IAN’S RESTORATION TIPS

When you buy a classic, make sure the engine and frame are matching numbers.

We saw one advertised in polychromatic blue as a 1951 bike. But it had an SU carb on it, so it couldn’t have been a ’51 model. When we challenged the guy, he just said: ‘Well, don’t bother buying it.’ It obviously wasn’t the model he was trying to fob it off as.

Always use British-made parts when you build a classic Triumph.

There’s no point in skimping, because you’ll pay in the long run. Buy cheap imported stuff and you’ll discover things don’t fit; the wiring on electrical parts will have the wrong-colour wires and the wrong-length wires. Things like footpeg rubbers just don’t last. It’s far better going to a specialist dealer who knows about the marque, because not only will they sell you the right stuff, they also give good advice.

If you are restoring an engine take it down to the bare crankcases and start from there.

Clean out the sludge trap. It is pointless doing half a job. I get people asking me to do the head on an old classic they’ve bought; well, I can do that, but you can never be sure how good the bottom end is.

The front brake cable confused me at first because it’s so long.

People try to run them straight down the fork leg, but it actually runs inside a metal tube along the bottom of the fork leg, which leaves you with a big loop of cable at the top end. But the cable runs though the nacelle and it’s that extra length of cable that takes up the flex when the suspension moves up and down.