 and 305 Dream Sports were not far short of the performance of the Gold Star's, Bonnies and Dominators of the day.
-
In my earlier post I was merely attempting (unsuccessfully) to differentiate between the Edward Turner V8 and the quad cam AJV8 which is in my present 2000 model year Daimler.
Jaguar cars bought Daimler and all assets oddly enough from BSA at the end of May 1960.
Edward Turners V8 engine was already in the glass fibre bodied Daimler Dart. The Jag engineers fitted this engine into a rather rusty development shell from a Jag Mk1 (as they are now called) which was all they were allowed by their boss, Lofty England. It out performed the straight six engine and then they eventually started production of the Daimler V8 using the Jag Mk2 bodyshell in its entirety. Only the grill, number plate lamp plinth, badges and some interior trim pieces were different. They were all autos.
They were in production from 1962 to 1967 before being renamed V8 250 for a couple more years and then dropped altogether at the introduction of the Series 1 XJ.
Now, where did that Qualcast flywheel go? Sorry Roy!
Ian
-
That Edward Turner book is well worth reading ... I picked a copy up S/H in a Corswolds quaint little bookshop a couple of years ago. Wasn't the Dart adopted by a police force somewhere if I remember correctly? Will have to dig out my copy again and check. It amazed me at the April Stafford show last tear how much people paid for absolute sh*te Brit bike parts and 'barn' find projects.
-
I know what you mean Ash. It amazes me twice a year at Stafford that anybody buys a project bike there. You can usually get a decent runner for the price they want for garbage. There was a CB350F "Project" for sale last year at £1900 and I would defy anybody to find a good usable part on it.
Full restored Bonneville's are changing hands in the mid teen thousands now. Does anybody really understand what makes one vehicle a classic and another scrap, isn't it weird. Case in point, the Triumph Herald. It was shite when it was new and its still shite when its restored to better than new. In fact they are dangerous to drive as they want to roll over if you pass 20 mph or there's a slight cross wind. But the prices are stratospheric?
But I can understand why the Daimler Dart isn't sky high (yet) its one ugly vehicle. Will be looking for the Edward Turner book though, that sounds like an interesting read.
Don't worry about the hijacked thread, it got way more interesting.
-
I know what you mean Ash. It amazes me twice a year at Stafford that anybody buys a project bike there. You can usually get a decent runner for the price they want for garbage. There was a CB350F "Project" for sale last year at £1900 and I would defy anybody to find a good usable part on it.
Full restored Bonneville's are changing hands in the mid teen thousands now. Does anybody really understand what makes one vehicle a classic and another scrap, isn't it weird. Case in point, the Triumph Herald. It was shite when it was new and its still shite when its restored to better than new. In fact they are dangerous to drive as they want to roll over if you pass 20 mph or there's a slight cross wind. But the prices are stratospheric?
But I can understand why the Daimler Dart isn't sky high (yet) its one ugly vehicle. Will be looking for the Edward Turner book though, that sounds like an interesting read.
Don't worry about the hijacked thread, it got way more interesting.
I saw that 350 four POS too Roy ... and I thought the same as you.
The book seems to go for a lot more than I paid ...you are welcome to a loan if you want to stump up the postage.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Edward-Turner-The-man-behind-the-motorcycles-Jeff-Clew-book-TRIUMPH-AJS-BSA-/331740880070?hash=item4d3d4c1cc6:g:0VgAAOSwlV9WTfQ0
cheers
-
I know what you mean Ash. It amazes me twice a year at Stafford that anybody buys a project bike there. You can usually get a decent runner for the price they want for garbage. There was a CB350F "Project" for sale last year at £1900 and I would defy anybody to find a good usable part on it.
Full restored Bonneville's are changing hands in the mid teen thousands now. Does anybody really understand what makes one vehicle a classic and another scrap, isn't it weird. Case in point, the Triumph Herald. It was shite when it was new and its still shite when its restored to better than new. In fact they are dangerous to drive as they want to roll over if you pass 20 mph or there's a slight cross wind. But the prices are stratospheric?
But I can understand why the Daimler Dart isn't sky high (yet) its one ugly vehicle. Will be looking for the Edward Turner book though, that sounds like an interesting read.
Don't worry about the hijacked thread, it got way more interesting.
I saw that 350 four POS too Roy ... and I thought the same as you.
The book seems to go for a lot more than I paid ...you are welcome to a loan if you want to stump up the postage.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Edward-Turner-The-man-behind-the-motorcycles-Jeff-Clew-book-TRIUMPH-AJS-BSA-/331740880070?hash=item4d3d4c1cc6:g:0VgAAOSwlV9WTfQ0 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Edward-Turner-The-man-behind-the-motorcycles-Jeff-Clew-book-TRIUMPH-AJS-BSA-/331740880070?hash=item4d3d4c1cc6:g:0VgAAOSwlV9WTfQ0)
cheers
Thanks for that Ash. Have spent a couple of days looking for this book at a reasonable price. Struggling to even find one in stock. Will try a bit longer then I may take you up on your offer. Cheers.
-
Me again,
No mention of flywheels or Jaguar/Daimler today.
The Jeff Clew book on Edward Turner is available on Kindle for about £8 and on iBooks for £12.99
As it's a 2012 book, why not get your local library to get it for you on inter library loan? - there is usually a small charge.
Ian
-
Me again,
No mention of flywheels or Jaguar/Daimler today.
The Jeff Clew book on Edward Turner is available on Kindle for about £8 and on iBooks for £12.99
As it's a 2012 book, why not get your local library to get it for you on inter library loan? - there is usually a small charge.
Ian
Roy ... if you want a loan of mine I will stump up the postage to you then you can post it onto the next person who wants a loan of it, until it finally end up back here. How does that sound?
-
Good man Ash, I will take you up on that offer. Cant get that book anywhere, it's always out of stock. Probably out of print and they are all gone. Have you still got my address? Cheers.
-
Good man Ash, I will take you up on that offer. Cant get that book anywhere, it's always out of stock. Probably out of print and they are all gone. Have you still got my address? Cheers.
Yes ... I have your address Roy ... will be the end of the week before I post it tho' as it's at work and not there for a few days. I will let you pass it on to the next interested member once you have read it.
Cheers Ash
Attached a picture of Robert on his Triumph. 'The Times they are a Changin' when Roy switches from a leak free Honda to a Triumph ;D ;D ;D
[attachimg=1]
-
Thanks Ash. Going to make a big tray to stand it on in the garage. ;D ;D