Madagascan Vanilla Custard

A pleasant couple of weeks spent pottering around on the ‘unfinished project’ no major heartache just working through the boxes of bits that came with the bike and choosing what to keep and what to offload on EvilBay [first thing was the undoubtedly well made brown leather ‘brat style’ seat, me and ‘brat style’? Nah] I decided to keep the standard seat, just removed the pointless passenger grab strap, that’s more like it.

The standard silencers were removed but the catalyser was still present cunningly positioned between the down pipes below the radiator, radiator? yup, this is the first of the water/air cooled Bonnevilles.

It’s a bit of a faff to remove the [very heavy] cat involving the removal of one bolt-on down tube on the frame but a really simple job. The P.O. [previous owner] had spent a lot of money on aftermarket parts from Triumphs catalogue including the high-level Vance and Hines two into one exhaust pipe which in all honesty is a bloody lovely piece of kit. To fit it requires a new scalloped side panel and heat shield again an extra in the Triumph aftermarket catalogue. 

Everything fits lovely with none of the usual ‘massaging’ of parts to allow fitment and let’s face it so it should for a very salty £1500, [not long ago you could get a decent bike with an mot for that money!] Along with the exhaust the P.O. had purchased the ‘factory’ bash plate and cosmetic ‘side bits’ that hides the space when you remove the cat. Reading that back it sounds a bit ‘Shoreditch’ probably everything I’ve always hated in the past but I sat for a few hours with a brew looking at it with and without but finally came to the conclusion that it looks better ‘with’ so they are staying. For now. Unless I change my mind and take them off.

Amongst the other goodies that came with the bike were LED indicators, [nice, small, bright, winner, winner, chicken dinner] heated grips, genuine Triumph heated grips, none of that 1981 motorcycle despatch rider, CX500, Oxford, massive electrickery control box that looks like something out of Dr Who’s Tardis mounted with crosshead, Pozi-Drive screws on the left hand side of the bars.

Digging through the boxes I discovered Triumph bar-end mirrors which I didn’t like on first look but I’m going to try to see what there like as I have the Oberon’s off the KTM Duke if I don’t like them, there was also a horrible, piece of shit tailtidy which was the ultimate in cheap tat and discarded immediately and placed on said ‘Bay to be snapped up by an eager beaver with an EC2 postcode which was nice.

So, no major engineering, just a simple bolt it together job, everything was pretty clean, judicious use of my trusty torque wrench, a dab of Loctite here and a healthy coating of the dreaded copper grease and everything went together with the minimum of fuss. I had to replace the front brake pads, upgraded to EBC HH items as the standard items had inexplicably fused together, possibly damp? Why did I decide to change a light weight, fast 105 bhp machine for something that’s heavier and with half the power? Well, although the 790 Duke was an exciting machine it eventually proved to be a bit of a liability on the road, it encouraged hooligan behaviour and hands up time, I admit to indulging in it every time I rode it, in the cold light of day, sitting in the shed with a beer and reflecting I decided it had to go. It turned me into a knob and I rode it accordingly, it had to go. With hindsight, [a wonderful thing] I should have kept the Guzzi and traded the KTM but hey, I’m a bloke, big bollocks and all that, stay tuned race fans..............