70's Bahne fibreglass board

My sister grabbed this for me at a rummage sale this weekend.  Six bucks! 

This video rules!

December 1978 Cycle Guide Triumph T140 review

Enjoy!

Flea market scores!

Hit a local flea market that do once a year in late summer about five minutes from my house.  Some guy had eight boxes of records, tons of good shit, two bucks a piece!  Nabbed these, all sleeves and vinyl basically near mint.  I would have gotten some more but some dick who was selling records at a booth three aisles over was cherry picking a bunch of stuff.  I know he was taking them and marking the prices of up and flipping them right then and there.  Oh well, I was still happy with what I found!  The Hendrix Axis Bold as Love LP sounds really nice and was a nice find.

New to me bike hauler...

My grandfather passed away last year and left behind a lot of stuff.  I was lucky enough to get his old '87 GMC Sierra.  2wd with a 302 in it.  86k miles, pretty clean.  It'll be a fun truck to mess around with and haul motorcycles around when needed, plus it was my grandfathers.

Some good record scores this past week

My wife's aunt is moving out of her house and she was getting rid of some records she found.  I took them without knowing what I'd find.  After weeding through dozens of herb alpert, johnny mathis, and Englebert Humperdink records I found some good shit!

I'd take these for free all day long.

Grabbed these at a used record store for 18 bucks. 

new T25 plan

I had some dental issues and wound up having to spend a ton of money getting it fixed, so I've decided to simplify the T25 project.  I was beginning to feel like I was trying to re-invent the wheel with my initial plan, so I'm going to use the original tank and not get too carried away making it something it's not. 

So I shortened the rear fender and propped some stuff up to hold the rear wheel up in order to get some inspiration.  I really dig the way it looks. 

 

 I was thinking of lowering the bike so it will look like this mock up pic.  I'd have to shorten the forks or get a smaller diameter wheel.  Moving the rear shock mounts would lower the rear I suppose. 

Heavy as fuck. 1968. Stoner rock before it was called stoner rock.

Salivating like Pavlov's dog.

Been staring at this '59 Triumph I came across on the Jockey Journal for ten minutes now.  Such a sick looking bike.

more TR25 work

I bought some 3/16" flat stock aluminum plate and cut out some brackets I'm going to use as rear motor mounts.  They'll be bolted to the motor, and then bolted to some tabs I plan on making and welding to the frame.  This is the same setup as my B50 and it seems to work well.  I don't have any fancy milling machines so it was a sawzall to rough cut it, then some big flat files to finish it.

Not bad for handmade!

something like this

I also decided I might ditch the stock footpegs and footpeg brackets.  They weigh a ton!  The stock battery tray will probably be replaced with something lighter as well.  I want to give that little 250 all the help I can.

Sydney Portier on his BSA

I love my T140

Went for a short ride this afternoon and snapped this photo.  Yeah, it's just a oil in frame, mostly stock Bonneville, but it's mine and I love it.  It's part of the family.  I like how motorcycles can become that way.

eBay tank

The tank came today, it's in better shape then I thought it would be, with multiple layers iofdifferent color paint, a few dents, and just some minor surface rust inside.  Bad news is that it's about an inch and a half too long to fit the T25 frame without doing some serious cutting and welding.  Technically it's the same length as the stock tank, but the stock tank is notched out to fit the frame tubes where the seat would butt up to the tank itself.   I'm not so sure I want to butcher this tank just to make it fit, so I'm on to plan B, which is find something else that'll work without re-inventing the wheel.  I'd buy a tank like this one again for 40 bucks and change any day of the week, so I'm not really bummed it won't work on this bike.  I'll shelve it for a future project.

New tank for the T25 project

I was able to score an old pre-unit Triumph tank on ebay for less than 50 bucks shipped, so I'm going to see what it looks like on the T25 frame.  I was going to use the stock tank so I welded and silver soldered the few rust holes it had, smoothed it out, and got in primer, but I just don't like the shape of the tank.  It's just too big and boxy, making the entire bike look smaller.  I'm hoping the eBay tank will make the bike look a little more proportional, or some shit like that.  I'm just winging it here, but I'm gonna try to make it work!

Pics to come

Steve

Bruce Dern

Bruce Dern rules.  As a kid the 'Burbs became one of my favorite movies, and Bruce is fucking great in it!  Later on I watched him in all the 60's motorcycle movies like The Wild Angels and Cycle Savages, and he ruled in them too.

"Ricky!  Get this lame-o out of your yard!"

Triumph soft tail chopper is pretty killer!

Keeg

The Loser

Inspired by the look of this BSA

Thinking my 68 Triumph T25 project should be inspired by this BSA, at least style wise anyway.  This bike just looks like a total ripper!  No front fender, simple red tank with decal, tracker bars, short rear fender with some dual sport or trials bike tires on it.  Could be cool!

I did a little bit of work on the oil tank of the T25, cut off the ears for the outer cover clips, since I won't be using the stock outer cover anyway.

Managed to get them cut off without cutting into the tank.

I threw a skim coat of body filler over the areas to smooth things out, but I'm not done sanding yet.  

I also removed the old bushings in the swingarm, cleaned and sanded it, then hit with some gloss black Rustoleum Appliance Epoxy paint. I'll get some more pics up soon.

British dirtbags

Some local history...

This is an old ad from a 1964 issue of Cylce Magazine for BMW with dealer Hank Sleger featured in it.  He ran a dealership for years and years in North Jersey, selling lots of European bikes, and later became partners with Malcolm Forbes.  Hank's son Ed took over the business and sold bikes for many years.  In fact my '71 BSA B50 MX that was given to me by a family friend that raced bikes, actually raced them with Ed, who lives a half a mile down the road from me.  It's kind of neat to know the history of an old bike from when it was new, and see where it winds up.  The guy that gave me the BSA was a good friend of my grandfather's for many years.  He told me not that long ago he threw out a bunch of old pictures of him at the scrambles with the bike back in the early 70's.  He didn't think anyone would be interested in seeing them so he tossed them.  Fuck I probably would of put the them in frames and hung them in my garage!

Garage Sale scores from this morning...

Paid 8 bucks for all, in really nice shape.  The Rolling Stones High Tide is a mono pressing  I already have all of them but two, but for a buck a piece you buy them anyway.  Good for trading or selling later.

MC5 apprecition post.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS I WANNA TELL YOU SOMETHING.
I HEAR A LOTTA TALK, BY A LOTTA HONKIES, SITTIN' ON A LOTTA MONEY, TELLIN' ME THEY'RE HIGH SOCIETY. 

WELL YOU KNOW WHAT? 

THIS IS THE HIGH SOCIETY MAN!!! THIS IS THE HIGH SOCIETY!!!

Garage Update

Got a lot done in my garage the past week.  Threw out a bunch more shit I didn't need anymore, rearranged some things, hung another 4ft fluorescent light on the ceiling, bought a new bench grinder, hung up some posters and things I never had  a place to hang up before, and so on. 

Last Friday I snagged these two vintage KLH speakers at the Salvation Army for ten bucks.  They weigh a ton and sound great.  The receiver I already had, but didn't have speakers for, so I was psyched to find those KLHs. 

Cleaned my new to me vise up and hit it with a coat of Rustoleum.  I like vises with color on them. I think it makes things easier to see when you're working on them, due to the contrast between the vise and the part itself.  Unless you are working on a red part I guess.

That's a parking block I single handily "borrowed" from the parking lock of a park down the street this past winter by myself.  Fucker is heavy!.  There was a bunch of them pushed off to the side covered in moss and dirt.  I salvaged one, took it home, wire wheeled it and threw like four coats of yellow tractor paint on it to get it smooth.  I can boardslide the entire thing, and do a half ass axle stall on it, but that's about it.  My goal is to slappy it by the end of summer.  I'm old so cut me a break. 

Still need to get an air compressor, and drill press would be nice too.  but as of now it's much nicer to work in then it ever was before.  Good enough to skate in too.

Father's Day

I'm one lucky scumbag.  My daughter is 5 now and I honestly don't know where the time goes.  Trying to savor every bit of it, but it goes by fast.

The Warlocks

Another one of my favorites.  Really trippy and dark.

H.S.T.

I read this book every summer and it never gets old.  It had to have taken some serious guts to write it.  For real. 

Representing NJ for a time.

Trying to sort my garage out...

Redoing my garage.  Goal is to make it a functional space to work on my bike or whatever project I've got going on.  I'm a mechanic at a golf course so most of my good tools, welders, and so forth are at the shop at work. I still have a lot of tools at home, just never a practical or comfortable space to work.  It's been kind of fun setting things up from scratch.

Built a new workbench to accompany the old one I had.  I like a high work bench.  Also hung my wrenches for easy access.

Redoing my garage.  Goal is to make it a functional space to work on my bike or whatever project I've got going on.  I'm a mechanic at a golf course so most of my good tools, welders, and so forth are at the shop at work. I still have a lot of tools at home, just never a practical or comfortable space to work.  It's been kind of fun setting things up from scratch.

Still getting shit organized.

Where I'm currently at.  Still got some work to do for sure.

Today's flea market scores.

Flea market was pretty good this morning!  Picked up a few cool things and only spent $50 bucks.

Found Empire and Jedi Burger King/Coca Cola promo glasses.  I've had the New Hope glass for years, now my set is complete.

Nice heavy old American made vice, $40 bucks!

Old Army Corps of Engineers topographical map of the Barneget Bay area.  My grandfather had a house in Waretown for 20 years and I've got a lot of fond memories as a kid going down there.  He was into fishing and had all sorts of nautical charts hanging in his shop, so this brings back memories.  $5 bucks!  I was psyched to find this!

Totally underrated Iommi riff. Sabotage is an underrated record.

I'm looking through a hole in the sky
I'm seeing nowhere through the eyes of a lie
I'm getting closer to the end of the line
I'm living easy where the sun doesn't shine

I'm living in a room without any view
I'm living free because the rent's never due
The synonyms of all the things that I've said
Are just the riddles that are built in my head

Hole in the sky, take me to heaven
Window in time, through it I fly

I've seen the stars disappear in the sun
The shooting's easy if you've got the right gun
And even though I'm sitting waiting for Mars
I don't believe there's any future in cause

Hole in the sky, take me to heaven
Window in time, through it I fly
Yeah

Kelly Leak