Smooth bonnie

baz

baz

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Apologies if this is well known
I hadn't seen it before
 

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Hi Baz
Ash does find some fantastic projects.
I remember reading about the GCE balance weight engine but never saw it in the flesh. The write up sounded good but its not appearance is not very appealing. Would not have sold in my opinion. My mate Nick had the Atv? Rubber mounted Bonnie, not many of those & not heard of one with high mileage.
 
Chris said:
Hi Baz
Ash does find some fantastic projects.
I remember reading about the GCE balance weight engine but never saw it in the flesh. The write up sounded good but its not appearance is not very appealing. Would not have sold in my opinion. My mate Nick had the Atv? Rubber mounted Bonnie, not many of those & not heard of one with high mileage.
Click to expand...
Yep
He's also turned up a left shift rocket 3 to restore
 
Chris said:
Hi Baz
Ash does find some fantastic projects.
I remember reading about the GCE balance weight engine but never saw it in the flesh. The write up sounded good but its not appearance is not very appealing. Would not have sold in my opinion. My mate Nick had the Atv? Rubber mounted Bonnie, not many of those & not heard of one with high mileage.
Click to expand...
Tony and Martin at TMS told me that the AV system worked well BUT all the linkages and pivot points on the chassis wore quickly. They weren’t fans.
 
Baz, I’d never heard of this before either, so thanks for posting. Can I ask who Ash is, and what the plan is for this bike? ( and the R3, which sounds interesting). Regarding the AV version, I have a picture of a frame somewhere, and it seems pretty simple TBH. It wasn’t like the ISO system, but utilized off the shelf rubber mounts, some of which (I think) were Morris Marina gearbox mounts. I’m not home at the moment, but will post it when I’m home.
Click to expand...
 
The AV frame was not so simple Cliffa.
The swinging arm was still solid mounted. So the engine was also ‘solid’ mounted but in a way that it pivoted around that point when vibrating.
 
This is all I've seen
 

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I find it interesting that Meriden were investing resources into projects like this, and the AV frame, but didn’t invest in ensuring that the cranks in the stock bikes were balanced properly !

A good dynamic balance job transforms most Triumphs twins. I can’t help thinking they’d have been better off doing this than going off on these other fanciful tangents.
 
Fast Eddie said:
I find it interesting that Meriden were investing resources into projects like this, and the AV frame, but didn’t invest in ensuring that the cranks in the stock bikes were balanced properly !

A good dynamic balance job transforms most Triumphs twins. I can’t help thinking they’d have been better off doing this than going off on these other fanciful tangents.
Click to expand...
I was thinking from the introduction of the t140e that the cranks were dynamically balanced ?
 
baz said:
I was thinking from the introduction of the t140e that the cranks were dynamically balanced ?
Click to expand...
I honestly don’t know if that’s true or not. But the many stories about good uns and bad uns leads me to conclude it’s either not true, or it was executed (and quality controlled) very poorly.
 
Fast Eddie said:
I honestly don’t know if that’s true or not. But the many stories about good uns and bad uns leads me to conclude it’s either not true, or it was executed (and quality controlled) very poorly.
Click to expand...
I seem to remember an article in MCN back when I used buy it that said something like "the Muppets at meriden are finally balancing the cranks"
And I took that as to mean dynamically balanced
As obviously even triumph would have always statically balanced their cranks?
 
baz said:
I seem to remember an article in MCN back when I used buy it that said something like "the Muppets at meriden are finally balancing the cranks"
And I took that as to mean dynamically balanced
As obviously even triumph would have always statically balanced their cranks?
Click to expand...
Motor Cycle News just printed random text.
 
If T140's did not get balanced then it is seriously disturbing that Royal Enfield Inters were dynamically balanced. If they figured it out what on earth happened to Triumph?
My '73 Bonnie could remove your tooth fillings. By 71 BSA removed anything bolted on to it.
 
Fast Eddie said:
I find it interesting that Meriden were investing resources into projects like this, and the AV frame, but didn’t invest in ensuring that the cranks in the stock bikes were balanced properly !

A good dynamic balance job transforms most Triumphs twins. I can’t help thinking they’d have been better off doing this than going off on these other fanciful tangents.
Click to expand...
Design engineers' jobs are to design Trade and Craft workers out of their jobs. Why create an engine that requires an expensive human to operate an expensive machine that occupies expensive floor space in an expensive factory, if it can all be replaced with a couple extra lumps of iron?
 
Onder said:
If T140's did not get balanced then it is seriously disturbing that Royal Enfield Inters were dynamically balanced. If they figured it out what on earth happened to Triumph?
My '73 Bonnie could remove your tooth fillings. By 71 BSA removed anything bolted on to it.
Click to expand...
T140s were definitely ‘balanced’. It’s just that some were balanced (way) better than others!

And, I don’t know if they were dynamically balanced or not, but my money is on not.

But again, perhaps they had a static balancing machine, but little or no control over how well it was operated?!

The Meridian story is sad IMO. Quality control was very poor. Yet it was a co-operative. Workers owned the company. The idea being that that would increase motivation and consciousness. But sadly it didn’t appear to do so.
 

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