Trophy 1200 Update

[atomsplitter]

Tom and family left today for South Padre Island for vacation so I'm without the help I usually have. So today I wanted to see why the bike was idling at 5000 RPM (up 1000 after new plugs installed). I removed the left side coil and looked at the adjusting barrel on the throttle cable. It appeared the barrel was about 2/3 to 3/4 all the way out. I then got my fingers wedged in where I could get a spin on the locking nut and began backing that off. After about 5 minutes of 1/4 turns I jiggled the cable and checked the throttle grip feel. Felt like it was still attached to the carb spring (no play). To see if that was where the problem was I started the bike on full choke and the bike started and idled about 2000 RPM for a few seconds then moved upscale to 3200 RPM and I shut the choke off. The engine RPM dropped to 1100 and sat there purring. OK then. Next will come synchroniztion (where the rubber meets the diaphram). If it won't synch the diaphrams have to be changed out. Luckily that can be done with the carbs in place, so better.

 

[atomsplitter]

Well today is not so hot that I can't take a few minutes to check caarb sync, so I hooked up my guages (liquid manometers) and gave it a go. The right two cylinders were off by quite a bit and the left two within reason. Getting them matched was easy enough. The absolute female dog occurred when I tried to match the two sides at the center adjuster. The Trophy has a large center spine for a frame and it is directily above the center carb adjuster. I have a looong phillips and finally was able to get a side-angle attack on the screw head and twist it. Now it runs a lot better and I still have a throttle cable issue to sort, but it's a lot closer to running right.

 

[Tripps]

 

[Bigjaype]

Tom called me last night saying he was taking today off and asked if he could come over early to work on the Trophy. Sure enough he showed up at 0655 and we proceeded to first put gas in the aux tank with new hoses now attached. Same problem, only this time the leak was coming from the ball valve in the line, so I have a new ball valve coming later today. We then changed the spark plugs, all of which showed signs of too rich mix, likely due to the filthy air filter we took out and replaced. I had to teach him how to gap plugs but he was able to get it done. After the plugs we tackled replacing the chain. That required getting the rear wheel in the air so we put my scissors jack under the center stand, tied the front forks down to the lift table with a cinch strap and then scissored the rear wheel off the table. I used my chain breaker to push out one rivet and the chain parted. I used the new link master link to connect the old chain to new and had Tom pull the old chain straight out> The old chain fed the new easily and then removed the old chain entirely. I asked Tom to loosen the pinch bolts on the eccentric adjusters so I could get enough slack in the new chain to join it. That put the rear tire into the jack but I had enough slack to join the chain ends. We verified we had O-rings on the inside and I put O-rings on the outside, put the master link plate on and then finagled the retaining clip on. My chain tool has the bits and bobs to join a continuous chain but I opted for the master link style to save a few bucks. After that we attacked the coolant overflow tank issue. The tank had old antifreeze in it and we wanted to get some fresh coolant in, so to do that we had to remove the tank from the inner fender assembly. It took about 30 minutes trying to decide how to do that since the factory riveted the tank onto the sub fender. Tom decided to just remove the fender with tank attached so we did that. The coolant in the tank was a 50-50 mix of coolant and mud. Tom rinsed the tank out as much as possible and then we reassembled the unit, poured in some fresh antifreeze and buttoned it back up.

At this point we have the majority of mechanical work done so it's a mattter of getting the engine tuned and the body work restored. Still haven't heard from the body shop on the fuel tank, hope that happens this week.

Throwing some raw rice with dishwashing liquid and water into the coolant overflow tank and then giving it a good shake cleans it up a treat. Removes all that brown gunk from every little nook and cranny.
Just make sure all the rice is removed after.

 

[atomsplitter]

Or use a Color Tune.....which I have................and will................

 

[Tripps]

Absolutely no idea what that is?

 

[atomsplitter]

Absolutely no idea what that is?

It's a see thru spark plug (Item A), the top of the plug is transparent. The C item in the photo is a tube that fits over the plug in recessed heads (like the Trophy) so you can see the spark flame color. Item D is the spark plug lead you attach to the plug and coil lead. There's a color chart with the kit that shows the ideal flame color at idle and you tweak the idle air screw until the color is correct for a proper mix at idle. Since everything above idle is based on jetting and throttle plate position the kit only is used for idle mix adjustment. Typically this was the method used by Ferarri when they ran carburetted engines in their high performance cars. The principal is: less fiddling, more fine tuning. Since you aren't "guessing" the mix but adjusting it on proper flame color, it's extremely accurate. I used this tuner on my XS1100 back in the day and it's gang-busters (air mix on the top of the carb, super easy). The air mix screws on the Trophy are on the bottom so I'll have to use my 90 degree tool, more 'fiddly' than I like but workable.

 

[Tripps]

Ingenious

 

[atomsplitter]

Ingenious

Pictures worth a thousand words:

 

[atomsplitter]

Yesterday Tom came over to work on the Trophy so we worked more on the carburetion and have that settled to the point of a test ride. Before we can do that we had to address some other issues, like the brakes. So I siphoned all the old fluid out of the reserviors and Tom cleaned them out. I didn't take the fluid out of the pistons so we could refill the reservoirs and flush the lines and calipers. That took most of a bottle of DOT 4. After that we we decided to tackle the forks and ran into a problem with the brake calipers. They are mounted on the fork stantions with T55 Torx bolts. My biggest Torx bit is a T50. How did I figure that out? Easy. After determining I needed a bigger bit I dashed over to the nearest O'Reilly's Auto Parts and bought the two biggest Torx bits they had, a T60 and T70. When I got back I determined I had the wrong size too big. This time I took the extra 20 seconds to look at the biggest bit in my set and read right on the barrel T50. Well then back to O'Reilly's and obtain a T55 and viola, calipers off. No muss, minimal fuss.

The clip-ons Triumph fitted to the Trophy use spacers that are held by two recessed setscrews (allens). The right spacer had one allen missing and the other backed out so it popped right off. We assumed the other would pop off because we didn't notice those setscrews. The left side screws were still torqued in (naturally). Because the first spacer had popped off easy enough we were a bit mystified about the left hand spacer not coming off or breaking loose with a rubber mallet tapping. That's when we discovered the setscrews. Genius. We got one fork leg out and set about dismanting it. Tom got a flat blade screw driver tip under the dust cover and pried it out revealing the circlip and fork seal. We then unscrewed the fork cap and were rewarded with an explosion of parts when the fork spring launched the cap. We recovered the parts and I compressed the fork a bit and removed the fork spring. I then inverted the fork over my oil catch pan and watched as a dark gray-black semi-viscous fluid ran out. You could smell it a block away, the scintillating aroma of ancient automotive workshop (a.k.a. sweet crude). After we had the oil down to a drip we removed the circlip and then inverted the fork to access the damper rod retaining bolt. That required removing a plastic plug in the access hole and then finding the correct size allen from my long allen. socket set. I asked Tom to retrieve my pneumatic impact wrench so we could get the bolt broken free from the damper rod. Triumph has a tool that recesses into the top of the damper rod to hold it while the damer rod bolt is removed. I don't have that tool and I didn't feel like making one from bar stock (although there is a great Youtube vid on this topic). I selected the reverse direction on my impact driver and squeezed the trigger. That resulted in the bolt spinning at warp factor 2. Hmmmnnn. Well lets see how deep the damper rod is and see if maybe we can jam a stick in it. I lifted the fork leg out of the catch pan and the damper rod fell out. Cool beans. Thats when we noticed rotten fork oil spreading everywhere as it gushed out. Apparently when you let air in the bottom of the fork leg it breaks the vacuum in the fork leg holding the oil back. Not cool at all.

With the damper rod out and circlip removed I rammed the fork leg stanchion lower busing washer against the fork seal and the seal began moving out and after about 4 raps the fork came apart. We now had the fork disassembled and could inspect the bits and bobs and Tom took some brake cleaner and began cleaning all the parts, including fork springs. As a precaution I purchased new Race Tech fork springs, however to install them would require cutting spacers to fit into the fork tube. Race Tech provides the tube and washers to make the spacer so all is good, but when we pulled the spring out we discovered it's progessively wound, which would provide a smoother ride than the Race Tech units which aren't progressive, so we're going to refit the stockers. The lower bushing after cleanup was a bit dubious and I was concerned about it's serviceability so I took it to Eurosport for an evaluation and Tony (the owner) said it was fine, minimal wear and would last a long time yet. He based that on the inner surface teflon was still intact. So looks like we just need to reassemble the fork with new seals and dust cap (arrived last Wednesday) and fresh oil (arrived last Monday). After the forks are done we'll put the bike totally back together, skins and all and take it for a test ride. I'll post up how that goes. Might even try to figure out how to Youtube the event (my GoPro can make the video, I just need to figure out how to post it).