1966 T-120r street tracker

Shortly after moving to Denver I bought a 66 Triumph off of craigslist, sight unseen. It was sitting in a shop in Maine and I was assured by the proprietor of the shop that it was a strong running ready to go bike. I had an acquaintance of mine go check it out, he also assured me that it was good to go. So I sent the necessary money and had my roommate pick it up whilst out on tour with his band.
Here it is, or rather was. After about 2 hours of kicking (No electric start in 66) and bump start attempts we finally got it to run. . .on one cylinder. It smoked and popped and back-fired and blew copious amounts of oil out of the exhaust. Not ideal and most definitely not a runner.
This is how most any project I take on begins, elbows deep to start with and then over my head before I even know what happened. Turns out the owner was a total liar and the guy that checked the bike out for me was something less than reliable. Lesson learned.


The only thing that was left to do was everything else. So, I tore the motor open to see what I was dealing with. Easier said than done. Triumph's, I quickly learned, take their own special standard of measurement tools called whitworth. Luckily the guy next door to us was a 4th generation mechanic and he, like Spicolli's dad, had an ultimate set of tools. I got the top end off of the bike, labeling and bagging parts all the while. Why? Oh did I forget to mention I had never really dug deep into any sort of engine before, let alone something as finicky as a vintage British motor? So off comes the top end, the pistons both had massive scoring. And the side that wasn't firing? The rings were seized and actually bonded to the piston, a process called brinelling (see? the learning never stops around here).

Nothing to be done for the time being on the engine front since I had to get together a bunch of tools and even more parts (not to mention some kind of knowledge) I immediately tore into the rest of the bike to begin roughing out what i thought I wanted to become of it.

After a brief period of chopperitis I decided that a hard-tailed Triumph was not how I wanted to roll so I put the swing arm back on and figured out what I wanted to do instead of the hideous seat that was on it when it came home to me from Maine.

I got most of the non engine issues with the bike sorted (sorry for the lack of pictures here but I was too consumed to stop and shoot photos) and tore the engine all of the way apart and began the agonizing and nerve wracking, at least for me, process of completely rebuilding one of these motors. At the end of it I had a higher level of confidence, a better grasp of just how an internal combustion motor works, and the many many ways in which it can not work.

After paint (Thanks Biff)After The seat, pin striping several thousand miles and a move to Oregon...
Shooter did the pin striping.
Hand built pipes-me
Hand tooled and formed leather seat-me
Custom tail light from a Turner 44x microphone body-me
Shortened rear sub frame-me
Aluminum seat pan and side cover-me
Hand built Akront drop center wheels with stainless spokes-me
Smoothed fork legs with custom disk brake adapter-me
Modified 49 Ford police car spotlight/headlight-me