Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge A point to ponder about our bikes

While riding to work this morning, I started thinking about parts availability on our bikes. I have friends with older Harleys (all clean as a pin) and parts are readily available. Also worked with a guy who had an early 80's Honda and parts weren't available (disposeable bike?). I really like my lil America and plan on keeping it. Sure hope parts will be available when the bike is 25 years old. Discuss.....

I was discussing this same thing with a buddy of mine about a month ago who works at a garage. He told me that there's a high influx of Harley parts because people who own Harley's throw parts away like wads of paper and have no qualms about scrapping a Harley for one or two parts. On the other hand, he said that it's hard to find parts for Triumphs because no one will scrap a Triumph for parts. People who own Triumphs love their bikes and will do anything to keep it running.

On a side note, he also said the most Harley riders have the mechanical prowess of a cactus. He's seen all sorts of
crazy things like gasoline in the reserve coolant tank because the guy saw the word "reserve" and though that it was the reserve gas tank. Usually when a Triumph comes in, it's because the rider has exhuasted his own knowledge and can't find the problem, which turns out to be tricky for the mechanic most of the time. So props to BonnevilleAmerica.com for educating Triumph riders everywhere.

Parts are readily available for old HD and old Triumphs but you have to know where to look.

Yep, in a nutshell, Ian.

(...thanks for condensing my above text to its "bottom line", ol' buddy)

The future longevity of our bikes is in question to me because of the head design. Without renewable bearings on the cams you have to buy a new head if that wears and how long will good heads (no joke here) be available.I suppose you could have blank caps and the head journals welded then have the whole thing bored again but that would be a huge expense. Also shell bearings vs. caged ball and roller mains has potential to render our cases useless after a main failure more readily that the old design.

The prefires have an internal tube (breather tube? behind the clutch cover) that is no longer manufactured.

I suppose that's a valid point Ian, and while I remember you mentioning in the past a few times that this design element of our bikes has always somewhat troubled you(along of course with the lack of a kick-starter and a breaker points ignition system ), I have to wonder how many failures or at least the percentage of such we've heard about around here over this past decade, especially with some of the BA.com membership's machines reaching and/or exceeding the 100,000 mile mark and continuing to perform well.

(...and so I have to say I wonder how big an issue this really is or would be to the vast majority of us modern Triumph air-cooled twins owners in either the short-term or long-term?)

Dwight, my concern is not the near future. I can rebuild my 1954 T-110 pretty much endlessly with bearings and bushings but will I be able to say the same of my 04 SM in 58 years?

Well, I suppose that that COULD BE a problem then, Ian...that is IF you're plannin' on livin' AND ridin' motorcycles well past the time you turn 110 FRIGGIN' YEARS OLD!!!

(...but ALSO knowin' about your hard-drinkin' and generally hard-livin' in the past, I DON'T think you're gonna have to worry about that much, ol' buddy!!!)

Ironicly the head is an issue with later years of the pre-units, my 58 has the old 8 bolt aluminum head on it that tends to crack between the head bolt and valve seat. Thing is the later head will fit as well as even the 9 bolt barrels and head.

Yep, and I've seen some of the 9 bolt heads from the unit-twins with little bitty cracks around the valve openings too, and which a good welder can fix up pretty cleanly.

The 8 bolt pre-unit head was prone to cracking though, the redesigned 8 bolt on the untit didn't same with the 9 bolt later. Any head can crack but the 55 through 61 heads were bad. They were made like the earlier iron head but out of aluminum. My 54 has the iron head but my 58 the 8 bolt aluminum. I don't think that one is cracked but haven't had it apart in many years.

My 05 America is about to hit 55K miles and plan on hitting 100K. Perhaps parts availability and conditon of the bike will dictate what I'll do with the bike when that occurs.

Perhaps another post should be started for the 90-100k plus mile bike owners to chime in on what to look for to prevent expensive repairs.

The brake calipers take a crap after mega miles and need to be either rebuilt or replaced.

$37.04 for the seal kit.

$43.28 for a used front caliper that may or may not be in need of repair. I did get a rear one from pinwall that was good to go though. We'll see about this front one.

Not any 58 year old CB750s around yet so the jury is still out on the parent material bearing surfaces. I'd bet you could line bore them for bearings if push came to shove but I haven't looked closely. I'll keep that in mind during my cam adj. later this month...she's due for one any mile now.