Riding on.

 

Ruby is still going strong. She is pretty much back to original specification now with"green"  136ps camshafts and red petrol tank reinstalled. 

Gonna ride on. Ride on. 

Post lockdown and Ruby breathes again

It is strange to think my last post before this was back in March 2020. That was just one week before the (first) UK Corona virus lockdown. My girl and I managed to get away for a camping holiday at the start of July. We went up to Scotland to see friends, camping in their garden as the Scottish lockdown rules then permitted. After that, we could stay at a freshly reopened camp site in Northumberland, near Hadrian's wall. It was very cold but absolutely wonderful to be able to get out again. 

Ruby went well with the Daytona 1200 (red profile) cams and lower gearing but she was noticeably thirstier. Also, and more seriously, on the fast trip back down the M6 and M5, she disgraced herself by leaning engine oil over the rear tyre. Oh dear. Once again, she had overwhelmed the capacity of the engine breather to keep oil in whilst letting blowby gases out. Plus I could see oil escaping from the cam cover, the rubber seal not seeing properly. 

The breather arrangement on the very first engine is via a catch chamber just behind the cylinder block. The so called"hatch engine". Most people who know these engines will be aware that there's an inspection cover under the carburettors. It lies over the starter gears and was also initially a breather chamber. It contains a wire mesh condensing element, intended to minimise oil transmission to the airbox. Gases enter the chamber in two ways: one past the starter gears, and the other bits a short link pipe from the clutch cover. A second breather pipe then links this chamber to the airbox for blowby gas recycling. I do wonder if the disappearing oil problem reported in there contemporary review by Fast Bikes was due to the inadequacies of this arrangement. In any case, there must have been issues with this system or cost savings to be made because the breather function of the chamber was deleted in 1992, in favour of a single pipe linking the clutch cover to the airbox.

I've had problems with oil expelled from the breather several times before, usually when riding extended periods at motorway speeds. The thing seemed to happen if running at or above 4000rpm for more than half an hour. I really wanted this early arrangement to work. I like the idea and a similar chamber above the gearbox was used on Kawasaki motorcycles. Sadly, I have not been able to do make it work reliably. So I have now blanked of the condensing chamber in favour of my own catch tank, currently a bottle cable tied to the left side of the engine. 

We went out on another camping trip in Kent and Cornwall in September 2020, and this breather catch bottle arrangement was problem free, including several motorway hours riding from Whitstable to Bude.  Just not tidy too look at. I'll find a better place to site it, now I know it works.

I also changed the cam cover seal and reinstalled the original, green cams. Ruby feels just great line this. At the mostly gentle speeds so far enjoyed on the lanes of England, in warm weather, she is returning about 47 miles to the Imperial gallon. Perfect.

A treat for my engine after failed Crank Position Sensor.

When all goes well, it's hard to find a reason for me to make a blog post. Things had gone very very well with ruby for a long long time. Until 85,000 miles had passed beneath her wheels. Then, in July 2019, there came a day when her motor simply stopped when at idle. I had a total fail to restart whilst away from home. Oh dear. The motor was spinning well on the starter, plenty of fuel in the tank, neutral light glowing brightly, fuses all good. Not a single sign of life at all. What slightly freaked me was that I'd come back from a European tour three days previously. Lucky then that this breakdown had happened not too far from home.

After trying lots of possible causes, it turned out to be my crank position sensor - CPS (or ignition pickup of you prefer). Unfortunately, this can only be fixed by replacing the part. Not too terrible, except that the swap requires the carbs to be removed. It is at the right hand end of the crankshaft, under a circular cover. It's basically the electronic equivalent of ignition points. But the wiring connector for the CPS is buried away under the centre of the carbs. That's not at all easy to do in a car park away from tools etc. As a result, I had to get recovered home in a van.

The CPS part is readily available and costs about £50 at the time of writing.

https://www.triumphparts.co.uk/product/trigger-coil-crank-position-sensor-pvl-trident-trophy-sprint-900/

I was sure I didn't want to be stuck like this again so determined to rework the wiring so I could get to the connector at the side of the road. One thing lead to another and quite s lot of work ensured all round. Finally back on the road at the start of January 2020.

I had the engine covers powder coated, fitted and shimmed up red cams after finding a second hand Daytona 1200 head on eBay, put on a later petrol tank with a fuel sender, feel gauge and clock from a later trophy, heated grips, extra fuse box to manage this new kit. And a new CPS ...

The tank is green so the bike looks like a bitsa now. Not very happy about that but I'm enjoying messing with the fuel gauge. I've had the tank off and sender out a few times, bending the actuating arm this way and that to improve accuracy. It's pretty good now. The bike goes on to reserve just when the needle hits the red zone of the guage. The clock is nice but stupidly I didn't think enough about it's visibility when I chose where to mount it. I need to do some on-bike yoga to check the time!  I should have put it on the left hand facia panel, not on the right side with the fuel gauge.

The connectors for the CPS, alternator and side stand switch are all routed so they lie on top of the gearbox sprocket cover now. I wrapped them in a rubber sheet, secured with cable ties, to help protect them from water etc. It would still be a fiddle to switch the CPS but it is now possible without having to remove the carbs and I'm happy enough with that.

So, Ruby lives. And spring is almost upon us. Very good.