Triumphrat

Well I dropped it! !@##$$%^& I can't believe how fast it happened. Left the house drove to the end of the drive and turned onto the road. Came to the stop sign after about a mile and stopped.

This is a T intersection where you can only see about 50 yards in either direction. Looked both ways, gave it a little gas let out the clutch slow and Hiccup, it stalled in gear after moving about 4 feet as I was turning left. Put my left foot down to catch it, but the jerking as the bike turned over a few times in gear made me lose my balance. So had to let go with my right hand as the bike fell to the left in slow, agonizing motion

I was able to prevent it from hitting hard by holding on to the bar with my left hand while standing and turning on my left leg (which is very sore today from the sudden strain).

The bad news: Broke both headlight mounting brackets
A minor 3/4" long scratch on the back side
of the left slash cut muffler.
A slight oil leak from the air box

The good news: Thats all!

No broken signal lights, clutch lever, shift lever nothing :-D

I assume that somehow oil from the crankcase has entered the airbox through an engine vent tube or something. Has anyone had this happen to them when the bike went down?

It runs fine, sounds fine and no smoke. The crankcase is full. I did notice that the airbox has lots of dry rot cracks and have ordered a new one to replace it.

All in all, I consider myself lucky That more damage was'nt done and that no one ran over me as I picked it up and pushed it back off of the road!

mecscc

Well, the main thing is that you aren't seriously hurt. You can fix the bike a whole lot easier than you can fix you.

If it will make you feel any better, you are not the first, nor will you be the last, to drop a bike when you are either standing still or practically so. Back in '72 I came to a full stop on my Bonny on a grassy area near my driveway, in my own yard, had both feet down solidly, went to get off, the left foot slipped in the grass and the bike, like yours, in slow motion, went over with me half on, half off. I landed on my shoulder, under the bike, on a rock that was barely under the surface of the ground. Ended up breaking my collar bone in about 15 little shards in one spot about a inch long. Sounded like Rice Krispies in there for a couple of months. Still have a big knot of bone there and that shoulder is about an inch lower than the other.

Bike was fine except for a bent turn signal bracket and shattered lens. One thing I did notice is that I NEVER stop in grass anymore.

God bless,

Monte

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Monte

"The Old Ohio Preacher Man"

i came real close to doing the same thing abjout a week ago doing the same exact thing. left turn stall. only reason i kept it from going was when i did the foot slap i was on balance on dry pavement and was able to muscle it up from a pretty steep angle. they are definitely a bit top heavy; it took huge, huge effort. its been kind to me otherwise...i really make sure to slip the clutch on dead stop takeoffs into a turn now.
ive only had it for a few weeks now and have been testing the limits...the high cg is the only stutter i can find thus far. im still shocked at how well this chassis handles the bends. hell yeeuh. :-D

I also dropped my 1 day old TBS, only damage bent clutch lever, however i have also noticed some oil drippings from air box on the left hand side. Started fine and runs fine, any suggestion if something needs to be done in reference to the oil leak. ?

tbsrider2000

Oil leaking from the air box is a common problem due to over filling the oil during an oil change. This is most likely just oil that managed to get into the air box at the time of the spill.. You can either let it drain on it's own, or remove it and open it up to clean it out. If you go that far, you may as well go with the K&N filter as well!

I've dropped mine twice! Both at low speed. The first time I had to replace the clutch lever, and shift lever / linkage. The second time I slightly bent the brake lever, which I still use. Also, when I first bought it, a girl was sitting on my friends Sportster and knocked it over on to my bike!!! It tore up the license plate bracket and put a good size scratch in the rear fender. I replaced the license plate bracket with an aftermarket Harley piece and still have the scratch.. It's not too noticable though. I have three trophies from a couple of bike shows, so it still looks good..

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Dave Arnold
'04 Rocket III
'00 Trophy 1200
La Vernia, TX

MickMaguire

You need to pull oil the plug from the airbox drain and let the oil that has got into the airbox out. The airbox drain tube comes down the left side of the bike and the end can be found underneath near the rear suspension linkage, it has a 1" long plastic plug in it. You need to pull out this plug and let the oil out. Do not leave the plug out or you will suck dirty air in from the road surface and foul the air filter.

If a "classic" 900 Triumph falls on its left hand side, especially with the engine running there is a real danger of destroying the engine. what happens is that oil comes up the crankcase breather pipe and enters the airbox. If the bike is on it's side long enough the quantity of oil will be sufficient to cause the engine to hydraulically lock with damage to pistons, rods etc. This can and does happen!

So, if the bike falls on it's left get to the kill switch immediately. If the bike has been on its left side for more than a fraction of a minute or the bike stalled on its left side do not start the engine. You should remove drain as described, then remove the spark plugs and chase it over before you restart to clear the bores of oil. Failure to do this can result in a hydraulic lock situation and a massive rebuild cost (which wont be covered under warranty).

Prevention: You can fit a breather that is independant of the airbox so that if it should fall the oil cannot find its way in there.

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Mick...

Just remember; an awful lot of the free advice you will get on forums is worth exactly what you paid for it. There will always be somebody trying to convince you to do something really stupid, just because they did it or want to do it.

Nailer sorry to hear about the drop. I'm glad it wasn't worse and that there was no harm to yourself.

I'm still getting used to the adventurer coming from a little 350 lb 500cc single with 16" wheels and find the slow turns particularly challenging. I'm not sure if it's from the skinny 19" front or the limited steering lock requiring more lean but I hope to work through it in a couple more weeks...hopefully without incident!

[edit was to wasn't ...sorry]

[ This message was edited by: RGBueller on 2004-04-28 13:52 ]

shedds

i feel youre pain it happened to me lucky, mine fell to the right and the part that got me with mine was i was turning into a tight parking spot and ran out of lock on steering (design flaw ) so i hit the brakes before hitting van and managed to keep it from falling to the ground while a stupid guy looked on right in front of me talking on his damn cell phone while i,m struggling to keep it up using my foot (steel toes) untill i got a better grip on it then lifted it up running the whole time no damage except a little scratch on the right muffler where i had to rest it on the ground till i shut it off and lifted it up and the guy on the phone still rambling on this happened at a bike dealer in october last year so he was the only one around to help but nope not him

dunringil

I've always heard there are only 2 kinds of bikers. Those that have went down and those who are going to go down.

That kind of thing usually wakes you up a bit, causing you to be more focused and careful in the future.

I dropped a TBS on a dealer demo ride. I'm just glad it wasn't my bike.

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Denton, NC

Decibels are no substitute for velocity

www.dunringil.com

denny

I've always heard that it's not really yours until you've dropped it once.

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Cheers,Denny