Parallel LiveS
by Martin Harris
My Triumph story started in 1971 when I bought a 1955 Terrier from a friend for £15 plus a Lambretta Li125 (which I’d bought rather unenthusiastically for a tenner as a means to get mobile on my 16th birthday). The Terrier and I were registered within the same month but while I may have deteriorated somewhat over the years, the Terrier is in much better condition now than it was while we were both teenagers!
I had been looking out for a Cub but couldn’t afford any that I’d seen in Exchange & Mart. Life with a 16 year old Terrier wasn’t always straightforward… for instance, I seized the engine resulting in a long push home and a rebore; and learnt to carry an extensive tool kit in my jacket pockets!
It had been covered liberally in green paint (to a reasonable standard), whether for some particular purpose or just at a previous owner’s whim is something lost in the mists of time. The original sale was through Frank Freeman Ltd. of Hammersmith but other than the friend I bought it from, I had no previous ownership details in the continuation logbook.
I had been looking out for a Cub but couldn’t afford any that I’d seen in Exchange & Mart. Life with a 16 year old Terrier wasn’t always straightforward… for instance, I seized the engine resulting in a long push home and a rebore; and learnt to carry an extensive tool kit in my jacket pockets!
It had been covered liberally in green paint (to a reasonable standard), whether for some particular purpose or just at a previous owner’s whim is something lost in the mists of time. The original sale was through Frank Freeman Ltd. of Hammersmith but other than the friend I bought it from, I had no previous ownership details in the continuation logbook.
I used the Terrier for some time before my father weakened his resolve not to help me buy a “deathtrap” motorcycle and lent me the money to buy a much more modern 1967 Super Cub in red and chrome - the one with a T20 engine in a D10 Bantam frame. Oddly, the registration now shows on the DVLA database as a black Triumph with a 490cc engine?
Sorry for the lack of quality in the picture (left), it's a still from a digitised copy of a VHS copy of a Standard 8 cine film
I let a friend have the Terrier when I moved on to a 1968 T120 Bonneville. In keeping with Sir Edward Turner’s design philosophy, I was always struck by the similarity in feel between the Terrier and a friend’s 5TA; especially compared to the same relationship between the Super Cub and my Bonneville.
My friend stripped the Terrier down and started to restore it, but lost interest after getting married. It moved from a shed in his parents’ garden to one at his new house, moving again with him when he moved on. After some years in his garage, the semi-assembled parts were moved into his garden to make space for a freezer. I hinted strongly that I would be happy to buy it back, but it wasn’t until after my Bonneville was stolen and I’d helped him move house with the help of my trailer, that he surprised me by giving me the bike (and an old water tank full of the assorted parts that hadn’t gone missing over the years) to take home in the trailer with me. This was on the eve of the great storm of 1987 so it didn’t reach the safety of my garage a day too soon. After a year or two’s exposure to the elements, as well as expected deterioration, water had ingressed into the engine unit and most of the gearbox components were corroded beyond salvation.
My friend stripped the Terrier down and started to restore it, but lost interest after getting married. It moved from a shed in his parents’ garden to one at his new house, moving again with him when he moved on. After some years in his garage, the semi-assembled parts were moved into his garden to make space for a freezer. I hinted strongly that I would be happy to buy it back, but it wasn’t until after my Bonneville was stolen and I’d helped him move house with the help of my trailer, that he surprised me by giving me the bike (and an old water tank full of the assorted parts that hadn’t gone missing over the years) to take home in the trailer with me. This was on the eve of the great storm of 1987 so it didn’t reach the safety of my garage a day too soon. After a year or two’s exposure to the elements, as well as expected deterioration, water had ingressed into the engine unit and most of the gearbox components were corroded beyond salvation.
Some years went by while I visited autojumbles to source missing and badly deteriorated parts as well as making several purchases from Hamrax before their sad closure. A major boost was while chatting to a workmate about the problems locating a new cylinder barrel (mine was at maximum rebore size, had several missing fins and had some severe pitting from its time in the elements) and he told me that he thought his father had a Terrier engine from an abandoned trials bike project.
This turned out to be a completely disassembled engine with many spare parts including a rebored cylinder with a new piston, which I snapped up at a very reasonable price and it kickstarted the restoration. I built a good engine in my original crankcase using the best of the assorted parts and started on the running gear.
My friend had had the frame stove enamelled incorrectly in black so I resprayed it, which actually pulled concave areas away from the frame as it dried, so I had it powder coated as close to Amaranth Red as I could find and I finished it in cellulose, reasoning that any chips in service would be less noticeable.
Despite trawling many autojumbles (this was before the internet came of age) I was still missing some parts, but after a chance encounter with a Terrier owner at a local classic show, it turned out that he lived less than two miles from me and had several of the remaining items I had been searching for. These included a gear indicator rack and almost as an afterthought, a pair of original handlebars with integral brake levers, unfortunately extremely corroded but potentially a good source of the lever brackets to fit to some standard bars. When I took a selection of parts to a local chroming company, I took them along to ask their opinion on whether welding or brazing the lever mounts on would be a better choice, and they said leave them with them and they’d see if they could polish out the extensive pitting. Amazingly, when I went to collect the parts, they presented me with a smooth and gleaming pair, the only downside being that I needed to glue the left hand grip on due to the reduced diameter.
After this came the hard work of repairing/refinishing the tinwork and various fabrication jobs, such as turning the missing top half of an original throttle twistgrip from brass, and nickel plating it with a home plating kit; an interesting and rewarding exercise. Leaving some plated parts unpolished gave a "period" finish to them, although without originals to hand I didn't know whether they were painted or plated.
Respraying in progress
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Nickel plated parts, including the twistgrip top half
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Wheel building was a first for me but after making a jig, the job was fairly straightforward, although I failed to get the rear wheel offset correct and had to remedy this at a later date. Building up was done in my spare room (with the blessing of my wife). A particularly rewarding experience assembling the clean and freshly refurbished parts. Bringing it down the stairs was not as terri(er)fying an experience as I’d feared and after filling it with oils and petrol, the legendary first kick start in spring 2001 was everything I’d hoped for. An MOT test followed and I was free to enjoy riding my Terrier once again. Although the Terrier left my care for quite a few years, it was never re-registered nor any paperwork exchanged, so I can claim (perhaps a little tenuously) continuous ownership since 1971. |
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