Thursday, April 21, 2011

Jon Rispante's Grasshopper in The Horse





Get a copy to see more.






Family heritage. Bitchin' photo of Jon's dad, Jim Rispante that the Horse failed to include in the feature.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Early 1950's Triumph 21" Spool Hub Racing Wheel






Believe it or not I found this mid-day at the Clubman's swap meet. Why it did not get snatched up early is probably because of the amount of parts there were to dig through. There was an estate sale from a collection of 1950's - 1960's Brit parts that took up six spaces. I ran back and forth from my spot to this area quite a few times that morning. Without this estate the swap really would not have been that good, but that's the way it always goes. The last thing you want to see at a once a year swap meet is all the same old faces! You don't even wanna know what I paid, the prices for most of the parts there ranged from fair to steals. This wheel is the real deal, dated to the early '50s by the painted rim center, 21" Avon Supreme tire and super neat alloy hub with internal bearing sleeve to fit early 1950's Triumph forks that has the tell tale grease fitting typical to early spool hubs. I sold the tire to Bobby SirKegian, will probably sell the rim separately and I have hopes to have the hub laced to a NOS 21" Borrani Record rim that I bought at the same spot. This hub is cast alloy and I have identified it in some 1950's era photos of pre-unit Triumph race bikes. I don't know who made it but would love to find out.

Factory Triumph Front Wheel Racing Hub



Same as the hub originally fitted to the 1955 T100R but laced to a 19" shouldered alloy rim with a super cool Beck TT Special tire. I actually found another wheel exactly like this one the same day at the Clubman's swap. There was a guy there that was trying to piece together a T100R replica that I sold the second wheel to for a fair price. Finding two Triumph spool hub racing wheels in one day gives you an idea of how good this swap was!

1955 T100R forks


From the above clip from the Oct. 1954 special parts list we see that the complete T100R fork assembly had the H788 part number, but the middle lug number listing has its numbers transposed, instead of H875 it should read H785 as seen on the genuine example below.

The top lug has the standard TR5 / TR6 model, H380 number, but with 7/8" handlebar clamps. I recognised this set of trees as special going through a rack of forks at the recent Clubman's swap meet. This matching set was doing duty on some extended chopper legs. An extremely rare find and no doubt a missing component on some of the current T100R restorations that have been built up from only a matching frame and engine. This pic found by Shaggy clearly shows the modified fork covers that are missing from most all of the current restorations.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Van C. Kreaps Triumph 500 Chopper

Built in '75. Bolt-on hard tail and the neck raked about an inch and a half with 10" legs.


The "before" pic.

Super Rare Webco Rocker Oil Manifold Find


As lined out in my previous POST on finned rocker oil manifolds for Triumph twins I identified this one from 1960 as what I believed to be the earliest type made by Webco.


Well, a new never before seen example in my 20+ years of looking was found at the recent Clubman's swap meet. The five fin pre-unit manifold. Slightly bigger than the four fin counterpart and drilled all the way through with a set screw blanking the oil hole on the far side. Spacing of rocker spindle holes are an exact match. Year of first manufacture UNKNOWN. One of many exciting finds that day!

San Jose Clubman's Show Bikes 2011

Here are my picks of the best at this years Clubman's Show. Unique Unit 650 Street Tracker. I'm a big fan of the pre-1957 Triumph front wheel hub on later models. A little funky but cool hardtailed BSA A10.

Super sweet BSA A65 custom. Nicely done!


Bill Sauer was back with his kick ass restored Show & Go T-bird that he debuted at the 2009 Clubman's show when the resto was not quite finished. Now it's all done with lights and the period license plate bracket that he made a batch of way back when. Of course I asked him if he had any more and unfortunately they have all been scattered to the wind.












On our way home we caught up with Bill by chance. What a cool combo!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Bill Lee's Custom Pre-unit Triumph




Photos circa 1964. Painted Metalflake red by Bill. Dick Howell built engine, bike turned a 13:93 in the 1/4 mile. Anyone with a 1954-59 Triumph project that is thinking about screwing up another old bike with a bolt on hardtail take note of this classic formula.