A Tale of Woe

I decided to take my T140E on the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride yesterday. All polished up and clean, sun shining and dressed up to the nines. This was to be the first ride of more than a mile or so since I only got the bike mid-August.

All went well initially - started first kick with no need for choke, rode off up the road pulling well. After about a mile at a road junction it just wouldn't tick over O.K. so just blip it a bit at junctions. 5 miles up the road it starts to misfire! Bugger, it seems to be on one cylinder, a quick fiddle with the plug caps tells me it's missing on both cylinders. By this time I am at the meeting point for the D.G.R. and another kind Triumph rider helps , looks at the plugs (black and soaking like they came from a 2-stroke). The kind gentleman lends me a pair of N3 Champions and tweaks the mixture as it's obviously too rich. The bike still starts first prod and seems not to be missing at a standstill.

Off we ride to the next gathering point about 4 miles off. It now misfires on any more than half throttle and now smokes from the left pot. At this point I decide to cut and run for home, so as the Gentlemen head for Liverpool, I head home only 5 or 6 miles back. Needless to say when I pull in on a narrow street to let a car past it stops and won't restart!

Call out the RAC. By the time the patrol gets to me the bike is cold enough to start, but misfires on anything more than one quarter throttle. The kind RAC man offers to follow me back to my home, so a big thanks to him. I do get back home.

Investigations begin based on the theory that the chokes on the Mk 2 Concentrics may have an issue. The choke plungers are removed and inspected. Right side - a couple of scratches on the plunger otherwise fine and decent movement in carb. Left side - a sooty deposit on the front of the plunger otherwise fine.

I noticed yesterday that the ignition switch was lose and moved through about 30 degrees, so I thought that may have a bad connection that was adding to the problem. Now this switch has a rubber cover over the top so I did not see the bezel that holds the switch in, like an idiot I unscrewed the little screw at the top of the panel. Now I have disconnected all of the wires from the back of the ignition switch. Except that is the tatty bit of wire that bridges out 2 of the terminals. Looking in the manual for help of course none of the wires are the same colours as shown in the wiring diagram and the numbers on the back of the switch are different too.

If anybody has any ideas how I get out of this without taking it to a Classic specialist who will tell me I need new carbs and hundreds of pounds to throw at the bike, then I am open to suggestions.

The River Mersey is quite a way from me otherwise I would have already tipped the Bonneville in this evening!

 

An update on my Bonnie. It is now fixed, thanks to a bit of detective work by the dealer I got it from.

There are two tiny little plastic tubes that run down the outside of each carb with an I.D. of about one eighth of an inch, these had both been trapped when the previous owner put the side panels on with a new stainless steel spring. So that meant that the bike was in effect running on part choke all the time. A re-route of these pipes and all is fine. Simple things! Took it for a hundred mile ride at the weekend - no problems.