Does anyone have any information on parts books and or manuals specifically for Harris Bonnevilles as I am in the process of restoring a bike described as a 1981 Tiger supplied to the White Helmets and am hoping to fit an electric start.
Many Thanks
Rod
Harris built the White helmets bikes after the factory shut, but meriden were still going in 81.
So I guess that the bike was built to be true to an 81? Although they did have some modifications.
You're pretty much wasting your time to do a conversion. It is easier to by an electric start one And flog the tiger
The bike in your pic has right-hand gearchange which Harris never made, and which Triumph had switched away from by 1976. A 1981 bike should be a Meriden Triumph, nothing to do with Harris. I wonder where the information you were given came from, as it doesn't ring at all true.
Regardless of the year or the ex-White helmets story you still have the makings of a decent bike, if what doesn't show in the pic is all there and in good nick (ie: mainly engine and transmission internals). As far as I know the main items needed to convert to elec start are the ES timing cover & gear/s and the starter motor, plus the various wiring changes such as switch, solenoid, bigger battery and heavy duty leads etc. I have no experience with ES T140s at all but I have formed the impression that they aren't a great idea as all the torque to turn the engine is transmitted via the inlet camshaft' gear and through the rest of the timing gear train to the crank. In other words, a bit of a bodge. But if you can obtain all the parts, you could convert what you've got to electric start, I'm sure.
EDIT:- Looking again at your pic, it has the rear disc with overslung caliper, which is right for 1981, but right-hand gearchange (and no way of making those rear brake components work). Plus it has a single front disc on the right hand side, which Triumph or Harris never made: Harris did fit Ceriani forks with twin discs and Brembo calipers: that looks as if it could be a Brembo caliper but hard to see properly. What you've got there looks like a real mixture of parts from a number of models and years. Do the frame and engine numbers match? What are they? (leave the last couple of digits off if you worry about people nicking them).
.......
EDIT:- Looking again at your pic, it has the rear disc with overslung caliper, which is right for 1981, but right-hand gearchange (and no way of making those rear brake components work)........
Well never say never to getting the brake and gear shift on the right side to work. How about this flat tracker. Both on the right side. Fit it up in this manner and sell as vintage TT racer. Very ingenious. But I suspect one has to be a specially 'wired' person to control it in an instant. Nevertheless, the pic provides an option for a project and flipping of a specialized model.
While the bike does have some intriguing similarities - rear mudguard, possibly the rear brake master cylinder mounting? - to the bike in this picture, it's difficult to disagree with John that you've a very long way to go to get that collection of parts ('cos that's what it is) working before you need to worry about fitting an electric start ...
There is a Harris Bonneville parts book - 00-0080 - if nowhere else, on the Triumph manuals DVD by Kim The CD Man. You could also try ringing L.F. Harris on a quiet day, to see if there's any records of the White Helmets bikes, modifications, knowledge, etc.?
Hi Rod, What are your engine & frame #s? Things aren't adding up.
Regarding electric start, I looked into that a few years ago. Pretty much you'd need an electric start motor. I may be wrong, but from what I could tell the right case is bored differently for idler cam gear, due to it has a bushing added in case. The cam gears & idler were reinforced & changed. There was a problem with gear breakage on early production, but modifications were made to correct that. I've only observed 1 electro bike in real life, which was a TSS 8 valve & it started right up at the push of a button from luke warm. I was unable to discuss the ins & outs of the operation with owner. I'll probably see him again at end of this month on group ride & I'll try to get more info.
Kim the CD man sells a DVD with parts books & shop manual for Harris & most all other years also. It has both parts, repair manuals & the service info on the reinforced parts. I have it & recommend it. The DVD is simply amazing. The index of manuals/info alone is 23 pages of small print. Has all kinds of info from 30's to Harris. 1,2,3 cly. Plus factory service info & lots of memos etc. only seen by dealers. If you are into Triumphs you should get the DVD. It's thousands of pages.
Don
For an electric start conversion, you could look at "Quiet Power Drive". Although when I emailed them a year or so ago when I was considering it, they never bothered to reply.
A couple of random observations re Harris/Meriden/White Helmets
I understand that 13 bikes were built by the White Helmets from spares after Harris was forced by Triumph to stop building bikes. John Bloor gave hir personal permission for this. They were the last "Meriden" bikes built, at least officially.
The bike shown seems to be a mixture of years. White Helmets were doing what ever was necessary to keep bike going after Meriden shut so mixed parts not surprising.
Triumph electric start was in effect a start "assist". I have a TSS with electric start. As said previously, it will start the bike if the bike is warm but not if cold. It is really not worth bothering about. Harris dropped the idea.
Triumph electric start was in effect a start "assist". I have a TSS with electric start. As said previously, it will start the bike if the bike is warm but not if cold.
The starter is the same Lucas M3 fitted to the T160, and it generally works fine there, even on engines that've had big-bore kits (so anything up to 855 cc.) fitted.
That said, there can be problems with individual starters:-
. What battery did the Co-op fit/are you using now - Ah and ccA?
. What thickness cables did the Co-op fit between the battery, solenoid, starter and engine/frame to battery?
. When was the starter itself last dismantled and cleaned?
. Does the bike have an electronic ignition?
An American called Dave Madigan sells a kit for triples using an adapted Japanese car starter which, although smaller, is more efficient than the M3 and will start bored-'n'-stroked triples. As it's a direct replacement for a M3 on a T160, a possibility on a twin with the rest of the electric-start bits?
That's why the MkIII Commando was also only 'start-assist' unless brand new and the engine was warm. And the Commando had something much closer to a 'proper' electric start add-on than the T140 belated afterthought. The T160's system was even more integral to the redesign from T150 so it shouldn't be too surprising that they work well and the twins don't.
I was told by a member of the White Helmets that they went to the Harris factory and were shown a line of frames that had been built for them. They were then pointed towards the stores and told to go and take whatever they required to build bikes around those frames. So the bikes may well have mixed parts from different years to create practical display bikes.
Thanks for all your info and advice and its interesting to me and I'm sure many others to hear first hand experience of electric starts across the range of British bikes.
My reason for purchasing this Tiger and attempting to fit an ES to it is simple, not much dosh and a pain in my knee, neither of these facts diminish my need to ride a bike and all I've ever had or wanted has been British. From my first bike - a Francis Barnett through BSA's and a range of Triumphs I can't seem to get excited about anything else. For me its not just the riding, its the sound, the styling, the knowledge of the bike, that I can only get from fixing and maintaining it.
I know that there are many more practical choices out there but I can't afford them and don't feel attracted to them.
At the moment I have a beautiful Triumph 500 which I rebuilt and ride pretty much every day at the moment but I get pain if I stop and start it too many times in one day, which in London operating as an independent film maker/cameraman is hard to control.
I'm still waiting for the discharge papers for the bike but am finding lots of differences from the Meridan T140's and the Harris ones, some good some bad, regarding parts availability and compatibility.
I have stripped the bike down and will update my
progress as I start to rebuild.
Best
Rod
Les was a big supporter of the White Helmets, but a 'Free Hand' in the stores is just a bit of a stretch. That said, Les had given them a generous annual budget to work from.
This is why they honored him at his funeral. They normally do not do this except for someone who was in the service or noted public official.
I have recently bought a Harris Bonnie and that does have plenty of similarities, like the Brembo brakes, but right foot change is certainly odd. Does it have a frame number? If not intended for road use, they might not have bothered with such things.
The Harris Bonnies have just 4 numbers between 00005 and 1258 I believe.
A Harris Bonnie should be between 1985 and 88.
Can you post a picture of your rear brake assembly and look for part numbers on it?
A guy on here has a tsx ( in the states) and is trying to recreate the rear brake master cylinder but can't ID the original so he can buy a guzzi or laverda part
A Meriden bike would be stamped on the front down tube near the headstock on the LHS
I would assume that Harris did the same
Here's a photo of the rear brake set-up and parts book list pertaining to it, my bike is finished and getting MOT'd at Reg Allen's so can't get better pics at the moment.
Best
Rod
Thank you so much. The triumph number is the same for the master cyl but your list shows the numbers for the lever and a fewother parts mine does not show. Much appreciated.
Hi there - just read this through from the beginning and I would like to add my observations. That bike definitely looks like a White Helmets bike. The stickers and hardware seems to be right.
I was lucky enough to be in charge of the White Helmets as team Captain from 1988 to 1991. Pre season every year was a huge challenge to get bikes ready for the season. The bikes were always just workhorses and we never recorded serial numbers or worried much about keeping bikes together. The bikes were (in retrospect) treated like dogs and were never shown any mechanical sympathy.
At that time we were sponsored for much of our consumables by the likes of Dunlop, Champion, Gulf Oil, Rover etc, but the main cost of running the team was the spare parts. In the time I was there we went down to Les Harris several times with shopping lists for the bikes and we would always put in large orders in the spring. Most of the time this was a commercial deal using the money we made from performances during the previous season. I can recall trawling round many of the long established UK shops looking for parts just to keep going. Clutches and cables being the heaviest used.
In the spring of 1991 I took a team of mechanics down to Les's factory and we built from scratch a number of new bikes and refurbished as many of the other bikes. I remember it vividly because Gulf war 1 kicked off whilst we were there, so it would have been early Feb 1991. I can't recall how many bikes we built but I believe it would have been in the low teens. Essentially we did have free run of the stores, but we were billed for it! We took whatever Les had in stock, Italian forks and seats, we just needed to have bikes ready for the 1991 season. I do know we had a serious discount! Les wanted us to ride his Matchless G80 bikes he had just introduced with the Rotax engine but they just didn't sound or look like the Tigers. We did thrash a few around back at Catterick on the moors but they soon fell to bits.
Incidentally when I left the team I was presented with a gold plated timing case in which a clock had been fixed. Years later I thought that I might be able to use it on my current bike - then found that the inner face had been hacked away to allow the clock to fit. That was the White Helmets way - absolutely no sentiment towards the bikes or parts.
If your bike is ex-White Helmets it will have been thrashed good and proper and will probably need a serious amount of TLC and new set of internals just for peace of mind.
The rear brake master cylinder is a Brembo unit and was used on the 900SS Ducati and some others. The Caliper is a standard Brembo P08 fitted to numerous bikes of the 80's. The rest of it is specific to triumph I would say.
That's a deal right there, except it appears the seller isn't interested in shipping stateside...
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