Nick’s Triumph TR6

This is a bit daft because I forgot to take any pics of the electrical gubbins. But I’m writing about it because it’s a classic British bike problem.

The TR6 belongs to Nick, a neighbour of my friend Richard. Nick had bought it as a US import, and spent a fair bit of time and effort sorting it out. He’d even fitted a new Lucas loom. The problem was it didn’t start. It would just pop and chuff a bit, then peter out. It had been to two mates and a bike shop, all with no improvement.

All this was revealed by Richard at our regular OSBC meeting in the pub. I do love a challenge. And Brit bikes are so incredibly simple, you just know they can be made to run as long as the pistons haven’t got holes in them.

It had electronic ignition, and the static timing was correct. So were the coils – two 6V ones wired in series, with the correct resistance. (Sometimes people fit 12V coils, which doesn’t work very well.)

The big clue was the voltage at the coils: a mere 7V, even with a charged battery.

The new Lucas loom had been adapted to suit the electronic ignition and regulator rectifier, and lots of the adaptations used poor connections. But really it was wired up wrongly. The ignition circuit had a leak to earth, and only worked anyway when the lights were on. No wonder it was running out of pixies.

It’s easy to fit a new loom and hope this will solve all a bike’s electrical issues. But if the peripheral parts of the bike are still fragile, then the whole bike is still a breakdown waiting to happen. If I had a pound for every time I’ve observed this basic fact I’d own a yacht. This bike had no fuse, Halfords connectors everywhere, a broken headlamp switch, missing earths and tail light wiring bent round a sharp edge. So it needs a bit of time and care. But it does now run and charge.