A TRIUMPH FOR COLUMNIST
Williams to unveil his rare 1939 bike
Motorcycle builders have been busy over the winter months assembling custom rides, says Kenny Kwan. Kwan is the proprietor of Calgary’s Ill-Fated Kustoms and, with a small army of volunteers, he has helped organize the second annual Kickstart show. More than 50 invited builders have registered a motorcycle for display at the May 15 show, to be held in the Calgary Flying Club’s hangar at Springbank Airport.
“There’s quite a bit of creativity involved in bike building,” Kwan said. “There’s the machining, the fabricating, the welding. And then when it’s all done, you can take it for a ride.
“That combination of what you put together makes it your motorcycle,” he added. “There won’t be another machine around quite like it, and it’s a very rewarding feeling to stand back and take a look at what you’ve created.”
As one of those 50 invited builders, I am putting the finishing touches on the 1939 Triumph T100 I’ve been working on over the past three years. Kwan’s Kickstart show will be the machine’s debut.
As a paraplegic, I don’t ride. But I do still enjoy getting my hands dirty creating something from nothing, and that’s exactly where this 500cc Triumph T100 began, when I acquired a frame and a gearbox.
Building a motorcycle by accumulating parts is the hard — and often expensive — way to put something together. But over time I sourced a crankshaft, crankcases, cylinders and cylinder head for an engine.
I won’t discuss the intricacies of early Triumph twins, but the prewar machines have a different ignition and charging system than the later, and very popular, Bonneville models for which the company became famous.
Neil Gordon of Bragg Creek helped put the engine together. In my opinion, it’s special because it has a 650-cc crank inside the 500-cc crankcases; the larger throw of the crank makes the engine what’s known as a “stroker.” The attention to detail and some of the machining necessary to make this happen is beyond my capabilities, but I did much of the cleaning and preparation of parts.
Although the transmission was in good condition for its age, I stripped it down, cleaned it and completely rebuilt it with fresh bearings. All of the driveline parts were purchased separately from a variety of sources — from friends, eBay sellers and shops such as British Cycle Supply in Nova Scotia — including the enclosed inner and outer primary covers and the clutch. Although these parts are correct Triumph components, it can be challenging getting them all to play nicely together.
Triumph girder forks are exceedingly rare, so I found an original Norton girder fork on eBay, complete with a front wheel hub. The rims came from England, and I painted and prepped both front and rear hubs and had the rims powder-coated black before having them built up with stainless steel spokes.
By this time, it became apparent I was gathering parts that all had a certain amount of age and patina, and I liked the fact the frame was still in its original paint, as it was when it left the Triumph factory in 1939. So, instead of painstakingly restoring, painting and plating everything, many parts were left as is. However, the fork needed to be painted, as did the fenders and chain guard.
The distressed paint was applied by John Whitby of Calgary, and it was Whitby who found the gas tank at a local swap meet. The tank features the thick brush marks of someone working with house paint many decades ago.
I made brackets to hold the headlight, front fender, regulator, speedometer, horn and brake light switch. I also sectioned the saddle frame to make it narrower, and while I know enough to be dangerous with a MIG-welder, Derek Pauletto of Trillion Industries took care of the important welding jobs.
A custom wiring harness was made using cloth-covered wires, and my friend Dennis Firth helped fabricate oil pressure gauge lines and fittings.
Bob Klassen has helped get the Triumph running, and for all intents and purposes it’s finished — but there are always little things left to do.
That said, the T100 will be at Ill-Fated’s Kickstart show at 155 MacLaurin Drive at the Springbank Airport, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 15. It will be one of several custom and restored motorcycles that have been built in Calgary over the past year.
There’s no admission to the Kickstart event, and everyone is welcome. Even if you aren’t a registered builder, Kwan expects many enthusiasts will ride and park their machines outside the hangar.
“There will be a little bit of everything, and everything in between at the show,” Kwan said. “We just wanted to kick off the riding season by bringing together the builder and rider community. The show is for everybody, both young and old.”