Daysie's Diary

[Lee337]

I can't say I'm a serial restorer, or even a multi project kind of guy, but I just couldn't turn this one down.

Meet Daysie!

Daysie is a 1997 Triumph Daytona T595 I picked up a few weeks ago. Here's her story s far.

She was first registered on 10 March 1997. I am her 5th keeper & she came to me with 33132 miles on her. Previous owners were

• 4. David - bought from Ace Motorcycles, Macclesfield in March 2008
• 3. Mr S - bought from Highbarn Motorcycles, Oldham in March 2001
• 2. Mr O - bought from Fowlers Motorcycles in Cheltenham in November 1997

No idea who originally bought her or from where as I don't have any record in the papers that came with her..

Much like Tabitha before her, Daysie has been off the road for some time. At some point after her last MOT in March 2010 and within 500 miles from then, her radiator started leaking. Dave took her off the road & started using his winter hack until Daysie (then known as 'The Yellow Peril')could be repaired. Sadly, life got in the way and she spent two years under a cover in his parents back garden before being moved to a shed where she spent the next 10 years.

There is some service history and I have receipts for services at 4000, 6000 and 12000 miles, the last being done in April 2002.

As you can see, there's a BIG hole in her history from 2002 to 2010 when she was taken off the road, aside from MOT history from 2005 - 2010. The 2005 MOT showed 26,422 miles, so there's over 14,000 miles where I have no history.

I know that the early Daytona's were recalled to have the frame replaced after some cracked & I know this was done as the original frames were polished & the replacements powder coated but as for history, that's it.

You may recall from Tabitha's diary that I name all my bikes, so why Daysie? Well, the previous owner called her 'The Yellow Peril' well, that was the name his Grandfather gave it, but there are racial connotations so it needed to be changed, I contemplated Pearl (the Yellow Peril) because of her paint scheme but Mrs L again jumped in & said 'Why not call her Dasie, daisies are yelow? So she became Daysie the Daytona.

[Lee337]

It was a warm, dry day when Paul, my brother & I set off for the outskirts of Manchester in a hire van to go & pick up Daysie. There really wasn't much to say about the journey there & back.

This is now the 4th bike I've bought without seeing first. There's Talulah, bought from eBay sight unseen, the first time I saw her was when I turned up in the Wirral to ride her the 160 miles home. Then there was Tabitha, first time I saw her was when my mate Keith lifted the covers on her after she'd been sitting unused for almost 12 years. That was a trailer job aided again by my brother as I didn't have a tow hitch on my car. That was a short  150 mile round trip to bring her back from Milton Keynes. There was also another Tiger 955i, I bought from a forum member here. Again my brother was roped in to helping me retrieve that one too. That was a round trip of 250 miles.

No, I don't know why I do it either!

When I finally got Daysie home, I didn't really look at her, I just put her in the garage as I was off to Paul's for a nice roast dinner, ably cooked by his wife. So, it was the following day when I first pulled her out on to the drive. in the cold light of day that I got to have a really good look and another week before I washed 10 years of crud off her.

She actually cleaned up rather nice & almost looked rideable.

It was time to take a closer look 

 

[Lee337]

As I knew the bodywork was in pretty good order now she's had a good wash, off it came. As you would expect after 12 years, this was not without its problems. one othe lower bolts on each fairing was seized, so I had to undo the bracket from the engine to remove the fairings. I have yet to free up these bolts but I have a tin of Plus Gas on the way which I'm hoping will help. All of the Dzus fasteners are corroded, so they'll have to be replaced but aside from that, so far, so good.

With the fairings off, I can now get a look at the huge (& growing) list of jobs. For starters and in no particular order, all filters & fluids, a full engine service including valves, repair/replace radiator, replace all bearings (front, back & suspension bushes) strip & rebuild front shocks, refurbish brakes all round (the rear brake pedal is seized), new battery, new tyres, new chain & sprockets, the list is endless & to date the estimate for new/replacement parts is edging close to £1500. But where to start?

I know, I'll start with the easy bits first & empty the fuel tank of 12 year old fuel.

Having removed the tank I carefully undid all the bolts holding the fuel filter/pump plate & carefully removed it.

The smell was RANK.

I removed around 5 litres of old fuel and you wouldn't believe what state the fuel pump was in.

So here you have it, the begining of yet another project, one to rival Tabitha and probably more challenging, not least of which is how to get Daysie on the bench. She has a single sided swingarm, so I can't just roll her on & use my paddock stand, or the centre stand - she doesn't have one.

[Sin_Tiger]

   never seen vintage fuel do that until now.

[Lee337]

Managed to find a little more information about Daysie today. From the TOMCC database, she rolled off the production line on 21 February 1997 (17 days before she was registered) and there are currently 6900 1997 Daytona's in their database. That's not to say there are still that many on the road, just that there were 6900 produced in 1997.

I know there is an on-line source to tell you how many are left and this shows only 166 are on the road & taxed and 813 SORNed (IF I'm reading the data correctly).

[Nick Calne]

I had a black one a bit like this(955).  Lovely bike to ride.  Couldn't go anywhere at less than 80mph though. 

[Lee337]

Work gets in the way of a good hobby I've decided.    I've not managed to do a lot other than use around half a can of Plus Gas on the fuel pump/filter housing, just to free up the fittings. Think I might need a lot more before I'm finished.

I'm not even going to bother trying to clean the fuel pump & have ordered a new one. I'll replace the filter anyway, plus all the rubber hoses.

Had another go at it today & managed to finally release the pump & filter. Mind you' I've knackered two of the screws, so just something else to replace. 

Now the tank is finally drained and dry, I'm going to clean it all out tomorrow (Saturday). I want to leave it somewhere nice & dry while I'm dong other work so hopefully the bubbles on the tank will reduce a little. It didn't have e5 in it, taken off the road prior to the introduction of e5 fuel, so the few bubbes it does have may be here to stay - It's got two chances...

Other than starting spending money on a new pump and gasket for the pump plate, I've als managed to get hold of a single sided paddock stand with a pin that fits the Daytona for the princely sum pf £20.

And so begins the wallet emptying saga that is Daysie.

Maybe it's just as well I do have a job. 

[ghulst]

That looks like a great addition to the stable. It cleaned up remarkably well. That fuel pump and filter situation really reminds me of my Ducati. It looked (and probably smelled) about the same.  It took a while to get that decent again. A new pump is probably a very wise decision. 

For the lift, there are single sided paddock stands that put a bar through the hollow axle. Those can be found at decent prices sometimes.  Otherwise get a small scissor lift and put that under the frame before the swing arm. That is usually what I do and it works well. They are also plentiful and cheap. Or build something to hold it out of wood. That was the first thing I did with my first bike. Needless to say, I then acquired a small scissor lift soon after. It makes life so much nicer.

[Lee337]

A bit more work over the weekend & Daysie is now on the bench. I thought I'd struck lucky when I saw a clean looking fuel plate in a well known auction site for a reasonable price, so bought it. It wasn't until I had a rally good look at it a few weeks later I realised there are two different fuel pump plates, a 14 hole plate & a 10 hole plate. You guessed it, I needed a 10 hole one & bought a 14 hole plate. 

Looks like I'll be refurbishing the 10 hole one I already have then. I've yet to clean out the inside of the fuel tank but have unblocked the vent pipe & air pipe that runs through the tank. Both were blocked so I had to carefully drill them out. a dodgy process anyway as I didn't want to pierce the pipe inside the tank.

I've also removed the radiator, which is more seive than anything else, as I found out when I flushed it through with clean water. There's a company, Murcia Radiator repairs I think it's called who repair/re-core radiators for far less than the cost of a new one and probably safer than buying second hand, so once it's packaged up, I'll be sending it off to them.

I've also checked the fan and sadly, it's pretty much seized - the fun part will be finding a replacement. It's on the bench at the moment soaking in Plusgas. I rigged up a couple of leads and connected it direct to the Trophy battery and the motor actually works, but there's a bit of a grinding noise. It maybe just full of corrosion which is why the Plusgas, so all may not be lost, except the split washer, that pinged across the garage when I took it off and IS lost.

I've removed the exhaust too which aside from a good clean seems to be ok. there's a little rattle of rust coming from the can but there is on both Tabitha and Tallulah's exhausts, so I'm not going to worry about that. 

I think the next job is going to be giving everything a good clean, starting with a hoover to remove the cobwebs - pretty much what I had to do with Tabitha then... 

[ghulst]

I would definitely go for a re-core on the radiator. I have done that countless times and it works fine. 
Looking forward to hearing about the fans.

[Sin_Tiger]

The 14 hole flange plate is the same on all the 955's I think, if so it should fit Tabitha as a spare.

I suspect they used the same Spal fan as the T3/400's, although the mounting bracket might be different.

[Lee337]

Yes, it would likely fit an older Tiger, but Tallulah is an 06 so there's only one fuel connector.

[Lee337]

Today's task was to se if I could sort out the radiator. Phoned up a company who recores rads but not only did they quote a min of £280, the bloke I spoke with called me 'love'.  Not sure if he was assuming gender or sexual orientation, but when I told him if he had to call me anything, I'd prefer 'Sir' , he was not exactly helpful.

Anyway, I found a rad on line for £70 from National Triumph. Also ordered a headlight as one of the mounting brackets was broken on the one attached to the bike.

I've removed the subframe as the paint is flaking. I'll take that off to be powder coated together with a few other bits next month.

The rear undertray needs a good clean before it goes back on as does pretty much all the mechanical bits under the body work.

Not sure yet whether to keep stripping or start cleaning. Whatever I do, I'll need a bigger socket for the rear wheel nut, the biggest I have is 36mm & the nut is 46mm I believe.

Watch this space...

[Sin_Tiger]

Hope the hub eccentric turns out to be free, they can be a bugger if they've not been looked after.

[ghulst]

I would start with a very thorough clean. At least that will keep you half decent when you strip it down further.  If not, you are going to go through all that dirt three times. Once on the part you take off, then you have to clean everything you touched afterwards and then yourself.