1970 Triumph Bonneville 650 parts bike assembly to running

Back in March on BritBike.Com there was a '70 Bonnie for sale with all the frame & black parts already powdercoated, the engine still in one lump, and pretty much all the parts there. The only issue with it NOT being able to be a quick roller for shipping, was that the wheels had been "unlaced" with a set of bolt cutters.

Anyway, I made the deal, a U-Shipper was been booked, and it arrived in my shop mid-May. So, this will be my build thread, with all the highs and lows (many of the former, and very few of the latter, I hope).

The best bit: powdercoated frame with complete engine - 75% of the value (maybe more).



Matching numbers!

5/12

The first job was unloading the frame with engine, and 4 large totes, solo. I decided it would be easier to pull the engine back out of the frame (it wasn't bolted in, and ANYTHING might've happened) - The "easy" way, laid it down on a sheet of hardboard, then lifted the frame off-



The next part was a bit harder! My bike jack only goes so high, so I employed a cinder block in a novel manner-

May 12

Since the wheel hubs had been chopped from the rims, I had to scramble to come up with a pair of wheels to roll the mutha around with. Closest thing I could find was a rusty old Commando front wheel and a broken Chinese rear wheel with both of them needing to be shod which was no small feat with hard old donor tires...



Rear end done, "oops" on missing one fork leg (and both seal cups)



I did pull the valance from the front hub and pulled the spoke stubs out, but forgot to bring the hubs and rims home to box up and send to Buchanan's. Oh well, no rush.

May 13th

I KNEW I had an old fork lower leg in my tubs of parts... SURE ENOUGH! AND, it's the correct side (right side)



YEEF! Talk about ROUGH... I cleaned the inside really well, and gave it a quick spray on the outside after I assembled it. Still missing both lower fork cups (chrome).

Installed the sidestand, tank, seat, rear fender, new tail light, and a few other parts, and it's now a roller!



I wasted a good hour pulling handlebars & mounts off of a Yamaha scooter, then fabricating special spacers, etc, only to FIND THE CARDBOARD BOX WITH THE HANDLEBARS & OEM MOUNTS IN IT!!!

hee hee

Got the rims & hubs boxed and FedEx'ed to Buchanan's.

5/13 Beauty (ugly?) shots





Not bad for just under 11 hours, about an hour totally wasted, so make that 10 hours...

5/22

HOOOOOO boy!!!! Buchanan's ain't cheap, but the wheels are on their way back to me. I can hardly wait!

Just ordered the fork seal holder cups, managed to find a decent used pair for less than half the cost of a new set (a fair bit over $120 for new)

Last of the high-dollar items will be the tires & tubes, by then I SHOULD have the engine running...

(no pix, sorry)

5/29

SCORE!!!! I already had new tires and a rear tube sitting in a corner!



Rims will be here next week, and I re-connected with the shop that used to do all my tires. So, 2 x $50 instead of 2 x $75 double score.

Also found SEVERAL new chains in a paint bucket covered with stuff, not high-dollar, but TRIPLE score!

Your faith is indeed great that you bothered not to break down the power unit for inspection!

6/10

Triumph Bonneville wheels returned from Buchanan's, tires & tubes from e-bay, so the Suzuki T500 wheels also went along to Pigg Pen and got done. $250 (with tip) beats $300 AT THE OTHER place!



OK, so some wheel parts from the Bonnie must have been missing, as were the fork seal cups, right lower fork leg, and Grab Bar. I got as far as I could assembling both brake plates, but I'll need to source the two front brake arms before I have front brakes; the rear is done. The front axle was also missing, but I "happened" to have a spare in my stash from W-A-Y back in 2007 when I bought out a guy's 7 Britbikes and half dozen tubs of spares. "that was handy". Fork seal cups came from Canada (ebay)



It was a real struggle getting the forks together, it's only been 9 years since the last set that I assembled. I came up with a brilliant plan which worked to perfection - I cut a piece of 2" PVC and used it to "press" in the fork seals in the cups, using my bench vice. Sure, why not?!



This is how long the PVC needs to be, in a 4" vice



The rear wheel assembly took quite a bit of scrounging to find 7 of 8 suitable bolt & nut pairs to mount the brake drum to the bub, and I had to add 4 links and a 2nd master link to the best chain I could find, to make it fit; all done. Chainguard will go on next time, as will the wiring harness and a few other bits...



NOW it looks like a Bonnie! I robbed the points cover from my race bike 'till I can get a replacement.

Onder said:

Your faith is indeed great that you bothered not to break down the power unit for inspection!

Click to expand...

I'm going in with my Wifi borescope before I attempt a start-up. Still needs the wiring harness installed and connected, the carbs cleaned up, and the oil & fuel lines installed, then of course, all the fluids (oil tank, transmission and forks)

Ordered:
Grab bar
Speedo drive
Points cover(s) lot purchase
10 lbs. misc. British hardware & bits
Front brake arms
Fork gaiters & plastic bushings
Footpeg, shifter & kicker rubbers
Fuel hose

Getting close!

Thanks for sharing this. Love the old Bonnies....

MichaelB said:

Thanks for sharing this. Love the old Bonnies....

Click to expand...

Strange, I had started ZERO Triumph threads here since July of 2017, almost 10 years ago!

In that time, I've done a few builds & restorations.

I guess I forgot that this section was here, till this morning!

"It's good to be back"