Vehicle Description
As told by the builder, Dan Patterson:
What once was old is now, well, still old but with a new lease on life. This 1962 Triumph Bonneville started its journey at Angry Monkey Motorcycles as a “rolling basket case”. It arrived at my garage full of water, thanks to the “professional” shipper, and with duct tape holding the gas tank and engine covers on. It was truly a sad sight, and was missing TONS of parts to boot.
The great thing about this bike is that the original vin-numbered frame and motor are still together after all these years. Sweet, huh? There wasn’t much to strip off this scoot since it had already been pilfered of all its desirable sheet metal, and practically everything else.
We started by repairing all the holes and brackets that had been added to the frame over the years. Next we removed the swing arm and all traces of its marriage to the frame. Then our custom rear section, courtesy of Lucas at TFMW, was bolted on.
The wheels were next; the front is a new, black 21” Sun rim laced to a vintage Honda front hub/brake. The fun part of this aspect was all the machining that went into making that tiny hub work successfully with the reproduction HD springer, that has a ¾” axle. Since having a front axle nut fall off on the highway is something I’d rather not experience, castle nuts and cotter pins were utilized to lock everything down. The rear wheel is also a new black Sun rim, but in 17” and laced to a classic Triumph “spool” hub. Both wheels sport Metzeler tires and polished stainless spokes and nipples. All the lacing and truing was handled by Buchanan’s Spoke of Azusa, California.
To keep at least some of the road spray off my back is a hand-spun, 13 gauge, tig welded fender. It is held in place by four sets of counter bored steel bungs and a pair of struts that are basically “lightened” steel channels that we heated and bent into position. With the vibration old Brit bikes are known for, I figured “go heavy or go home” on the fender and its mount system.
The license plate bracket is an Angry Monkey Motorcycles design that is made of 10 gauge steel, TIG’d together with liberal use of gusseting. Of course, it has our signature vintage bottle opener attached to the front side for those times when you need to open a frosty beverage or two. Also attached to the bracket is a pair of brass, Titmouse tail lights from After Hours Choppers. These lights may be small, but they are super-bright and are very well made.
the navigation duties are handled by custom handle bars, made in-house and welded to the HD top clamp, and an alloy, art-deco headlamp lights the way. While riding with the high beam on is preferred for maximum visibility, the headlight does have low beam too. If you blow one filament, you can just switch it to the other to get home.
The 10 gauge steel seat pan, along with the leather tooling, dying, and lacing of the saddle was all handled in-house to match the incredible paint that Rich Janusz of Ryzart Paint pulled off. He is the man when it comes to laying down gold leaf and hand pulled striping. Photographs simply cannot capture all the nuances going on with this paint work. It is unreal. As always, the gloss black powder coating was skillfully applied by Keith and Deena at KDM Custom Coatings in Tupelo MS.
The foot rests on this scoot are some slick, alloy rear sets that were adapted to work as mid controls. They are fully adjustable to fit the client’s feet and style of riding. For the brake to work properly, a bit of math had to be done so the travel and leverage would be exactly like the original long brake pedal. To help accomplish this, we made a pivot system that acts to retain factory feel and leverage, and actuate the brake light switch. At the business end of the rear brake link is an Angry Monkey Motorcycles brass adjuster knob.
Motivating the old girl down the road is a fully built motor and transmission. Some of goodies inside are; new cylinders (bored and honed), new pistons, fitted with new Hastings rings, and the crank got a -010” re-grind. All this was skillfully handled by Dan at Franz And Grubb Engine in North Hollywood California. Of course new British main bearings were included in the rebuild. New Rowe valve guides were installed and bored to receive the new stainless valves. To get the valves moving, there is a set of Mega Cycle cams timed to perfection with a full set of vintage followers, re-ground to “R” radius. A vintage K2FC magneto, rebuilt by legendary vintage BSA racer Beno Rodi, makes this bike a one-kick wonder. Well, ok, sometimes it takes two kicks. Two new Amal monoblocks feed the fire within, while a set of Angry Monkey Motorcycle “Window-Blaster” pipes direct the spent fumes out and up.
To get the power to the ground, a Bob Newby Racing belt drive with a lightened pressure plate, was put into service. The transmission received all new bushings, bearings, seals, and a couple new gears. In our endeavor to remedy, or at least minimize the myth (ok truth) that all Triumphs leak, we remedied two of the pre unit transmission’s known leaky points; the cam-plate bushing and speedometer drive. We turned a neat little interference-fit cap for the outside of the cam-plate bush and a solid alloy, o-ring equipped speedometer delete plug. To date (crossed fingers), this transmission has not leaked a drop of oil over the past hundred miles. Both the motor and transmission were rebuilt in house.
A BIG thanks goes out to all the people that helped get “Old Number 3” back into service; Joe for pulling the trigger in the first place, Hal Hall for making the jewelry, Terry at Wigginton Machine for doing what I couldn’t. Most of all, thank you Leah, for inspiring me daily, and continuing to put up with me and all this crazy bike stuff year after year.
Cheers, Dan.
