Finished!

This project is essentially done. In spite of a few setbacks this weekend, I got the Daytona started today. First, when I went to set the valve clearance, I realized that one of my pushrods had slipped out of place. Probably happened when I took the spindles out to groove them. So off came the exhaust rocker box.

The next job was to get the bike out of my basement shop so I could try to fire her up. It was tricky, because there were a few stairs involved (going up), but with the help of my wife, a friend, and a winch, we got the job done. Before I did that, though, I took some pics in the same location as some of the "before" pics. ("After" is on the right.):

So today was the day to get her going. I put in all the fluids, and after tightening a couple of drain plugs, there were no leaks. The first hint of trouble came when I opened the fuel tap and had some dripping. After tightening the hose clamps, fuel was still dripping from the bowl vent on the left carb--a sure sign of a stuck float, so off came the carb. It was some gasket sealer that got on the float spindle and wouldn't let it rotate freely. Got it put back together with a home made gasket.

Then I blew the fuse by shorting the negative terminal to the seat stay when hooking up the supply wire. Luckily, I had the original fuse in the old holder. With all this sorted out, I did a static sync and rough carb setting, and kicked it. It started on the third kick. I anxiously waited for oil pressure. and after 10 or 15 seconds got scared and shut it off. I double checked my oil plumbing, and sure enough, I'd stupidly reversed the feed and return lines. I know I'd visually checked this before, but the two hoses were crossed over behind the swing arm gusset where I couln't see them, and I could only tell by feeling. So, had to drain the oil, switch the hoses, and try again. Another nervous few seconds, and the oil light went out.

I ran it up and down the driveway a few times, and while she doesn't run as smooth as I know she can, she had a thrilling amount of power. I'm sure final tuning and timing will sort everything out, but I called it a day today pretty happy with the progress. A couple of pics after the first ride:

Epilog

Triumph's parts catalog lists around 2000 parts for this bike. A check of my receipts shows that I replaced a little over 400 of them. All of the others were either painted, plated, or at least cleaned. The 2000 parts includes some fairly complex assemblies under a single part number, like the instruments, so the true number is larger.

Here is a pic of all the parts I replaced: