The Triton was a modified café racer

Café racer

A café racer is a type of motorcycle as well as a type of motorcyclist. Both meanings have their roots in the 1960s British counterculture group the Rockers, or the Ton-up boys, although they were also common in Italy, Germany, and other European countries...

 motorcycle

Motorcycle

A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

 of the 1960s-1970s. The name derives from a contraction of Triumph and Norton, the two brands of motorcycle combined.

The intention was to combine the best elements of each to give a bike superior to both. The usual practice was to take the Triumph parallel twin engine and use it to replace the engine on a Norton Featherbed frame

Featherbed frame

The featherbed frame was a motorcycle frame developed by the British Norton motorcycle company to improve the performance of their racing motorcycles around the twisting and demanding Isle of Man TT course in 1950. It was considered revolutionary at the time, and the best handling frame that a...

d motorcycle that was regarded as the best handling motorcycle of the day. The Triumph Bonneville

Triumph Bonneville

The Bonneville is a range of British motorcycles, made in three different production runs from 1959 to 1983, and 1985 to 1988, by the now-defunct Triumph Engineering in Meriden; and since 2001, by Triumph Motorcycles in Hinckley. It is named after the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, where Triumph and...

s engine that already had twin carburettors was a popular engine choice. This engine, as well as other Triumph twin-cylinder engines, gave good performance and reliability and could be easily tuned for greater power by the addition of high-profile camshaft

Camshaft

A camshaft is a shaft to which a cam is fastened or of which a cam forms an integral part.-History:An early cam was built into Hellenistic water-driven automata from the 3rd century BC. The camshaft was later described in Iraq by Al-Jazari in 1206. He employed it as part of his automata,...

s, high compression piston

Piston

A piston is a component of reciprocating engines, reciprocating pumps, gas compressors and pneumatic cylinders, among other similar mechanisms. It is the moving component that is contained by a cylinder and is made gas-tight by piston rings. In an engine, its purpose is to transfer force from...

s and twin carburettors or fuel injectors

Fuel injection

Fuel injection is a system for admitting fuel into an internal combustion engine. It has become the primary fuel delivery system used in automotive petrol engines, having almost completely replaced carburetors in the late 1980s....

 amongst the more common power contributing modifications. There was also a Weslake

Weslake

Weslake Research and Development was founded by Harry Weslake, with premises in Rye, East Sussex, England. Weslake was a cylinder head specialist who had been instrumental in modifying the side valve standard engine used in the first SS sports car. He also worked on the larger SS engine: "The...

 8-valve head available for the Triumph.

The Norton 650 and 750 vertical twin engines had a reliability problem. At about 7000 rpm the piston exceeds the engineering limit for piston speed, so over-revving soon destroys the engines. The BSA 650 had a bronze bush main bearing on the right hand side, doubling as the crank oil feed, with a lack of effective crankshaft end play control, that all had difficulty staying together when thrashed, even though the rest of the design was possibly better than the Triumph. The Triumph vertical twin used a ball on the timing side, and a roller on the other, with the oil feeding through a separate bronze bush in the outer right hand engine side cover. The Triumph was the pick of the bunch.

Whereas the Norton 650SS 646.44 cc had a bore and stroke of 68 x 89 mm giving 49 bhp @ 6,800 rpm, the Triumph T120 Bonneville 649.31 cc had a bore and stroke of 71 x 82 mm giving 46 bhp @ 6,500 rpm. However the mean piston speed of the Norton was 3,971 ft/min (dangerously close to the then accepted limit of 4,000 ft/min). The Triumph, with its shorter stroke, had a mean piston speed of only 3,497 ft/min, had much less vibration and was much stronger and reliable. Road tests showed that the Norton had a higher top speed due to its 3 bhp advantage. In spite of this, the Triumph was the much preferred engine. The Norton featherbed was the preferred frame. Hence the Triton.

If the Triton used a pre-unit Triumph motor, then the AMC gearbox used in Nortons after 1960 was better than the equivalent Triumph gearbox. There was also the Quaife five speed.

A common choice for the modern day Triton is to use a Triumph unit construction twin in a featherbed frame.

Several motorcycle dealers made equipment for Triton conversions, some would do the complete job for customers while others sold complete Tritons. The most important part required are the engine mounting plates and several different designs exist that can affect the engine placement and therefore the handling. The lower the engine is mounted the better the handling achieved from the Norton frame.

On the May 2011 episode of Massive Motorcycles on Quest (TV channel)

Quest (TV channel)

Quest is a TV channel in the United Kingdom. Quest provides factual, lifestyle, entertainment programmes and other imported material. The channel is operated by Discovery Networks Western Europe.-History:...

 presenter Chris Barrie

Chris Barrie

Chris Barrie is a British actor. He first achieved success as a vocal impressionist, notably in the ITV sketch show Spitting Image...

 highlighted the premise behind the Triton, and visited the man who invented this bike, and revealed he still hand makes them to order in his garage.

The Tribsa

Tribsa

The Tribsa, or Tri-B.S.A., was a custom built cafe racer or off road motorcycle of the 1960s and 1970s. Its name was an elision of "Triumph" and "BSA". The purpose was to combine the best elements of each marque to give a superior bike to either....

, an alternative to the Triton, was a Triumph engine in a BSA

Birmingham Small Arms Company

This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited of Armoury Road, Small Heath, Birmingham B11 2PP or BSA Company or its successors....

 frame but other frame and engine combinations were also made.

Vincent

Vincent Motorcycles

Vincent Motorcycles was a British manufacturer of motorcycles from 1928 to 1955. Their 1948 Black Shadow was at the time the world's fastest production motorcycle...

 V-twin

V-twin

A V-twin engine is a two-cylinder internal combustion engine where the cylinders are arranged in a V configuration.- Crankshaft configuration :Most V-twin engines have a single crankpin, which is shared by both connecting rods...

 motors have been fitted into featherbed frames making a hybrid called a Norvin.

External links

• Building a Triton in your kitchen
• Realclassic 1959 T100 Triton
• the Bike Shed's 1955 Triton
• Cafe racer at the Open Directory Project
  Open Directory Project
  The Open Directory Project , also known as Dmoz , is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links. It is owned by Netscape but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings...