Featured T509 Raised From The Dead

Hello, I'm a newbie with a little project! I purchased a T509 Speed Triple in green brand new in 1998, managed 45,000 miles on it in 3 years and went to trade it in for a T695 Sprint ST in 2001 and got declined - the dealer wouldn't offer me anything for my T509 as a trade in. So being young and stupid I decide to strip the bike and build an under seat exhaust of my own design! That didn't go well and I was left with a badly bodged bike which got parked in the shed at the bottom of my garden whilst I moved on with life. So on Boxing fday 2021, I decided to rebuild the bike, I have given myself till end of March 2022 to get the job done. I will now try to add a photo of what the bike looked like when I got it out of the garage:

 

A little bit more history for this project! I have been planning the rebuild for a number of years, and have been keeping an eye on eBay for tempting offers.

Finally last November a T509 came up for £900 in quite a tatty condition and only running on 2 cylinders. The good thing aboutthe bike was it semed to have all the parts that I needed to rebuild my Green bike and also came with a selection of green and black body work, a spare swining are / wheel assembly and a spare exhaust for a T695 (which is handy as I have one of those as well).

The eBay bike made it to my shed, and on Boxing day I started to try to determine why it was only running on 2 cylinders - after a few days I managed to borrow a compression tested and found that no 3 cylinder had no compresion - so I decided to use that bike as a pure donor.

I have since got my original Green bike running, although its a bit smokey (see photo) and I have stripped the swining arm of the eBay bike ready to get it powder coated (see the other photo).

 

Photos below