Tud’s Bikes

1970 T120R Triumph Bonneville

At least that’s what this bike started out as, when I got the bike in March of 2001 it looked a lot like it does in this picture. I bought this bike from a guy who was advertising it on The Horse BC web site in their swap meet section. I was told that it had been running right up until they started messing with the wiring. The owner had sent me the picture to the right, and based on this I decided to get the bike. It was exactly what I wanted, a springer front end, solo seat, hardtail, peanut gas tank.  At the time my daily driver was a 1998 FLHPI, so I already had something reliable, now I wanted something to play with.

 

The shot above is a far cry from what a stock T120R looked like.  The picture on the left is basically how this bike would have come off the showroom floor.  I’m not sure who’s bike this is, I definately like the looks of the original Bonnevilles, but I like the old school chopper look better.

I was fortunate enough to have a friend like Tom handy when I was in Florida, and he was more than willing to take 2 days out of his schedule to drive me up to South Carolina from central Florida in order to pick the bike up.  We were able to stay in Jacksonville with Painter John for a night and then left for SC bright and early the next morning so that we could be back home that night.  The bike fit nicely in the back of the van and after money changed hands ($900 to be exact) we were on our way back home and I had a new toy.

The bike itself was pretty dirty when I got it, still is, and wasn’t close to the color in the picture, although I was warned that it wasn’t by the owner.  I had a couple of questions about the bike and e-mailed the guy I bought it from and he was happy to answer anything he could, all in all a good bike buying experience.

The electrical system needed a lot of work, you can see from the picture that I had wires hanging all over the place, it’s since been cleaned up.

The bike still had matching frame and engine numbers and the title was clean, so registering it was no problem. Here in Nova Scotia the government requires that vehicles get safety inspected every year, I was a bit concerned about this since I’m not sure how easy it is to get a chopper through safety inspection. I did as much as I could as far as what I was told by people, and for the most part if the bike didn’t come with the item originally then it didn’t need it for safety inspection, which meant I didn’t have to add turn signals. I did have to add a second mirror, a front fender, a new wheel with a brake (which I got through the generousity of an RMH regular and Asshole (tm)), a horn and a hi/lo switch.  Below is what the bike looked like during inspection, it’s one ugly fender setup, but it did the job.

2002

2003

 

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For a bunch more pics, including the bike’s rebuild, check out the Triumph Choppers Sludgetrap site.