TRIUMPH SPECIAL 750
When a skilled bike builder creates a new machine from an old air-cooled Triumph engine and a recent Kawasaki chassis (and a whole lot else), can it conquer the curse of the special? Can the result really be better than the sum of its parts? Odgie rides i
When a skilled bike builder creates a new machine from an old air-cooled Triumph engine and a recent Kawasaki chassis (and a whole lot else), can it conquer the curse of the special? Can the result really be better than the sum of its parts? Odgie rides it, and reveals all…
Let’s start by being provocative. You need a certain degree of selfbelief to build ‘specials’. I can say that since specials are all I ever build; I can’t recall ever restoring a standard bike in over 50 years. To embark on building a special, you need to be convinced that you’re creating something better than all the factory experts, or something that’s never been done before… or if it has been done then you’re going to do it better anyway. After all, factory engineers and stylists are constrained by legal niceties and general user-friendliness, while an individual builder has a much freer rein.
So if you’re building a bike styled along custom or flat-track or off-road lines, lots of the switchgear and reflectors and general clutter can be jettisoned with gay abandon. If you’re building a café racer or performance bike, you can shoe-horn a more powerful engine into a lighter frame and add (or not) appropriate braking and suspension improvements. Of course, the eventual outcome isn’t always guaranteed to be a roaring success. Highly qualified factory staff generally tend to know what they’re doing, whereas a special builder may well be inspired by a vision that possibly somewhat outstrips his or her knowledge, skills and talents.
This gets even trickier if you’re not building to a particular style, but simply trying to marry various parts together to create something better than the sum of those parts. Rather than side-stepping the factory remit, you are setting yourself up in direct competition. It can all so easily go terribly wrong...
Enter a man stout of heart and spirit, one Gordon Geskell, who will be too modest to tell you himself, but is actually a very talented engineer and bike builder. Mostly his exploits revolve around various eras of Triumph, from sprung-hub upwards; not necessarily exactly stock or original but not necessarily overly radical either. This time, however, Gordon was inspired by his mate Joe Moore’s Kawasaki / Triumph special. Gordon’s own thinking is that there’s not a long wrong with a good Triumph engine that a decent set of cycle parts won’t fix, so he embarked upon his own variant.
Gordon picked up the complete Kawasaki ER-5 frame from a breakers in Scotland who specialise in the model. They typically use just the twin engines and end up with surplus frames piled up in mounds. Just £25 saw the frame (complete with V5C) ensconced in Gordon’s workshop. Gordon’s not just a northerner, he’s a Lancastrian from Wigan so (obviously) he doesn’t part with his money lightly.
‘I like working with this stuff,’ he says. ‘ That tank cost me 30 quid, and it’s perfect. Trying buying a tank for any of those Triumphs over there,’ he indicates a row of several, ‘and it will cost you a lot more than 30 quid – and it won’t still be shiny inside either.’ Fair point. ‘And those fancy-looking forks are Derbi GPR125 – just £100 including yokes. I recoated the legs in black as I didn’t like the original silver finish. I used Aprilia wheels and brakes as well, so all I needed for the front end was a new steering stem. My mate Kevin Wiley made me one, he’s a great engineer. I used a combination of Kawasaki, Aprilia and Triumph head bearings to fit it all together.
‘ The wheels were chemically dipped and then vapour blasted back to bare alloy. Then acid etch treated, primed, coated in gloss black powdercoat then the trick bit – chrome powdercoat is dusted on so the black still
shows through. The wheels are then finally clear coated and appear to flash both black and chrome as they rotate. All perfectly done by Paul of Demon Wheels.
‘At the back end I got hold of a 400 Honda CB-1 swinging arm. I shortened it 65mm to get the wheelbase sensible, and narrowed it by 15mm so it fitted in the frame. I had to re-machine the bearing recesses and sort out bearings and machine spacers, etc, to get the swinging arm and rear wheel all lined up. Everything on the swinging arm had to be moved forward by 65mm, including the shock mounts and the cross brace, which were carefully removed with a slitting disc in the angle grinder and then taken over to Cliff Kay’s to be TIG welded back into place. I can gas weld aluminium but I don’t have a TIG welder. It all came together fairly easily.’
Gordon had a lot of his own ideas he wanted to bring to the special party. In particular, he’s not impressed with the modern trend for seats and sub-frames that shoot skywards at the back, leaving a huge gap above the rear wheel. With that in mind, he cut off the entire original sub-frame, leaving just the engine cradle, and started again from scratch. You wouldn’t know to look at it; such is the quality of the workmanship that the whole frame still looks factory standard.
‘The rear shocks are cheapo Chinese ones,’ Gordon continues. ‘I got them to use as a base line to start with, so I could work out where I wanted to be with the suspension. The spring rate wasn’t bad actually. I don’t like things too hard, at my age I like my bikes to be comfy. But the damping was rubbish, they didn’t give at all. I drilled out the body and drained out what looked like treacle. Then I welded on some threaded plugs and refilled them with very light oil (might even have been diesel, I can’t quite remember now). That allowed them to be little more compliant on the bumps. Now I’ve got them sorted, a new set of Hagon shocks to this spec will be fitted over the winter.’