1967/1969 Bonnie Rebuild Desert Sled Project

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A Triumph TT special built for a top sound designer
under the ‘Lucas’ cover is a modern Hella 7-inch headlight. (“It’s nice to be able to see, and they don’t draw much power.”)"
hoping/thinking I might be able to do something similar
Depends what is inside the "modern Hella 7-inch headlight":-

. If it is an incandescent bulb, it only "don’t draw much power” if it is a lower Watts. But then it produces less light ...

. The only way for it to draw less power but produce more light is if it is LED. However, that slim (from the side on photos on the original webpage), it can only be a complete LED headlamp, not a LED bulb in a reflector/lens intended for an incandescent bulb.

Do not discount the possibility the webpage author simply does not know what he is talking about. Electrics are magic to some even in the First World ...

Another thing to remember is that bike is in CA, where I know it does not rain much; otoh, you are in VA, where it does? I appreciate you might not be intending to ride in the rain but I am guessing it is not to difficult to get caught in rain when your are out and/or have to ride on wet roads? Even if you don't want to mount switch, idiot lights and/or gauge in the headlamp shell like Lucas and Triumph did on your bike originally, the shell is a useful place to shelter connections for other electrics in that area; you hardly want your bike stuttering to a halt just because the road was wet and spray got into an electrical connection under the tank? :oops:
 
by the way, i would reccommend you get a copy of this

http://victorylibrary.com/MONO.htm
i have not ever read it, but i have his mikuni and concetric tuning manuals and they are excellent. i expect the monobloc booklet to be as good.

the old amal instruments are quite basic, compared to newer carburetors, or even automotive carburetors from the same era. the problems are generally straightforward and well understood, and so are the answers.
 
Depends what is inside the "modern Hella 7-inch headlight":-

. If it is an incandescent bulb, it only "don’t draw much power” if it is a lower Watts. But then it produces less light ...

. The only way for it to draw less power but produce more light is if it is LED. However, that slim (from the side on photos on the original webpage), it can only be a complete LED headlamp, not a LED bulb in a reflector/lens intended for an incandescent bulb.

Do not discount the possibility the webpage author simply does not know what he is talking about. Electrics are magic to some even in the First World ...

Another thing to remember is that bike is in CA, where I know it does not rain much; otoh, you are in VA, where it does? I appreciate you might not be intending to ride in the rain but I am guessing it is not to difficult to get caught in rain when your are out and/or have to ride on wet roads? Even if you don't want to mount switch, idiot lights and/or gauge in the headlamp shell like Lucas and Triumph did on your bike originally, the shell is a useful place to shelter connections for other electrics in that area; you hardly want your bike stuttering to a halt just because the road was wet and spray got into an electrical connection under the tank? :oops:
Thanks for this insight. I hadn't thought about protecting wiring against moisture - so you are raising issues that I wasn't even considering. With your (and other forums member's) input I hope to avoid at least a few issues that I would be blind to otherwise. I suppose the main point for me is that I don't need to use the original lighting, unless it is the most robust and elegant to accommodate. I was thinking with all of the old Triumphs around that have been rebuilt there might be a relatively easy, more modern lighting option.
 
by the way, i would reccommend you get a copy of this

http://victorylibrary.com/MONO.htm
i have not ever read it, but i have his mikuni and concetric tuning manuals and they are excellent. i expect the monobloc booklet to be as good.

the old amal instruments are quite basic, compared to newer carburetors, or even automotive carburetors from the same era. the problems are generally straightforward and well understood, and so are the answers.
Thanks for the reference. At this point I'm good with something basic for a rebuild.
 
hey sundance


good question. i am absolutely not any kind of authority on monoblocs, so my suggestions will be general. here's what was originally associated with the 1967 chassis you have:

tsqyCR9l.png


the two carbs had #260 main jets, #106 needle jets, a Type D needle (standard), a #3 throttle valve cutaway, and a #25 pilot jet. i suspect that these may work just fine with your 800 cc motor, and in any event you should test them and see. main jets are numbered by orifice size- the bigger the number, the more fuel they can flow. needle jets are also sized by number, throttle valves have a higher number the leaner they are, and pilots get richer with number.

these may all work fine, but if anything were to change i would think that the increased engine capacity might require slightly richer jetting in several places. when you order the new bits. i would ask for the stock 260 main jets, but also get two more pairs going up--280 and 300, or maybe 270 and 280. you might never need them. the 106 needle jet and the standard D needle will very likely be fine-- you can adjust the needle up and down to richen or lean the mixture. there is a possibility that you might find the #3 throttle valve to be too lean, in which case you could try out a #2.5 with a smaller cutaway, but i wouldn't buy them in advance. finally, the #25 pilot jets might be lean, so i would add a pair of #30s to the lists.

but do ask burlen for their recommendations on the jet numbers. theyve been around these carbs for years, and theyve seen it all. tell em what you have, and they will know more than me for sure.

in total, i think you can probably tune it correctly if you have in hand the stock jetting and two numbers up in mains and one number up in the pilots. needle jets in amal concentric carbs are worthless after 10,000 miles or so-- the tapping from the needle wears them away. so i would also make sure you get two new 106 needle jets. the needles almost never wear out.

tuning them will be straightforward. all the different carburetor circuits come into play at different throttle settings/engine loads, so its pretty simple to tell which jets or adjustments need to be fiddled with by testing at constant throttle opening and load. amals are pretty easy to tune, in general, and i think the original 649 cc settings are going to be close..

one caution-- heavy loads at lean settings can cause the motor to overheat and detonate or melt a hole in your piston. an easy way to avoid this is to start testing with the too-rich jets and settings and work your way down to what runs best, rather than starting lean and running towards richer. when you get to where you are testing we should take stock of where you are and work through the procedure you will use to finalize the jetting.
So I disassembled one carb and the Pilot Jet is 20, Main Jet is 270 and Needle Jet is 106. So I will order the kits with these, and perhaps a few more sizes as you identified. Thank you.
 
So I disassembled one carb and the Pilot Jet is 20, Main Jet is 270 and Needle Jet is 106. So I will order the kits with these, and perhaps a few more sizes as you identified. Thank you.
Check the manufacturer if you can identify. Just double check that what your ordering is the same size. Size codes may be different from one manufacturer to another.
 
thinking with all of the old Triumphs around that have been rebuilt there might be a relatively easy, more modern lighting option.
There are several, just depends how much you want to pay ...

Assuming the lens/reflector on the bike now is original Lucas for a BPF-base bulb, a cheap option is just to fit a BPF-base LED bulb - the 'best' are the ones with just two LED, not more. However, reason for "'best'" in inverted commas is the original Lucas BPF lens/reflector is/always was rubbish at focussing the light, just replacing the bulb will not fix that. So it is fairly rubbish for riding at night, even when you did not plan to.

A more expensive option is to replace the lens/reflector with a new one that takes a modern P43t-base bulb and fit an LED bulb.

The option I detailed for you in an earlier post - new 7" lens/reflector, P43t-base incandescent headlamp bulb and Eagle Eye 15W LED in the pilot hole - is the one I use, because I never intended to ride only short distances in good weather and daylight.

However, I also paid for high output 3-phase alternators. Whether your bike has its original alternator (Lucas RM19) or its immediate successor (RM21 or pattern), neither was designed for 21st century traffic conditions and/or lights on all the time. You also want to fit an electronic ignition; while these do not need extra power, they do need reliable 12V+ DC - an RM19 or RM21 will struggle to maintain battery charge if it is also powering a good "modern lighting option" and you cannot keep the engine rpm up for whatever reason.

All of the above options require the bike's existing headlamp shell - or one of the similar shape later ones if you want fewer gauge/idiot light/switch holes - to mount the lens/reflector and, as I also detailed earlier, if Ammeter or lights switch are fitted in the shell, watch for the reflector contacting them.

One final possible option I know of but very little about, is to fit a complete LED headlamp? I do not know if there are any that would allow you to retain a standard headlamp shell for electrical connections, or any that do not 'ground' through the mounting; otherwise they are likely to be 'negative ground' so would require the rest of the bike's electrics to be changed to match.
 
I believe I have read somewhere that in order to rebuild these carburetors one needs to clean out one, or some of the various passages in the carburetor with a very small drill bit. Is this anything that you might know about? Thanks.

that procedure pertains to the amal concentric mark1 carbs, which replaced the monoblocs around 1967 or 1968. the concentrics have a drilled hole behind and in line with the idle air adjuster screw that serves as a pilot jet. non-removeable, no-adjustable. it plugs up and has to be gently cleaned with a #78 drill bit every now and then if the bike has been sitting.

the monobloc has a real, removeable pilot jet that you can unscrew from the bottom and inspect. you can also re-install different sizes. in leaving this out the concentric carb was not an improvement.

take that pilot jet and hold it up to a strong light. you can often see that the hole is obstructed, even if you can spray solvent through it. you can clean it out gently with the drill bit, or better, install a new one.

but you can still clean the monobloc. this image is from a burlen download

SzUDa4Kl.png


notice that there is a little cavity above the pilot jet, with two holes-- 7 and 8 -- that exit into the venturi. this is the mixing chamber, into which idle fuel --10-- and idle air are admitted before they bleed through the two little holes into the airstream to make your bike idle. while you have the pilot jet out, squirt solvent through the hole in the carb and make sure that the two little holes are open. if there is mung in the mixing chamber there isn't much you can do, but generally its just the holes themselves that become restricted.
 
that procedure pertains to the amal concentric mark1 carbs, which replaced the monoblocs around 1967 or 1968. the concentrics have a drilled hole behind and in line with the idle air adjuster screw that serves as a pilot jet. non-removeable, no-adjustable. it plugs up and has to be gently cleaned with a #78 drill bit every now and then if the bike has been sitting.

the monobloc has a real, removeable pilot jet that you can unscrew from the bottom and inspect. you can also re-install different sizes. in leaving this out the concentric carb was not an improvement.

take that pilot jet and hold it up to a strong light. you can often see that the hole is obstructed, even if you can spray solvent through it. you can clean it out gently with the drill bit, or better, install a new one.

but you can still clean the monobloc. this image is from a burlen download

SzUDa4Kl.png


notice that there is a little cavity above the pilot jet, with two holes-- 7 and 8 -- that exit into the venturi. this is the mixing chamber, into which idle fuel --10-- and idle air are admitted before they bleed through the two little holes into the airstream to make your bike idle. while you have the pilot jet out, squirt solvent through the hole in the carb and make sure that the two little holes are open. if there is mung in the mixing chamber there isn't much you can do, but generally its just the holes themselves that become restricted.
OK, this makes sense why I couldn't find the drill procedure relative to the monoblocs. And thank you for this instruction so that I can make sure these holes are open when I do the rebuild.
 
My Amal Monoblocs - so I took a closer look at my carburetors. It seems at lease one of the slides is quite corroded, so much so there is a small hole through the slide. So I was planning on rebuilding these 389 carbs. The rebuild kits were about $50 a piece, and I found a replacement slide for about $37. So with just these items I'd be looking at a minimum of $174 to rebuild the two as long as nothing else is bad. So now I wondering if I'd be better off with new carbs at this point.
 
My Amal Monoblocs - so I took a closer look at my carburetors. It seems at lease one of the slides is quite corroded, so much so there is a small hole through the slide. So I was planning on rebuilding these 389 carbs. The rebuild kits were about $50 a piece, and I found a replacement slide for about $37. So with just these items I'd be looking at a minimum of $174 to rebuild the two as long as nothing else is bad. So now I wondering if I'd be better off with new carbs at this point.
How much are new carbs?
 
How much are new carbs?
At this point I see Amal concentrics at $479 for the pair. So I'm not sure if I can get new slides for my old carburetors, and if that's the case I will need to get new carburetors. However I am wondering if the monoblocs are better as compared to the newer concentrics. Anyway, I'll figure this out as I've put a message into the Amal folks about replacements for the slides. Thanks.
 
At this point I see Amal concentrics at $479 for the pair. So I'm not sure if I can get new slides for my old carburetors, and if that's the case I will need to get new carburetors. However I am wondering if the monoblocs are better as compared to the newer concentrics. Anyway, I'll figure this out as I've put a message into the Amal folks about replacements for the slides. Thanks.
My gut reaction is go with the original.
 
My gut reaction is go with the original.
Thanks for this. I've got a message into the Amal folks about replacing the slides. I found slide replacement on classicbritishspares.com. I'm just a bit concerned I may run into more corrosion. I suppose I will have to see.
 
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