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Intro - new tbird owner - kind of long!
I've been lurking here since August and thought I'd finally post an intro.
I own a number of old Triumphs; 65,71, 650's and a 73 750. I also have been riding an 2005 America for the last 3 years. Always buying, working on and selling 70's UJMs too. I'm especially fond of KZ400s and KZ440.
In August I 'discovered' the triples and now have a 2001 Thunderbird and a 2003 TBS. Here's how that happened. During the summer my girlfriend basically outgrew her 86' rebel 450 and we started shopping for a bigger bike to do longer road trips with. Given my Triumph bias, she became interested in a Hinkley Bonnie. After sitting on one she decided she didn't like the riding position. She also wasn't interested in another cruiser. Soon after I saw a craigslist ad for the 2001 tbird. 6,500 miles been in storage for a few years, bad igniter. So we went to look, and she fell in love with the bike. The funny thing is I never gave the tbirds a second thought because I didn't really like the looks of the radiator. I even occasionally ride with a guy that has an adventurer, but never really paid too much attentions to it.
Anyway, we got a great deal on the bike, especially because the PO needed the money and he thought it needed a $800 part. I started to work on the bike, and quickly realized the igniter was fine, but the carbs were completely screwed up (jets clogged, float heights wrong, synchronization way out). The PO had told me he cleaned them but it still didn't run and that's why he knew it was the igniter. At any rate after many hours getting the carbs sorted out, the bike fired up and ran decent. The first thing I discovered is that it came with TORS, great sound. Second thing I discovered was after a few minutes of riding I also fell in love with the bike and had to have one for myself. The bike still had a little stutter and mis-fire so I put in a set of nology coils and seemed to do the trick.
So back to scouring CL for another tbird for me. I live in CT but looked as far as PA for bikes. One day in September I came across an ad for a 2003 TBS with 570 miles on it and it was only 20 minutes from my house. I immediately went to check it out. Well it did have 570 miles on it. The owner bought it new, decided as a new rider it was too much bike for him and parked it in an open car port under a tarp for 4 years. Guess what? The chrome took a pretty big hit, especially the rims and the right front turn signal, as they were exposed to the weather. The paint was great though and the bike ran fine. The guy was asking $5500 and given the need to replace/repair the rims and other stuff, I thought it was too much. I went home and priced out replacement parts and/or re-chroming. Made the guy kind of a low ball offer but he wasn't interested.
I then watched the bike sit for sale until November. At that point I went to take a second look and the guy had moved a little on the price. I moved a little on my original offer and ended up bringing it home. So now I have a winter project to rebuild the wheels and clean the bike up for spring riding.
So that's it, if you read this far thanks for listening. BTW, the board has been a great source of info!
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