The Polish rebuild

matjas said:

Yup this time I got very lucky all good in there. The new tank had a couple of dings which I managed to massage out with a wooden dowel through the pump opening.
I need to take the radiator off to straighten the fixings and maybe tomorrow I will fire her up again.

Is that normal the bike requires a little cranking from cold? Bit too much for my liking. Once it comes to life idle regulation etc all works as supposed. On ignition I can hear the stepper adjusting constantly so I think it can be the nature of things. Once it has run a moment it starts immediately afterwards.
Me thinks it might want some adjustment for the cold start however the idle is nicely elevated so tge stepper is doing its job before bringing it down to roughly steady 850rpm where it stays rock solid.

Also - when looking under the tank. There are three free plugs. I am guessing this could be the fuel gauge, clock and??? The top one with the yellow insert seems like could have been used since there is green residue characteristic of water plus electricity galvanic thing. Am I missing something in there???

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Same with my 2006, with the cranking in cold weather. Been OK all summer; now the temp has dropped. It'll be interesting to see what it's like when it gets minus here. Did you sort yours?

matjas said:

Seems like there is nothing to it. Apart from the fact I need to take BOTH wheels and keep the bike suspended for a month or so
The spline lube is something I am used to having owned a number or Beemers. I have a bike lift/stand - it should do the trick - has been holding a GL1200 during rebuild for a couple of months - should be fine with the Rocket.

Checked the manual for FD oil capacity - 170ml - dunno if 70ml has been drained so definitely not overfilled. Wonder why so little - there has been no sign of leakage.
Need to get some crush washers for both of the fill/drain bolts. There were none which just blows my mind. The magnetic plug had the traditional sludge on it - no solid particles which is good. Will keep you posted.

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The diff doesn’t have use crush washers, if you crush a crush washer to seal on the drain bolt, the drain bolt is going to break, the hugh 10mm fill bolt does not get a crush washer, if oil comes out you are to full, but it never just leaks anyway. Set the bike level, fill until fluid comes out fill hole. Thats it, done it 357 times, i change it often. I have never had a diff problem. Ive tore up many other parts, but not a diff

Steff said:

Same with my 2006, with the cranking in cold weather. Been OK all summer; now the temp has dropped. It'll be interesting to see what it's like when it gets minus here. Did you sort yours?

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What are your throttle bodie balances, 1, 2 ,3 ? What is tps and stepper set at? Numbers you have to know.

@Kevin - this is the first time I see a drain/fill opening without any kind of washer so seal off the oil and youre not telling me it is better to seal the bolt's head directly on the casing, are you? there will be annealed copper washers installed in these bolts. If you prefer yours without them - I have nothing to it. In fact BOTH of the bolts were weeping oil a bit so not a great fan of how mother Triumph has done it. If you use an annealed washer it takes very little effort to have it compressed and even this tiny drain bolt can do it without snapping. In fact the torque needed for it to seal against annealed copper is far less than this against the casing.

@Steff - as per the morning cranking - I dont quite understand this bike - sometimes it buzzes the stepper and after the clock sweep all is quiet, sometimes I can hear it acting until I press the start button - buzzing.
on the cold start it requires 2-3 seconds of cranking then it fires up for a moment then dies, then starts at a press of the button, immediately and runs 1100rpm or about to arrive at 850rpm in a minute or so. The idle is rock steady and never had a problem with that. ONCE or TWICE it started immediately from cold.
In fact the long cranking does nothing - it is enough to crank just for a moment, then repeat and it does it.
It can be either something with fuel pressure building up and the injectors not injecting... or poor cranking or some problems in the harness - poor grounds etc. All of this should be checked.

I will check what the voltages are for the TPSs. and the throttle balance. There is also a weird behaviour when I am riding and want to engine brake the bike sort of coasts for a moment then reduces 'idle' and starts proper braking in 5th, lets say. No IMMEDIATE engine braking - takes maybe a second to reduce the overrun to coasting and braking. Dunno if I am explaining this properly.


Back to the breather oil leak - I drained only about 70ml - as opposed to 170ml in the documentation so this has not been overfilled beyond any shade of doubt. Also the oil that was burped was clean gear oil, what I drained has the MOS2 additive in it. My theory is the bike has been on its side obviously and the labyrinthine breather at the top of the casing was full of old gear oil - when the temp went up it has been burped once - I have installed this make shift absorption material there has been no oil out later on. Need to take the cap off the breather and see if there has been no damage. This is a very tiny but possibly deadly thing :/

Well there is some progress if this can be called that…
Tomorrow the swingarm goes out - rust inside omg. Never ever have i seen anything like that in any of the dozen or so Beemers I have Had. Bloody bike designed in a country where it never rains…
Had some prewelded piecuts leftovers from some old project - the original exhaust is not coming back.

matjas said:

Well there is some progress if this can be called that…
Tomorrow the swingarm goes out - rust inside omg. Never ever have i seen anything like that in any of the dozen or so Beemers I have Had. Bloody bike designed in a country where it never rains…
Had some prewelded piecuts leftovers from some old project - the original exhaust is not coming back.

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Are you building your own manifold? Nice. Looking forward to more pics.

matjas said:

Well there is some progress if this can be called that…
Tomorrow the swingarm goes out - rust inside omg. Never ever have i seen anything like that in any of the dozen or so Beemers I have Had. Bloody bike designed in a country where it never rains…
Had some prewelded piecuts leftovers from some old project - the original exhaust is not coming back.

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That looks like dried Molly to me.

Yes. The original exhaust is 22kgs.

I just hope I will not have to build my own driveshaft.
It WAS a mistake to ride this bike at all not checking first but who would have thought.
Dried up molybdenum? Don’t Think so but wish you were right.

Personally i use Staburags in places like this. Good stuff.

Yes that red dry stuff is not rust. It is dried moly. Surprised me too first time in there. Be sure to coat the splines with new molly paste. You can get a new FD vent from Triumph. Be sure to use no more than 15 NM when installing the tiny drain plug bolt. Any more will snap it. Mine snapped just removing it. Next your starting can be improved by turning the key on twice before cranking. It lets the fuel pump fill the fuel rail better. Also did you replace the fuel filter ? If not, do it. Get a KL 145 from Mahle. Don't waist your money on a Triumph filter. The KL 145 is what they use with a Triumph paint job. On tires look at the new Metzler Cruise Techs if you can not find the Avon Cobra. I use these exclusively. Cobras are very good tires but are really hard to find, if they are even available anymore. There are some really nice exhaust systems for the RIII. I have mine from Viking Exhaust in New Zeeland. Expensive but nice. The owner Paul Bryant is on the forum. Look for used Triumph Off Road commonly called TORs, Stay In Tune, D&D, Jardine and many others you can see talked about on the forum. A very good tune to use is 20228 along with many modified tunes you can find on TuneECU. For the older Rocket III bikes TuneECU works well on a PC Laptop. That is how I connect with mine. I use the Tablet and Dongle on my 2022 Tiger 900 and Bonneville T120. These new bikes will not work on the PC laptop. Good luck.

thanks for the valuable info. many thanks.
no - the initial couple of powerups will not do the trick in my case. usually it will burp the second try and then start. THEN it starts every time no problem.
also, once I took the collector off I noticed the middle cylinder has MUCH less deposits as if running leaner/hotter. Will have to see the spark plugs if they also confirm the lean/er running in the middle jug. If this is the case indeed I suspect the injector. Can swap them around to see if this travels - anyways could throw it into an ultrasonic cleaner.
I will replace the filter OFC once this is all coming back together. The filter looks pretty much the same as those in BMWs and this is what I will use as I have them laying around.

For the exhaust any other option than DIY costs TOOOO much for my Polish pocket with ZARD just hitting it straight out of the ballpark at 2500EUR... WTF!
Will weld all myself and use a generic Remus Titanium or Revolution can which I also have.

For the shaft - it has been consumed halfway IMVHO - thanks to technical negligence of the previous owners. Major PITA #$%^&*( I am a VERY steady rider and dont snap clutch and all that so properly greased with Staburags PTO it should have what it likes... It is badly eaten anyways. I my book.

Thanks to all that keep coming back and keep this thread alive and keep my spirits somehow elevated. Lots of work.