How tired you must all be of the pedestrian progress and devilish detail? How much must you, like me, long for motorised adventure and the perils of his sister Miss? Nearly there, trapped by compulsion I’m held hostage by ParcelFarce dangling some final components just out of reach. More on that later, back to the build, the T3 exhaust headers were aftermarket, unfortunately not intended for a T3 I have to assume by the unaesthetic fit. I took a punt and obtained replacements with no dimensions provided. I got lucky.
Their profile, easier on the eye, cleared the side-stand spring and eliminated the snare drum effect of interference. The side-stand itself is from the American variant, the California, and leans towards the jaunty, laid back west coast vibe. I like it.
Having spent time and shipping on restoring the headlight to near originality I embarked on a quest to do the same to the air box. Back in the day, Monday 5th May 1980 possibly, it was fashionable to junk the standard air box on motorcycles and fit gauze filters instead. The rationale being that the factory were over cautious and that this route was lighter, more performant and sexier. The T3 is none of these three, incidentally its nominal 3 carries the proud boast that it is fitted with three disc brakes, a novelty at the time (the T is for Tonti, the frame designer). The box is big and tricky to fit in the tight space available but comes with a built in engine breather and authentic credibility.
The square slide Dellorto VHB30 carbs are getting hard to obtain and ethanol fuel is not kind to them, I picked up some bargain VHBT30 (not sure what this T stands for) variants and showed them the ultrasonic cleaner. They were impressed and I swapped them in with satisfactory effect, although they may be running a little rich. As standard the carbs come with individual choke levers which are infuriating to operate with gloves, I replaced them with a single lever and cables mounted to the rocker cover just under the tank.
Still here? I’ll cut to the chase, she went back together and I started to ride her to work for a ‘shakedown’, first to shake was the handlebars. Eventually diagnosed as the head races bedding into the frame and adjusted out easily shortly after precautionary purchase of replacement fork canisters and a steering damper. Neither got fitted. The funniest and most disturbing snagging was to discover after a month that I’d wired the indicators wrong and whilst the front was telling the truth the back was alarmingly saying the opposite. What doesn’t kill us makes us stranger.
Le Mans man 