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Originally Posted by backofbeyond
Sounds like you had the good ones the factory turned out.  My experience of 60's / early 70's Triumphs / BSAs etc is that they were for the most part unreliable and fragile - a bit like recent decades Land Rovers!
No point in giving chapter and verse on every fault that had one or other Triumph grinding to a halt in the corner of some foreign field but a trip to Greece in 1973 went through two Triumphs (one new, one 1yr old) vs zero faults on the accompanying Yamaha. That was about par for the course back then. 
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I don't know, I was only stopped from completing a journey once at about 80, 000 miles with my 500. That bike went to and from Norfolk to Cornwall every weekend for two years and never missed a beat 435 miles each way. I was in the forces then and back in the early sixties there were no motorways except for the M1 which went from the North circular towards Birmingham. My first ever breakdown due to an electrical fault was about six years ago (on the BMW).
Oh and the Triumphs breakdown wasn't really the bikes fault. At 80,000 miles I replaced the primary chain and clutch sproket as they were worn. 45 miles later the primary chain jumped through the chaincase. All the teeth were missing from the clutch sprocket. Apparently a bad batch from Qualcast.
I admit I have been lucky. In all that time I only ever had one puncture on a bike Until I got the BMW. that one kept losing air from the seal between rim and tubeless tyre. Oddly the only time I had problems with flat tyres was once when I had a cortina with alloy wheels. they would do the same, drive it hard round a bend and the tyre would go completely flat in an instant due to losing the seal between rim and tyre. so I got a set of steel rims and never had a problem after. I did about 50,000 miles a year for 20 years as I was a service enginneer for an American computer firm for that time. After 1970 I only rode as a hobby on a 1970 Triumph Trophy. To my mind the best motorcycle ever made by anyone. If I had to have one: and only one bike for the whole of my life I would choose that model. From 1971 Triumph had real problems whilst BSA managed them into obscurity. and because older Brit bikes were simple to maintain. anyone with a hammer and chisel had a go. Even today when I buy a bike or car I look for one that shows no signs of "maintenance". If you can see where a PO has been, leave it alone for it is likely to be a can of worms. It was not knowing what PO's had done that persuaded me to buy the Enfield instaed of an old Triumph as that at least was untouched from the factory. The other reason is I twice wrecked my right knee in car accidents and don't always want to kickstart a bike.
The Enfield is now properly sorted and is fine. it has many features I like. Kickstart and electric start. a carb, gravity fed fuel. (gravity does not fail as often as electric pumps). can easily be changed to Right or Left hand gearshift. 95Mpg, low seat height. 180 kilos. and is Very manoeuvrable. I was able to do a Uturn on the ferry in one cars width and drive out. all the other bikes had to wait until the next lane cleared. I never saw one of them until about I was 50 miles along the road. I admit due to a manufacturing fault the crank failed when I went to Poland. But it rattled me all the way back to a friends house in Belgium where I left the bike. I delivered it to a specialist bike repair shop in the UK and collected it with a new heavy duty crank installed. for less than half the price I was quoted ten years ago to fix an engine management fault on my Volvo. So in my eyes its cheaper to replace two Enfield cranks than to fix one ignition fault on a modern car. I see lots a "good" cars written off because it is too expensive to fix their electrics. How is that being "green".
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