Bonneville America Forums Forums General Motorcycle Forums Other Bikes You need to be good to identify this one

On Craigslist someone wants to identify a bike. Or at least part of one.



http://fayar.craigslist.org/mcy/1279223867.html

Best I can tell from those shots is a late 50s Triumph. Has the generator style primary so not early 60s and alloy head so not mid to early 50s. What he thinks is a starter is probably the Generator. The numbers don't mean anything to me without looking them up.

The make is Rusty, the model is Junk. Very similar to a Piece of Crap made by Basket Case Cycles.

Somehow I knew you would have a pretty good idea what it was.

That was about what my guess was Dave.

I could probably do much better with some better pictures to show me more detail.

Not to mention I see some good hard to get parts there not junk.

oh I'm quite sure there are a few high dollar parts on it

Looks like pure junk to me,I never understood why people left stuff outside to rot away ...

Looks like it may be so far down in the hollow they didn't want to drag it out 40 years ago.

What do you think about it maybe being an old AJS twin? That's an old magneto design used on a lot of AJS and Matchless as well as the Brit "Big Three"
http://www.oldbikemart.co.uk/unearthed.htm

Ed in your link look at the Speedtwin that is the 5th bike down. The junk on Craigslist has that same primary cover best I can tell. It also has an alloy head. That narrows it down pretty well I think. That primary cover has the small tear drop front not the larger front that housed the alternator in the early 60s models. The early 50s and earlier mostly had an iron head. I could be wrong since those pictures are very hard to get any detail out of but that was how I came to my conclusion. The bikes I am talking about also had a magnito, generator in front of the jugs and a magnito behind the jugs.

I looked at a lot of Speedtwins for shocks, forks and that oddish side cover and the only ones that look right are circa 1956. It's the right side instead of the left but what do you think?
http://www.bradsbikes.net/view_photo.aspx?maxWidth=500&photoID=845

Probably in that era, 54 had an iron head still and by 1959 or 60 they had an alternator in the primary so that small teardrop on the front was gone for a much larger bump to house it. 54 had rear shocks but the iron head like I said. If I could get a good look at the front forks I could narrow it down some more as well as the frame connections.

I have been Emailing back and forth with this guy as I am interested in his find. He sent me some better shots and I ruled out Triumph as the maker. He did some more research and it turns out it may be a 1955 Indian Tomahawk. That's a find and a half, he found gold in them there hills!