Some pictures

See what I mean about the back wheel.....

The plan

Well, there isn't one yet. Part of me wants to strip it back and make a cool bobber out of it, but with a bike this original it seems a shame. I'm tending towards doing a nice restoration.

For the time being, I'll just get it up on the hoist and contemplate my navel.

The bike

The bike is a 71 Bonnie that has sat in a shed for over a quarter of a century. The bloke who I bought it off has owned it from new. It was last registered for the road in 1974 and the rego label backs this up.

Before it was stored away the oil was changed to the preservation variety, the petrol was drained and the whole bike was covered in CRC or WD40. Although it looks tatty, a wipe with a finger shows that most of the grime is just collected dust and so forth. There is some surface rust on the top surfaces but I don't see anywhere where it goes deeper.

The Good
The bike is mostly original. The handlebars are of a BMW, the mufflers have been changed, a boyer ignition has been installed, some crash bars and there's a pretty agricultural oil cooler that's been installed.
It even has it's original front Dunlop tyre, and after all these years in storage the tubes are still holding air.
The engine turns over nicely, with no apparent oil leaks and compression seems OK.

The Bad
A lot of the wiring has become exposed after the outer casings have perished away, and the ignition key is missing. The front mudguard is missing a stay and looks to have been repaired at some point in the past. The battery has leaked at some point and there's corrosion from the acid (common I believe).
The biggest apparent problem is that the rear wheel appears out of vertical. measuring either side of the swing-arm sees one side lower that the other. It may just be the swing-arm that needs truing up or replacing, or something more sinister like a warped frame. I won't know until everything is stripped off.

The Ugly
That oil cooler can't stay where it is. I may paint it black and mount it vertically so it's less conspicuous, I may replace it or I just may live without one altogether.
The crash bars will definitely be going. They spoil the beaut lines of the bike completely.
Oh, and there's a few wasps and birds nests scattered in various nooks & crannies.

The road trip

So I bought online what was claimed to be a relatively unmolested 71 Triumph Bonneville sight unseen. The bike was in Adelaide and I'm in Brisbane, so there's over 2000kms between me and the bike. Call me cautious but I wasn't willing to transfer a wad of cash and trust what got shipped back was what I paid for, so Rusty and I hired a trailer and hit the road to go and pick the bike up.

We hit the road after Rusty finished work on Thursday afternoon and were in Adelaide by Saturday lunchtime. It turns out that the bike was pretty much what was described and I could have saved myself some money by having the bike shipped across but hey, it's better to be safe than sorry.