It happened to my T120 today while riding back home. The engine began to stall until completly off and the side stand swing down cause no spring attched to it. Fortunately i got myself safely stop on side road and found the missing parts (spring & broken retainer). For the stand ,i tie it to exhaust pipe by using wire . Well i have to use center stand for now when parking. No idea to fix it yet. What a trouble day
tHAT would be real bad.
I remember I rode with a few dudes awhile back with
Thai made Bonnies, warned me some quality issues.
They didn't realize I had a British made 02.
I had none of the issues they had, although they were minor
ones.
Gonna be some teething pains.....I excepted that as I generally never buy a first year model of anything.....that being said, it's totally unacceptable for a kickstand stand to let go like that.....I've had my thrux r up to 195k....don't need my stand dropping at that or any speed.
Il be inspecting the assembly today for signs of wear....thanks for sharing.
you should still be able to prop the bike on the side stand , just need to chock the wheels to stop it moving. Once the stand is fully down , hold it there and lean the bike on it , job done.
I fitted the centre stand without the spring and use it to do work on the wheels , I tie the centre stand to a forward frame part to stop it flipping back.
I just finished inspecting this part on my T120. It just does not appear to be strong enough for its intended purpose. Instead, it's a really poor little piece of engineering which is always under great spring tension from the two side stand retracting springs. It failed exactly where you'd expect it to (see kireipat's photo): at the sharp milled angle right by the threads.
This part should be far beefier.
One way to keep this part from breaking would be to remove one of the retracting springs and hope that the other is strong enough to do the job while we wait for the inevitable permanent fix from Triumph.
So, the bike has two Achilles heels, both of them side stand related. The other is that the frikkin' side stand starter interlock magnet tends to fall off, effectively immobilizing the bike. I've taped the hell out of mine.
Triumph supposedly designed, tested, and refined this bike over a period of four years. They missed THIS? Crap, I could see just how inadequate that little post is the first time I glanced at it. This is just not something that should break. EVER.
I'm still wondering how to properly communicate these concerns to Triumph so that, given enough corroborating feedback from the public, they will acknowledge known technical issues, generate effective resolutions and then disseminate this information internally to all dealerships and technicians.
There's no point, they will just ignore any concerns as admitting them could open them to all manner of legal claims. Manufacturers will only issue recalls for safety items if there's a chance someone will sue.
Example: Early 80's Honda CB500T had self-destructing valvegear, dropped valves, cam chain sprockets breaking loose and milling their way out of the cylinder block, etc. They simply phased the model out and would never admit there was a problem.
From the mid 70's onwards we suffered disc brakes that wouldn't work in the rain, Suzuki tried to cover themselves by putting on a sticker in the forks to that effect. The rest never admitted there was a problem as doing so could open them to lots of liability claims. It was eventually solved by the use of sintered or slotted pads, but no manufacturer included that little bit of good news in their advertising BS, as if the problem never existed...
It was fixed today, for temporary while waiting to claim the retainer from dealer. As in pics i managed to get the stucked broken screw out and replaced with the same size 6mm normal screw. Thank you for every suggestion and reply guys.
I thought that. Perhaps, as you say, a high tensile, grade 12.6 Allen type of bolt would be better.
Keep the spring as close to that locknut as possible to reduce leverage exerted.
Joking apart, this could potentially be a serious fault. Not only does it cut the engine out but if it happens on a left hand bend and the stand drops on the road and catches...
Been thinking about this. The retainer is basically made like a shoulder bolt:
Now those are not really designed to work with shear loads. The spring is applying a constant bending force to the thread.
One solution, if there's enough metal there, is to counterbore a little bit into the threaded hole in the frame so that the round part of the retainer fits snuggly in the counterbore. That way the thread will only take the correct axial tightening load and the much thicker and stronger round bit the shear load applied by the spring tension:
There must be some mechanical engineers in the forum that can advise if this would work or I'm talking a load of bollocks...
Forchetto's shoulder bolt suggestion got me thinking.
That retaining post IS a shoulder bolt. On my bike, it's screwed securely into a cast steel frame member right next to the side stand operating mechanism. I believe that the threads on the OP's part failed because the factory did not properly tighten the bolt. It's strength was compromised because of this, and it failed at the threads (it's weakest point) after only a short time.
Properly tightened, the threads hold the retainer/bolt in tension, and it should be as strong as its widest point.
The fix: Lie down next to the bike and give the retainer a tweak with an 8mm box end wrench just to be sure it's tight. Mine is, and I believe there's adequate design strength there, after all. Still, I'd be happier if the retaining bolt were a little shorter, or beefier, or both.
I taped a small length of coiled baling wire under one of the side covers. If the side stand retracting spring shoulder bolt breaks off, I can secure the stand to the bike's frame, where the ignition interlock magnet has to be for the bike to run.
There's a spare H4 bulb stowed in the same place.
Gee, I wonder how many other spares I'm going to have to squirrel away, just in case?
If the part breaks and the side stand swings down, the engine would die exactly as though you'd used the kill switch. Plus, now you have the side stand hanging down while moving!
The spring retainer broke on my T120 a couple of weeks ago but in a different situation. I was loading the bike on a 5X8 utility trailer with an expanded metal ramp and the bike went dead before the rear wheel came up on the trailer itself, I tried to crank it and nothing happened when starter engaged, I thought it was strange and looked down and the side stand was completely down. I felt a little bump when trying to load and think now it just hit the end of the trailer and broke.
I was really in a precarious situation trying to get the bike off the trailer and almost dropped it a couple of times trying to hold the stand up so it would not hit the ramp.
OP if you read this how did you get to the broken piece to drill it out. I called Pandora's and ordered one but it is not in yet. I did not try to file a warranty claim.
The spring retainer broke on my T120 a couple of weeks ago but in a different situation. [...] I felt a little bump when trying to load and think now it just hit the end of the trailer and broke. [...]
Wondering here: could anyone with a proper sump guard check it that would protect the spring retainer from such an issue?
I would much rather shell $150 as a sump guard is likely to cost rendered here in Vietnam than have to deal with a broken retainer --and common roads here can turn nasty too, not unlikely to touch there under.
Got the bike three weeks ago. Checked to see if there's factory blue paint on the kick stand. Yes there is. In fact, there are two marks showing check of spring and bolt. So at least Triumph recognizes that this stand issue is important. Now the issue is do they have a substandard bolt. One thing is for certain, the kick stand is a lot smaller and flimpsier than the one on my 2002 Bonnie, which is a lighter bike.
Got the bike three weeks ago. Checked to see if there's factory blue paint on the kick stand. Yes there is. In fact, there are two marks showing check of spring and bolt. So at least Triumph recognizes that this stand issue is important. Now the issue is do they have a substandard bolt. One thing is for certain, the kick stand is a lot smaller and flimpsier than the one on my 2002 Bonnie, which is a lighter bike.
I think sub standard part is the key issue here. When I drilled Menzies broken stud to prep for an easy out tool the metal in the stud flaked like pot metal. I'm accustomed to sharp shards when drilling steel, this was just gray flakes, really powdery at that and the drill really had an easy time of it. That was with a 5/64" bit; when I upsized to 1/8" the broken stud began to spin freely. I managed to jam a T handle Allen into the hole and spin the broken part out with very little resistance. That's a little ******* technique but it sure worked.
Also, there's a band of gray material on the replacement stud that looks a lot like the Dri-Loc pre-applied thread locker. You could feel it grab when it got to the outermost threads but then it got really easy to turn just before the shoulder on the peg bottomed out, almost like the thread diameter got a skosh larger the deeper the threads got. I suspect a dab of paint or fingernail polish on the edge of the stud will be good insurance but everyone should check their tightness. The weak point of the pin is where the threaded portion stops at the shoulder, it's the inside diameter of the bolt for about 1/8" so there's no support at the sides of the frame boss. It's like it was designed to fail.
I got my new retainer peg fitted today and did not notice any blue paint. My buddy looked really close and does not think mine broke the way I described it. It does look flimsy and as the previous posted stated it is not as substantial as the earlier Bonnies. It is nice to have it fixed and not do a juggling act when stopped.
Don't be so fast to condemn Triumph as a uncaring cold hearted profit centric behemoth. I feel relatively confident Triumph does care if some design aspect compromises your safety beyond their liability in a lawsuit and that they are aware of how defective components can hurt their reputation, ie sales. When you consider the number of complaints they must receive (not all associated with design or component deficiencies) with all the bikes they produce and have produced since reviving the brand, it must be staggering. You must admit, some bikes are purchased by complete morons that haven't a clue how to care for them. IMHO, Triumph is likely more sensitive and/or responsive to owner complaints than some of the larger motorbike manufacturers. It has been documented that Mr. Bloor's over riding focus upon the brands reintroduction as a mass producer was reliability/dependability and I honestly think that shows in their motorbikes.
Sure, there will be some issues with a new model. These days, a component is only as good as the "engineer" entering the data in the cad package, (LOL), and complete stress analysis cannot be performed on every individual component. Triumph realizes if they make a bike with features that are unsafe, especially these days with social media, their sales will suffer and people will get hurt. I can promise that lack of concern for the customer is not part of their business plan and if the side stand spring retainer bolt is in fact defective/unsafe and not a result of just being under tightened it will be replaced with a safer/better component.
In the early 2000s there was a problem with the Sprint ST fuel tank not venting properly and some even imploded. There were dozens of "solutions" out on the internet and all kinds of hysteria around the design issue. My ST was affected by the vent problem and sometimes opening the fuel filler cap was nearly impossible. I tried every "fix" I could find on the web and none of them solved the problem on my bike. As a last effort before admitting defeat, I removed the filler cap assembly and found the rubber gasket was installed clocked incorrectly and sealing the vent orifice. The mounting screws were symmetrical so it could easily be installed one hole off and eliminate the tanks ability to vent. After solving my own vent problem I sent an email to Triumph describing what I had found and how it was solved. I received a very nice letter from Triumph engineering thanking me for my email and assuring me the issue had been forwarded to the production floor. I don't think they would have bothered with that if they did not care about us.
You need a broken bolt extractor. EZ out is one of the brand names for these.
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