Best 80’s Bike ?

My absolute fave from the past was my ‘74 Yamaha XS2 650. Didn’t handle but so much macho character, the sound!
 
Well, speirmoor it’s just occurred to me… you’ve never had a Triumph… and now you want a bike from the 80s…

Two birds… one stone… sorted…

Best 80’s Bike ?
 
Thats one I haven't considered. Nice looking Triumph.
I'm always looking at 50's ThunderBirds and 60's Tiger Cubs for some reason
 
Fast Eddie said:
Well, speirmoor it’s just occurred to me… you’ve never had a Triumph… and now you want a bike from the 80s…

Two birds… one stone… sorted…
Click to expand...

Yeah, if it was an 80s Triumph, it would be one of a long line of "Never Should Have Sold" bikes...

'83 T140W Bonneville TSS "Electro" 8-valve with electronic ignition, alloy wheels, triple discs, and e-start.

126-83TRI.JPG
 
Best 80s bike I ever owned was my new 81 Triumph Thunderbird, same size bore as the 750 Bonnies but shorter stroke, single Amal carb, single front disc and rear drum brakes, they made 2 models one for the Europe market and one for the USA market, mine was the one for the USA market with the smaller tank and blue and silver paint job, this was a simple bike but it handled well, was very reliable, always started on first kick every time whether cold or hot, it just kept going, it was a very smooth bike to ride a lot smoother than the 750 Bonnies at the time, I ended up putting a 2 rare earth Joe Hunt magneto as I got a rebuilt one cheap off my mate, had short reverse cone mufflers and Koni shocks on it.
My biggest regret was selling it, I clocked up 250K kms on that bike in 9+ years of owning it, did a lot of long distant travels on it and started to date my wife on that bike she also went on a few long travels on the back, it just kept going and I did a full top end rebuild on it before selling it, didn't touch the bottom end, the 81 Thunderbird never made it to the USA at the time and there was 5 on the production line when the factory workers got locked out, I brought it new when I was building/converting my Commando to the Featherbed frame as I needed a bike for work back in the early 80s, cost was $4,100 on the road at the time, it pulled like a train up in the steep ranges and went like the clappers with that short stroke motor, a friend gave me a old bread box tank for longer mileage range when traveling as the small USA peanut tank was small compared to the bread box tank, here are a few pics of it.
Not sure why the first pic rotated that way has never done that before when using this pic, the second pic is arriving at my brothers place after a 600 mile trip from Brisbane to Sydney then a few days later to Bathurst to the Easter bike races all up did a 4k miles+ road trip, in the last pic with the bread box tank and JH magneto + my old red cattle dog Aussie.
IMG_20191225_083343[1516].jpg
IMG_20170501_161543[1557].jpg
IMG_20191225_083318[1543].jpg
 
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Fast Eddie said:
A cracking bike.
But a bit of a diva…
Click to expand...
Not sure what the implication of "diva" is, but it was a fine bike.

The more I think about it, maybe the reason I sold it (besides a healthy profit) was because I never "got" to WORK on it.

Not so much as adding air to the tires! Completely stone reliable. E-start first bit of a crank and it was lit. Carb'ed cleanly right up to red line. Nary a dribble or drool of oil. Not a single burned idiot light bulb. ZIP, ZERO, NADA.
 
grandpaul said:
Not sure what the implication of "diva" is, but it was a fine bike.

The more I think about it, maybe the reason I sold it (besides a healthy profit) was because I never "got" to WORK on it.

Not so much as adding air to the tires! Completely stone reliable. E-start first bit of a crank and it was lit. Carb'ed cleanly right up to red line. Nary a dribble or drool of oil. Not a single burned idiot light bulb. ZIP, ZERO, NADA.
Click to expand...
Diva as in can be ‘high maintenance’ and / or ‘demanding’.

TSS’s are famed for a whole number of potential flaws, all of which can be put down to the fact the factory was skint, so R&D time was limited, and the factory were kinda held over a barrel by some suppliers, and given the precarious state of affairs at the time, assembly wasn’t always of the ‘hand built by British craftsmen’ type !

All of the faults can be addressed, it’s just that owning, maintaining, fixing and rebuilding one is certainly not as straightforward as it is with a plain Jane T140.
 
Fast Eddie said:
Diva as in can be ‘high maintenance’ and / or ‘demanding’.

TSS’s are famed for a whole number of potential flaws, all of which can be put down to the fact the factory was skint, so R&D time was limited, and the factory were kinda held over a barrel by some suppliers, and given the precarious state of affairs at the time, assembly wasn’t always of the ‘hand built by British craftsmen’ type !

All of the faults can be addressed, it’s just that owning, maintaining, fixing and rebuilding one is certainly not as straightforward as it is with a plain Jane T140.
Click to expand...
I had heard of the porous 8-valve head, mine didn't have that problem.

As already stated before, that particular TSS never needed so much as a clutch cable adjustment.
 
speirmoor said:
Thats one I haven't considered. Nice looking Triumph.
I'm always looking at 50's ThunderBirds and 60's Tiger Cubs for some reason
Click to expand...
Yeah, the rigid Thunderbirds or the 54-56 swinging arm T110 get my juices flowing too!

I’ve been a Triumph nut since I was a kid. Got 3 currently. Still got the 59’ Tiger Cub that my Dad bought me when I was 12 to keep me off the streets and out of trouble. Almost worked too, difficult to get into trouble wrenching in the shed every night !

The late T140s however, IMO at least, are perhaps the most under rated classic.

The caveat is that you need to test ride before buying, otherwise you’re playing Russian Roulette with the crank balance. A bad one is awful. A well balanced one is as good as any other solid mounted classic twin, better than most and perfectly fine at reasonable rpms.

Disc brakes, decent electrics, 5 speed box, torquey motor, comfortable seat and ergonomics, wonderful handling and great looks. They’re good bikes.
 
grandpaul said:
I had heard of the porous 8-valve head, mine didn't have that problem.

As already stated before, that particular TSS never needed so much as a clutch cable adjustment.
Click to expand...
Personally I have my doubts that the porous head issue was anywhere near as bad as folklore suggests. I believe that most of the oil leaks blamed on porosity were more than likely caused by other issues.

There was however a longer list of possible (possible… not certain) failure modes, but let’s not go into that here !
 
Fast Eddie said:
...The late T140s however, IMO at least, are perhaps the most under rated classic.

The caveat is that you need to test ride before buying, otherwise you’re playing Russian Roulette with the crank balance. A bad one is awful. A well balanced one is as good as any other solid mounted classic twin, better than most and perfectly fine at reasonable rpms.
Click to expand...
MANY (most?) cases involve overloaded sludge traps.
 
Kawasaki GPZ900R - but I would not know what to do with it. I saw a very nice Suzuki GSXR 750 L, but I could not get my hands on it. Very few road bikes have close ratio gear boxes, but that one does. My mate bought a pristine Yamaha RZ350. He did a lot of searching to find NOS needle jets for it. But it really gets up and goes.
 
My 2 '83 GS1100E's are great, got them FREE with a huge stash of new spares. It's my fave 80s bike. I just painted one of the two spare sets of body parts, final clear over decals - the other tank/covers/rear is done, waiting for correction to some base coat issues. I'm a novice. But learning. One red bike, one soon to be blue, even better than the red one with mods to brakes (CB900RR), oil cooler. I have pods and pipe but prefer the stock setup, runs perfect. 20K miles on each. Woohooo!

The Suzuki is very heavy but once underway is great, love the motor. Still, I ride my N15CS 2x more. Here's a pic of the paint and the red Suzuki that I rattle-can clear-coated (2K). next to the widow's '71 Commando I restored/sold.

Best 80’s Bike ?


Best 80’s Bike ?
 

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