Installation

Continuing the topic of new suspension components, it's time to put the new bits on the bike.  This is where the fun really begins.

First, the front suspension has to be disassembled.  This means the bike goes up on the jack:

The front wheel has to come off and that requires removing the front brake caliper and speedometer drive.  Watch for the speedo cable to come slithering out of its sheathing.  After the front wheel is off, the front fender can come off.  Wrap the brake caliper over the left turn signal to get it out of the way.

With the front end disassembled, the fork tubes can come out.  I did one side at a time to make sure fork alignment stayed the same.  Loosen to hex-head bolts on the upper and lower triple clamps and slide the fork out.  With the fork out, we head to the basement to swap the internals.

The first step is to take the fork cap off and drain the old fluid.  Keep your distance from the fork cap as it is under pressure and will go flying when you loosen it all the way.  Remove the stock spacer, washer and spring.  Drain the old fluid and compress and release the fork a few times to get as much fluid out as you can.  You should be able to fill up a small jar with fluid like this:

According to the instructions provided with the springs, the fluid level has to be 140mm from the top of the fork tube.  140mm is 5.5 inches so grab a ruler and a clamp and measure the fluid.  I used 5w fork oil from Bel-Ray.

With the fork oil at the proper level, we can now install the new spring.  The new spring is significantly longer than the old spring so a new spacer will have to be cut out of the supplied PVC pipe to get the proper level of preload.  Since the spacer decides the amount of preload, its length will have to be calculated.  Progressive Suspension provides a handy chart of spacer lengths for different motorcycles.  The chart shows 2001-2007 Triumph Bonnevilles requiring a 3-inch spacer.  For my 2008, I will have to calculate how long of a spacer I'll need.  For now, I'm going with the 3-inch spacer and if it's too much preload, I'll cut it down at a later date. 

Here is the new spring, the old spring, the new spacer and the old spacer:

There is quite a difference between them.  With the fork back in the vise, place the spring, washer and spacer in the fork tube.  Install the fork cap back onto the fork tube.  You'll have to push down on the spacer to install the fork cap.  The cap is aluminum and the fork tube is steel, so be careful not to muck up the threads as you tighten down on the cap.  Don't tighten the cap yet, wait until the fork is back on the bike before doing that.

Back up in the garage, we can now reinstall the fork tube on the bike.  Slide the tube up through the triple clamps and make sure the top of the tube (not the top of the cap) is even with the top of the upper triple clamp.  Slide the front axle through its hole in the fork bottoms to align it correctly and then tighten the triple clamp bolts.  The procedure is the same for the other side.  When you are done, the bike should look like this:

Now for the rear shocks.  Really, they couldn't be any easier to install.  I chose to change them with the bike off the jack because I'm difficult.  All you have to do is loosen the bolts on the shock, remove the shock and place the new one on the bike.  Tighten the bolts and you're done.  You have to do one side at a time and you will have to lift the bike up a bit as it will sag with only one shock unit on.  Check out how good the Hagon 2810s look:

Awesome.

Now for the test ride.   Initial riding shows the front to be a little stiff.  I may adjust the preload via spacer length or I may spring for Thruxton adjustable preload caps.  Aside from a little stiffness, the front of the bike is amazing.  There's no bounce and no pogo effect; just smooth, progressive dampening.  Turn-in is nice and crisp and requires nothing but a nudge on the bars.

The back of the bike is just as good.  I started with the shocks on the softest setting and it was too soft.  The back felt like a mid-seventies Cadillac - too much float.  Two clicks up from soft and all is well.  The bike feels secure and planted and all of the harshness is gone.

It's amazing how a few simple changes will totally alter a motorcycle's character.  The Bonneville went from jarring and bouncy to smooth and taut.  I'll probably play with the suspension settings a little more as time goes on but right now, it's very, very good.

Mods For the Bonneville

Nowhere in the world of motorcycles does perfection exist.  Even a bike as good off the showroom floor as Triumph's Bonneville has areas that need to be addressed.

One area that is in glaring need of attention is the suspension.  The choice to go with simple off-the-shelf components from Japanese suspension manufacturer Kayaba was great from an economical standpoint.  The simplicity of the suspension helps keeps the costs down and makes the bike more attractive to buyers.  The downside of that is the suspension is cheap.  Bouncy and pogo stick-like are two ways to describe the stock Bonneville suspension.  Awful is another.

A bike like the Ducati Sport 1000 has beautifully machined upside-down front forks and remote-reservoir rear shocks that perform really well.  The Ducati is also a good $4,000 to $5,000 more than the Triumph.

Hope is not lost, however.

The aftermarket for the Triumph Bonneville is quite extensive.  There are literally tons of suspension options from well-known companies like Ohlins, Progressive Suspension, Hagon, Ikon and so forth.  The options are nearly endless.

After almost three years of riding on stock suspension, the time came for me to finally trade my pogo stick suspension for some quality components.  Really, this is an area I've wanted to tackle for a long time.  The Bonneville is a great bike but between the hardwood stock seat and the bouncy suspension, rider comfort leaves a lot to be desired.

Santa has already helped me address rider comfort by bringing me a Thruxton gel seat for Christmas this year.  Now it's time to make the bike comfortable on Pennsylvania's notoriously bad roads and to make it handle Pennsylvania's wonderful curves a little better.

At the front of the bike, the stock fork springs are going to be replaced with a fork spring kit from Progressive Suspension.  The kit for the Bonneville fits a variety of bikes and comes with two new springs, a 10-inch piece of PVC pipe to adjust preload and a nice sticker.

Progressive springs have the advantage of a variable spring rate.  The springs that come stock in the Bonneville's front fork are constant-rate springs.  They have a set amount of resistance and while that can be good when the road is level, finding those glass-smooth roads is tough.  What ends up happening is the front end begins to bounce because the spring is either too stiff or too soft.

With a progressive spring, the spacing between the coils of the spring is varied - the coils are closely-wound at one end and spread farther apart at the other.  The closely-wound coils allow a soft initial spring rate for quick shock absorption with spaced-apart coils allow a stiffer rate for more resisted shock absorbtion.  You get the comfort of a soft spring rate and the resistance of a stiff spring rate in one unit.    

Bringing up the rear of the bike are new shocks from long-time British company Hagon.  Hagon makes a wide range of shocks from replacements for your vintage bike to high-tech replacements for your superbike.  Somewhere in the middle is the Hagon 2810.  They feature a black-painted steel body with chrome-plated steel springs.  They also have a three-position preload adjuster.  The real reason I went with them (other than cost) is the 10-way dampening adjustment.  This way I can dial the back end of the bike to match the front of the bike.

Plus, putting British shocks on a British just seems right.

Once the suspension is dialed in, my Bonneville is going to be a nice little back road burner.  But the components have to be installed first...

More money + Less Power = Better?

Moto Guzzi has been going crazy with its V7 Classic.

So far they've added the Cafe Classic, a Racer version for Europe only (what a shocker, there) and now they've shown a scrambler concept based on the V7.  Looks like Guzzi wants to sit at the modern classic table and have a piece of Triumph's pie.

Not so fast, though.

The V7 does a very good job at recalling the original V7 that Guzzi started selling in the late sixties.  The V7 Cafe is an almost spot-on homage to the V7 Sport, gracefully recalling the Sport's basic profile, design and color.  In all, they look very good.

The problem I have with the V7 is two-fold, however.  Not only is it more expensive than the Triumph Bonneville it aims to compete with, it's a lot less powerful, too.  Now, math was never my subject, but I don't think more money plus less power equals better.

The V7 is built around Guzzi's venerable "small-block" V-twin.  The small-block engines were a way for Guzzi to make smaller models in the seventies and eighties to help increase production and reduce weight.  Sizes of the engines ranged from 750cc to 350cc. 

Nestled between the frame rails of the V7 is a 750cc version of the small-block twin churning out 48 horsepower.  Here's where the problem starts.  I'm not one to get mesmerized by numbers (well...) but that is 18 less than the Bonneville and frankly, not enough.

I'm not going to pretend a Bonneville is on par with a Suzuki GSXR-1000 when it comes to performance, but 18 horsepower is a lot.  If you add 18 ponies to a stock Bonneville's 66, you end up with 84 very healthy horsepowers.  Hmm, maybe I can do math.  Anyway, if you are going to charge more than your competition, the smart idea would be to have more than your competition.  I know people are going to talk about weight, torque and balance but the fact remains, the Bonneville offers more for less.

The V7 does have Triumph beat in a few areas.  It weighs a lot less at 400lbs dry, the front disc is larger and clamped by four-piston calipers, and the rear shocks are adjustable for rebound and preload.  Those aren't bad specs for any bike.

But the V7 is still style over substance.  Guzzi could have wrung Triumph's neck with the V7 but instead chose to build a pretty bike and not a real competitor.  The choice to equip the V7 with an engine that was inadequate way back in the eighties hurts the bikes chances to be anything more than a pretty face.

Again, I'm not going to pretend a Bonneville is superbike fast, but it gets along very well.  There is also the ability to mod the Bonneville that you don't get with the V7 and its small-block twin.  Plus, you have to pay more to start with Guzzi and then dump cash into it just to match the performance of the cheaper, bog-standard Triumph.  I'm sorry but that doesn't work for me.

I really want to love the V7, and the Cafe especially, because I love the old V7 Sport and I love Moto Guzzi but I just can't do it.  For modern classics, you have to go Triumph because the bang for the buck is better.

I mean, the Bonneville range is gorgeous anyway, so it's not like you're losing out.

It's Finally Happened

As the title of this post suggests, it has finally happened: I've fallen ass over tea kettle for a Harley-Davidson.

The cold breeze that just blew past was not from the winter storm but it was from Hell as it freezes over.  Don't let my Triumph know or it may disown me.

The Harley I've embraced is the new XR1200X.  It's an updated version of the Sportster-based XR1200 released in Europe in 2009 and in the U.S. in 2010.


What remains on the 2011 model is the pumped-up twin pushing out 90 horsepower and the flat track inspired styling.  The typical cruiser-esque styling of the regular Sportster was chucked in favor of a more aggressive standard riding position with flat track-style bars and rear mounted foot pegs.  In all, it's the closest Harley has ventured into sport bike territory since the look-fast-go-slow XLCR of 1977.
 
Black is the order of the day on the X.  The twin exhaust is now menacing black, replacing the silver of the regular XR.  All of the sliver bits on the engine are now black, too.  The seat is black, the gauges are black, the bars are black, the wheels are black; everything is black.

The only color you can add to the bike is the option of white paint.  Frankly, I think that's the best option because the blackness of the bike consumes it.  Everything is the same color so you lose a lot of the details.  It's a bit monotonous.

I can live with monotonous black, though.  After all, my Triumph is the Black model and it is really only two colors - black and chrome.

Where the X really wins in my book is the suspension.  The XR1200 used twin shocks in the rear and an upside-down fork up front, all made by Showa.  While they were a momentous improvement over the standard Sportster suspension, the drawback was their lack of adjustability.  Adjustable units were available in the Screamin' Eagle catalog at a hefty price on top of the hefty price for the XR.

With the X, Harley equipped it with the adjustable Showa units as standard and lowered the price.  That's a pretty good deal.  The rear shocks now have that oh-so-cool-and-functional remote reservoir and the front fork is the straight-from-the-track Showa Big Piston Fork.  This fork works wonders on the liter superbikes from Japan, so imagine what it'll do for the Sportster.

From a pure sport bike angle, the XR1200 is a bit of a miss.  With 90 horsepower, it's really not that fast and at 573 pounds wet, not very light, either.  It's a bit of mish-mash of styles, too.  It goes for the flat track look but the exhausts are way too low and the flat track bars look very uncomfortable.  It's abilities as a back road burner can be questioned as well because of the low exhaust.  I can just imagine having an easy time grinding those massive cans on tight right-hand curves.

In spite of all that, I was really impressed with the XR1200 when it debuted in 2009.  I thought it would be perfect for Harley and it would allow them to broaden their customer base here in the U.S.  It's nice to see Harley put their engineering ability to work on something other than the same old thing they've been building since time began.  We know that Harley can build a great bike to get you to the bar and back or allow you to lazily chuff along the interstate; now they've shown they can build a sporty bike, as well.

The sales of the bike here, however, really weren't that good and I've only seen one on the road.  Time will tell how the XR1200 gets on but I'll keep my eye out for a used one in the future, that's for sure.  Like I've said, the XR is far from perfect but that makes it perfect for me.  I like bikes with character and character flaws.  It makes them more realistic and more human in my mind.  There are numerous superbikes from Italy and Japan that will get you close to engineering perfection, all the while being as realistically useful as having your own pet dinosaur.  I don't want perfection, I want fun and that's what the XR provides.

Now, how do I mount the sissy bar and the fringe?

Merry Motorcycle Christmas

With the icy hand of winter strangling my ability to ride, I needed some way to exercise my lust for all things motorcycle.

Luckily for me, Christmas arrived and helped to satiate my lust.  Well, maybe it did.

First up among my gifts was a gel seat for my Bonneville.  This gel seat comes courtesy of the Triumph accessory catalog and is actually for the Thruxton, a factory cafe racer version of the Bonneville.

Initial tests (i.e., putting it on the fireplace and sitting on it) show it to be more comfortable than the stock plank of wood, I mean, seat.  Truth be told, just about anything would be comfortable than the stock Bonneville seat.  The stock seat has a comfort range of about, oh, five miles or so before numbness sets in.  I'm hoping the gel seat will extend the comfort range deep into the double digits.

Additionally, this seat will allow me to install the accessory rear cowl cover on the seat.  Yes, I'm excited about that.

Next up was a much-needed balaclava to help make cold weather rides bearable.  It resembles a ski mask but is much lighter and works better as a helmet liner.  Plus, if this whole going to work thing doesn't pan out, I can use it as a mask to rob banks.  It's a very versatile item.

History alert: the name 'balaclava' comes from the Ukrainian town of Balaklava.  During the Crimean War of 1853-1856, knitted balaclavas were passed out to British soldiers to help combat the intense cold weather during the winter months.

Finally, I received a motorcycle from the Lego Technic line.  It's a total nerd's delight and I absolutely love it.  I've had a thing for Lego's since I was a little kid and I usually receive a new kit every year.

With this motorcycle, it has a working engine, transmission and suspension.  You can also build it one of two ways - either as a three-cylinder sport bike (Triumph Daytona, anyone?) or as a V-twin chopper.  The chopper even has the traditional exposed primary drive.  I built mine as the sport bike, of course.

The first thing you notice is its size.  It's freakin' huge!  The amount of detail that goes into it and the time it takes to build it are impressive, as well.  It's also pretty heavy.  I plan to buy another one and build it as the chopper.

You really have to give it up for the Lego engineers.  The amount of time that went into the design of this kit had to be staggering.  It's also much more complex than the Lego's I had as a kid.

The bad news about all of this stuff is that it did nothing to satiate my lust.  In fact, I think it made my lust worse.

I want to go for a ride so bad!

More Ducati Updates

The summer and fall months have been highlighted by continued work on my old and rusty Ducati.

I can proudly say now that it's not rusty anymore.

I striped and painted just about every piece that was salvageable.  The foot pegs, brake switch bracket, engine mounts and lower steering yoke were all given a nice new coat of shiny black paint.  The frame was also taken down to the bare metal and painted the same shade of black.  I also purchased new fork tubes and now my forks are together and ready to install.

To look at the bike now, you'd never know it sat outside for a decade or more.  Progress is being made, however at a moderate pace.

The real work, though, lies within the engine.

When I first went to look at the bike, I couldn't check to make sure the engine would turn over because the kick-start lever was missing.  No worries, I thought, I'll just take the timing cover off and turn the engine with a wrench.

Wrong.

With the timing cover removed, I put a wrench on the nut and it never moved.  My worst fear had been realized: the piston was seized to the bore.

With this knowledge, I tore into my Ducati's engine expecting to find the worst and that's exactly what I found.  I now know why the bike was parked oh-so-many years ago and I began to regret my purchase. 

The piston was not only seized to the bore but it had a nickel-sized hole in it, as well.  Moisture had entered the engine through the open carb and seized the piston to the bore.  A motorcycle won't run if the piston has a hole in it and so the bike was parked.  Ten years later, this schmuck (me) comes along and buys it.

So now I have to remove the center jug section of the head to get the piston out.  That involved rotating the crank back and forth to get the jug to separate from the bottom end.  Slowly the jug raised off the bottom and I worked it off with a few screwdrivers and wooden shims.

In keeping with my luck, the wrist pin that holds the piston on the connecting rod was blocked by the bore.  I couldn't get to it to press it out.  The piston was not moving for anybody so I had to break the bottom of the piston to free the wrist pin from the piston.  After some hammering and squishing of my fingers, the bottom of the piston came apart and I could separate the jug from the bottom end.

The steel bore liner was cracked and ruined along the bottom and the piston was not going anywhere.  I managed to press out the bore liner and I picked up a new one from Classic Ducati in Derbyshire, England.  The new liner has to be machined for the head bolts.  It's also a little too long and hits the crank.  In all, though, having the liner gets me closer to putting the bike back on the road, even if it's only a few millimeters closer.

The rest of the engine looks pretty solid.  There is some rust on the crank from the moisture that got in through the carb but other than that, it's clean.  The transmission shifts into and out of every gear and I can turn the crank by hand.  The clutch plates were rusted together but I was going to replace them, anyway.

Right now, I'm waiting for my alternator puller to arrive so I can split the engine cases.  I'd like to disassemble everything and sandblast the cases to get all the calcium off.  

My old rusty bike is coming along quite nicely.  I hope to breath new life into its once-tired bones and get this bike out on the road.  The list of things that still need addressed is long and a bit daunting but nothing I can't handle.

I've got my eyes on the day I can put on my puddling bowl helmet and goggles, hop on the kick-start and ride off to the sweet sound off a Ducati single.

Ducati Update.

Ever since I picked up my new (old and rusty) Ducati, it has been a flurry of activity.

Parts were taken off and cleaned, broken items were fixed and knuckles were busted.  All in all, they were good times.

Now the part begins where real progress is made.

With my awesome new sandblaster, I stripped the rust and paint off of the frame while creating a beach behind my shed.  After the paint and rust were removed, I smoothed over the pits with filler and applied a rust-prevention coating over the bare metal.  All that's left to do is to get one minor area welded and to primer the frame.

I took this time to pull both wheels to see how bad they were inside. 

To my surprise, they weren't bad at all.  The friction surface on the rear drum has a few small areas of rust that can be machined out.  The rear drum was also a home for a colony of ants that were not too pleased with my disruption of their home.  The front drum was in similar condition; minus the ants, of course.

I disassembled the front forks and found the dampening fluid was a strange green color and possessed a horrendous smell. 

Aside from the color and the smell, the big problem is rust on the fork tubes.  The tube is in good condition in the seal-area but the top has quite a bit of rust.  I'm going to blast the tops (I love my sandblaster) and see how it turns out before I shell out $300 for new fork-tubes.  I only paid $150 for the whole bike.

Another problem I addressed was the issue of bodywork. 

My standard 1965 bodywork was ruined by years of neglect at the hands of Mother Nature.  I picked up a used 1967 square-style tank and rear-fender off of Ebay to replace my rusted originals.  I'm in the process of blasting (my sandblaster rules) and repainting the bodywork.  All that's missing is a matching front fender and a headlight.

I still haven't addressed the issue of my frozen engine or the myriad of parts I need.  After the chassis is finished, it's on to the engine.

I think I should be done by, say, 2012.  Let's hope; I'd like to ride it before the world ends.