Third triple

[Toddyboy]

“I’ve got an old UK spec H1 in me shed, if yer interested,” said Stu.

I must admit I wasn’t interested actually. I’d already scraped the bottom of the barrel to get the two H1’s on the road that I already had. The concept of attempting to buy and restore a third one seemed altogether a stupid idea. However …… I must admit it did pique my interest, just a little bit.

“No thanks, Stu,” I replied. “Don’t have room for another one. Don’t have the money either.”

Three weeks later said machine was being trundled off the back of a bike courier’s van and wheeled into my back garden as my wife looked on with a face so sour it’d curdle fresh milk. Oh shit, how did that happen!

It was a rusty, sad looking state of affairs, all said and done. As I began dismantling it I began to question my sanity again, just as I’d done with the previous ones. Nevertheless, in the space of one afternoon it was completely dismantled save the engine, which I was hoping would be in excellent condition internally and would only require a degrease and polish up – well that’s what I was hoping – as you do!

Upon close inspection the bike appeared to be 85% complete. Having rebuilt two early H1’s last year I kinda knew what I was looking at now with these old crates so it didn’t take me long to draw up a list of missing parts. Now let’s see, where do I start. Oh yeah: Fork ears, washers and rubber rings, complete headlamp unit, L/H handlebar switch assembly, battery side panel, badge and fixing knob, complete inlet manifold & air filter box assembly, carb tops, gearstick lever (it had been sawed in half), central steering damper unit, steering lock, front mudguard bracket, battery, footrest rubbers, indicators and rear brackets & pretty much every other rubber and seal.

The next task was to itemize all parts that would need repairing: The side stand was missing the end kicker bar, the chain-guard had two splits in it. The L/H front mudguard stay was missing the front bar. It had snapped off by the looks of it. The swing arm had a nasty looking rusty split in it, the battery box was rusted through with holes in the bottom tray where the acid had eaten the metal away, the seat was just a blob of brown rust and soggy foam with bits of vinyl hanging off it. Stu had found another seat pan in better condition and sold it to me along with the bike. The edges were still badly rusted where the metal turns up but otherwise it was ok for the main part. After I’d scraped and cleaned off half inch thick carbon mud deposits from the exhaust system I found that it was in relatively good condition and the engine was all there except the outer engine panels which were pretty bashed up. The rare ‘low’ HT cover was smashed and missing the bottom section altogether and the clutch housing had a nasty looking piece of aluminium plate glued over an even nastier looking crack. Stu had found another ‘low’ cover (also smashed up) plus a semi-decent clutch housing too which he’d also included in with the sale of the bike. It took a while but I eventually repaired all the busted engine covers using JB weld. I used Hammerite smooth silver aerosol to paint the cases and they looked so good when they were finished you’d be hard pressed to find fault with them.

I fabricated and welded up the end of the gearstick pedal, the missing front section of the front mudguard stay and the battery box. All the parts that would require chroming or zinc plating (which in essence was ALL of them) including the wheel spokes were boxed up and then taken to the platers. Unfortunately the front and rear wheel Takasago rims were so rusty he just took one look at them and handed them back to me. Everything else however looked like it would go through the chrome and zinc plating process okay. I even gave him all the nuts and bolts to do as well. The fork stanchions were pitted so I sent them off to Philpotts to get hard chromed. They were back four weeks later.

I welded up the gash in the swing arm myself and replaced the missing front section of the L/H mudguard stay bar by tapping out the internal tubing then inserted a threaded bar in and finally welded on another piece of 11mm OD tube, then I flattened off the end part and drilled the screw hole. Now it's done you’d never be able to tell the difference from the original. I got my mate Guy at Exactweld to weld a few other trickier bits which he did to his usual exceptional standards. I stripped down all the frame parts to bare metal and resprayed the lot with three coats of Simoniz Tough Black, giving them a light rub down between each coat. The end result looks like a new frame. I repaired the seat pan edges by cutting and forming new spike sections using some thin alloy sheet I spliced out of a wall vent I bought from Wickes, cutting and forming the spikes so they were positioned exactly where the originals should be. Once all the pieces were all made to fit I glued them on to the inside of the seat pan using Evo Stik contact cement. They stuck like shit to a blanket. When it was painted you couldn’t see where it had been repaired. To protect the vinyl cover from chafing on the sharp metal edge I cut open some 1.5mm electrical grey wire and glued it on. For the satin black items such as the seat pan and gauges bracket I used Hammerite Black satin aerosol.

I was about to tackle the engine myself then thought better of it so I hoiked it into the back of my Jeep and took it to Gary Clarke. He carried out a full rebuild and vapour clean, including restoring the carbs. He also removed a rusted in rear engine plate bolt and soldered up some dodgy ignition wiring on the points stator. A month later and it looked like it’d just come out of the factory. He’s a good lad is our Gary!

I carefully unscrewed all the spokes and set them aside, stripped the wheel hubs, cleaned them out and freed up the pivot cams but found I didn’t need to replace the shoes. They looked almost new. A bit of fine emery paper, Solvol Autosol and a lot of elbow grease later and the brake drums and covers looked like something you could eat your dinner off. Because the original wheel rims were shot & un-plateable I went for a pair of Hagon rims. Very nice they are too.

My painter, Dale the Pikey, resprayed the tinware in candytone red and the result was spectacular as I’ve come to expect from him.

Rubber inlet manifolds and HT grommet were ordered from Clauss Studios in the States. These guys produce exceptionally good quality repro rubbers that don’t warp or shrink under use. All other rubber parts were ordered from both Z Power and Tripleparts.

Fork ears I found on Ebay. Not cheap but in good condition. Dave Howard found me a few other miscellaneous hard to find parts as did Keith. Many thanks to them. I bought a few other parts from Patric Bras in France. He does some nice stuff, and finally, I bought the oil level gauge items from Diablo Cycle in Canada.

The aluminium parts (handlebar clamp brackets, clutch and brake levers, top fork yoke, brake drum covers, etc.) were easily restored and polished up using wet and dry and Solvol to a lovely finish.

All the control cables were present, functional and original but externally they looked extremely tatty. Instead of going down the repro route I stripped off the old sheathing and rubber gaitors, cleaned them up, lubricated the inners then used grey heat-shrink electrical sheathing to recover them. To be honest, you’d never know it had been done. Then I bought new cable gaitors off Ebay and fitted them. The cables now look like NOS!

The original tacho and speedo gauges were a bit worse for wear so they were sent off to Peter Bond and were back within 6 weeks fully refurbished and looking like new.

The bike came with no ignition key and because it was a rare UK bike even Malc couldn’t make one up for me as he didn’t have a master for it. However, as luck would have it Steve Woollatt happened to own a very similar UK spec H1 and also had a NOS key with the same number as mine. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, Steve got said key to Malc who then made a copy of it and sent a key to me in the post. Thanks Steve and Malc! Just goes to show the benefits of being a Triples Club Member.

Now I’m just waiting for the plater to call me at which point I’ll have all the completely restored parts for the bike ready to piece together like a meccano set.

[SAM]

Very nice find. Not many UK bikes about. September 71!

[downpipe3]

nice

[Toddyboy]

I think the only thing I'm missing now is the plastic slot-in-and-turn headlight lens bulb holder. Anyone?

[Olde Coney]

Brilliant. ..well done. Am looking forward to seeing it all coming together now

[husson73]

which model will be the fourth

[Green Meanie]

Glad it went to a good home, it was a good find but personally i don't like the early 500's as much as the later ones so did not want to spend time and money on it but new it was a very rare bike and needed to be saved, looking forward to seeing it finished - Stu

[Toddyboy]

Fourth one will be a blue H1a I guess. I've got a fair few bits for it already. Just missing a frame, forks, engine, wheels - you know, all the small stuff

[Toddyboy]

All done and dusted, MOT'd and road tested. It's difficult to believe this is a 46 year old bike. Now done just under 450 miles on it since it was completely rebuilt and I have to say it's been faultless. I'm getting good at this shit.

[Mitsui Spy]

You are indeed. Very nice Todster

[SAM]

Ooooo. Red. Nice.

[Mitsui Spy]

..and now you've finished your latest H1, some of us really need an update on Tina.

[Toddyboy]

she's coming

[Green Meanie]

Very nice mate.

[Olde Coney]

stunning transformation. ..well done