Vintage Thing 8.3 - A series Vincent-HRD TTR

Stephen Pate has sent me some more images of the special brakes for the A series Vincent TTR that he's restoring. Again, they are things of beauty and were sourced by the Japanese and American TTR owners working together. When I saw the pre-restoration state of the machine I thought how unnecessary but now that I realise its historic nature, I appreciate the responsibility that goes with owning something like this. Without the special TTR forks and brakes this bike was close to being "only" another A series Vincent. Now that the right parts have been sourced, just bolting them on wouldn't be right. Besides, earlier restoration work on this bike did not come up to standard. There's an opportunity here to review the condition of the whole machine and ensure its survival for many years to come.

In fact, Steve says that the condition of the special forks was a real mess and that after shot blasting he ended up building a jig and then disassembling the forks before rebrazing them together. As he puts it, "Where would I get another one?"

Another example of the lengths to which Steve is prepared to go to get things right - the wheels were incorrectly painted and striped. To get the chrome to hold the paint properly it has to be scuffed up but that showed problems with the plating. So off came the chrome an then off came the nickel to reveal further horrors underneath. As my mate Col would say, "Just right is good enough."

Steve also mentioned that he has a reservations on modern powder coating techniques. One of my mates swears by it, another won't countenance it, saying it encourages corrosion by drawing up water between the coating and the metal of the frame if the outer cover is ever breached. One mostly shows his bikes, the other rides them in classic trials. You can work out which one is which.

For more examples of Steve's work on Vincents click here.