Hurricane resurrection

GLJ

Never go faster than your guardian angle can fly.
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Oh baby oh baby! :geek: I almost don’t know where to start! I have been thinking about that Hurricane ever since you brought it up the other day. I was going to PM you about it, but since you’ve brought it up again , off the top of your head, what do you think the Triumph will need to be road worthy? I am not only a huge fan of the Hurricane , but in Tridents in general. I think it was their best motor from that era, and if they had only developed that a little sooner they might have fared better against their Japanese competition. PLEASE do your build thread on this forum, I’m sure the guys would be interested. Couple questions, is that a fiberglass gas tank or does the bodywork cover a metal tank? Do you know how many were made and what # your bike is?
To get it roadworthy my plan is a lot like the one for my XS2 was. Take it down to the frame and then reassembly. Cleaning and repairing as needed. After the frame and suspension are done start on the motor. I know the top end needs gone through. It ran when I parked it. The middle cylinder would from time to time smoke like a mosquito fogger. Usually when there were a lot of people around. It was also the hardest starting bike I've ever owned. There's a trick to kicking the triples.
It's a steel tank bonded to a fiberglass shell. When I got the bike the tank was full of rust. I remember using the ever popular Cream on it after cleaning the tank. I've been afraid to look inside it. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
As far as how many made I'm not sure. I've read as low as 1171 and as many as 2300. According to my vin number it was built in December of 1972 as a 1973 model. Interesting note they were pushing to get as many built in December as they could. Any built after December 31 would have to meet different noise standards and have turn signals to be imported to the USA.
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Not a expert but the black strip down the middle of the tank is not correct. Place in UK can reproduce tank, their pics show a black strip. Have read where there are a lot of BSA Rocket 3s turned into X75s. Imagine that. The Hurricane isn't exactly a Triumph. It's a Rocket 3 engine in a Triumph frame. Or it just may be a bike built at the Triumph factory. Craig Vetter liked the forward angle of the BSA engine better than the Triumph engine that's why it was used. The motors are basically the same other than the angle of the cylinders.
 

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Doesn't look near as sexy when you get here undressed. Surprisingly I haven't broke or damage any bolts yet. They sure used some strange sizes on the nuts and bolt heads. I bought a Whitworth wrench set as I remembered working on it in the past. Strange thing is the Whitworth wrenches fit some stuff just fine others American standard fits better and on a few metric was the best.
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Once I get the head off the motor should be ready to come out. From what I cane tell you can work on the top end and transmission without having to pull the motor out of the frame. Waiting on service manuals and parts book for Rocket 3s that I won on E-Bay. Should be here tomorrow.
 
I don't think I've ever told the story of how I came to own this bike. It was by accident. I owned a radiator repair shop at the time. I saw an add for an estate auction in the paper. Listed was a air compressor, lathe and welder along with a lot of other stuff. It was out in the country about 30 miles from where I lived. I needed a better air compressor. Also kind of wanted a lathe and better welder. So I went.
Got there and looked things over. This was a very old type of country repair shop. Looked like he worked on anything someone brought him. From farm tractors to small engines. Checked out the compressor, that was a bust. The compressor looked like something he pieced together himself. The lathe looked like what I wanted. Been a long time I think it had a 8 inch swing with about a 5 foot bed. The welder was also good. A Lincoln, not sure the model number, the one with a big black crank handle in the front. Good welder. Remember this was the around 1983.
While I was waiting for the lathe to sell a gentleman came up and said Hi. It was Charlie W. Owner of a cement block company 12 miles from where I lived. I was good friends with his youngest son and also was doing work for him on his radiators. In our conversation he mentioned he was interested in the lathe and welder. Lathe for himself, welder for his company. Damn. Told him that I was interested in them also. I was standing next to Charlie when the lathe sold. He had the last bid. He stopped the auctioneer before he could say sold. Everybody knew Charlie. Turned to me and asked if I wanted to bid. I knew better than to get in a checkbook fight with Charlie. Told him no, it was his. Wrote off any hopes of the welder then.
Walked away with my tail between my legs and looked around at other stuff. I heard the auctioneer say the stock trailer would be sold with everything in it and around it except the motorcycles. That got my attention. I waited until the trailer sold and went to investigate. Looking through the slates of the trailer I could see 2 bikes. One was orange with pipes coming up the right side. Could just make out X75 on it. Holy sh!t at first I thought it might be a XR750 Harley. Not a Harley fan fan but that would be cool. Climbed inside to get abetter look. Said Triumph on the tank, had never seen a X75 before. Fell in love with it. Also in there was a Cub next to it. Found out the daughter of the gentleman that the auction was for was there. I asked her about the bikes. She told me that they belonged to her son who lived out of state. Small world she lived 1 block behind the gas station I worked at during High School. Anyway she said she would contact her son and see if he wanted to sell the bikes. He did and that was that. I still have the X75. I had no interest in the Cub I gave it to Bill Baird for parts for his bikes.
This bike also caused me to buy my first BMW.
 
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As I remember, sometimes the Brits used 'British standard' sizes.. not Whitworth or any other sizes used today. How'd they imagine size?:umm:
 
Doesn't look near as sexy when you get here undressed. Surprisingly I haven't broke or damage any bolts yet. They sure used some strange sizes on the nuts and bolt heads. I bought a Whitworth wrench set as I remembered working on it in the past. Strange thing is the Whitworth wrenches fit some stuff just fine others American standard fits better and on a few metric was the best.
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Once I get the head off the motor should be ready to come out. From what I cane tell you can work on the top end and transmission without having to pull the motor out of the frame. Waiting on service manuals and parts book for Rocket 3s that I won on E-Bay. Should be here tomorrow.

I guess all you can do is proceed carefully and try each wrench on each fastener to find the best one Greg.
Do you plan to try to standardize?

Great story on the acquisition - it never ceases to amaze me what cool stuff is lying around in people’s barns and sheds.
:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:
Pete.
 
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Spanner sizes? On British bikes? Arcane is the best word I can think of.

Best to use the correct spanner if you don't want to round the heads off.

For my Triumph TR6, acquired new and s/h spanners and sockets in Whitworth (aka BSW), BS (British Standard), BSF (British Standard Fine), UNC (Unified Course), UNF (Unified Fine), CEI (Cycle Engineer's Institute). There are others. Each of these has different sizes for nuts & bolt heads and different threads-per-inch.To simplify matters (!) Triumph made an attempt to move towards standardised thread sizes in the late 60's which means parts from one year might not fit a different year.

Working on that Triumph, I spent a lot of time trying to identify correct thread sizes and also parts in general. The company had a policy of 'improving the breed' which meant that they kept on changing things. Where possible, the changes were brought in annually as each new year-model was introduced but sometimes things were changed within a year too.To add to the confusion, part numbers were sometimes changed although the part remained the same. And sometimes a part made to a new spec kept the same part number as the superseded item. Doh!

One notorious instance is the oil pressure switch on the twin cylinder bikes. The thread was changed, from a tapered fitting to parallel (or it might be the other way round) but the part number is the same. Result is that a lot of timing covers were busted by people fitting the wrong oil pressure switch.

Fortunately, there is a lot of information about all this on't internet. Unfortunately, much of the information on't internet is contradictory. One person's firm opinion or memory against another's.

My advice would be to find a good supplier - one you can trust. LP Williams are very good and I think they specialise in the triples. The search facility on their website is a good place for identifying superseded/new parts numbers and equivalent parts. And I found they gave good advice by email. There are no doubt other good companies and probably some Stateside.

I have lots of spanners and sockets in all the above denominations and would happily give you them - if only you were closer.
 
BTW everybody - slight thread hijack here, but I think that this thread will be fairly lengthy and it seems to me that you might want to know an interesting fact about GLJ - who owns that very cool X75 Hurricane....

This year at the Vintage Yamaha Rally, he arrived at the Iron Horse MC Resort rather late on the Friday evening - or better to say, rather early on Saturday morning (around 2:30 AM I think). He had ridden his recently rebuilt 1972 XS2 (red & white tank) all the way from Illinois ....including doing the Tale of the Dragon...at night....in the rain.

I’m sure that anyone who has ridden the Dragon would agree - that had to have been one hell of a ride.

My key point is, our Greg is a dedicated biker and a very determined guy - so buckle-up because this Hurricane is gonna howl.

Pete
 
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