triumph generator

So yet another 500 GP Triumph has another life. According to triumph's records they made 254 of these GP's At the last Classic meeting at Cadwell park they had 276 on the front row of the grid.

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-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

On the front row? They've certainly enlarged the track since I was last there, then.

Tom Astonished

It's a new move brought in by the Formula 1 brigade so that no one is deemed to not to be equal and have to start on the second row. After the first bend they have to go thru the scrutineering shed again and have noise test, blood test, drugs test and also check tyre pressures. Then they go in single file as the track is too narrow to overtake. [ Where have we heard this before ? ]

at:-

hello,have you any idea of the year the generator may be? ive only got the remains,crankcases crank and rods and the electrical bits. look good in a featherbed frame!

Formula 1? Some sort of baby food?

No doubt the head and barrels are the only missing parts? I bought one of these about 35 years ago from Leeds for £60 and I stripped it fairly recently to build a GP but someone relieved me of the head and barrels, I've still got the rest. They were as far as I know for running radio equipment on the Lancasters BICBW, output being 30v and 200amps but again ICBW. I've now managed to locate a set of barrels but if anyone has a spare head I would be in the market for it.

Oily

at:-

They were from the forties and I believe they ran at 8000 rpm.

Oily

got a triumph engine with a generator attached to the

are the barrels square fin or same as the 500 all alloy ones? would the cams,rods and crank be same type as bikes or were they all made for the generator specially?

at:-

As far as I know these were produced wartime for use as an auxiliary generator in the Lanc bomber but someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

They were pretty much a standard triumph engine but to save weight they had alloy barrels and heads. The give away for the design was two cast in bosses on either side of the barrels to hold a sheet metal cowling for fan cooling.

After the war Ernie Lyons used the spares to produce the 500 GP twin, still with the bosses on. Using this bike he won the 1946 Manx Grand Prix, this then put pressure on Triumph's to produce an over the counter racer. They produced from 250 to 254 depending on various sources

When classic bikes stated to get some value many people realise that if you got a cast iron speed twin and stuck the barrels and heads on from a genny you then had a more valuable bike.

No. 277 ?

Here's a picture.

All the parts were interchangeable, most were in that day and age for cost purposes.

no intention of building a bike out of it,more likely a door stop for the shed!

how do you add a pic? I'll try and show what it looks like

got a triumph engine with a generator attached to the

are the barrels square fin or same as the 500 all alloy ones? would the cams,rods and crank be same type as bikes or were they all made for the generator specially?

Yes the barrels are square fin alloy and much larger than the die cast Tiger

100 and the exhaust ports in the head are parallel unlike the splayed ports of the bike engines, the crank has a welded on adaptor to fit the armature (looks a bit of a bodge up) and the big ends are the metalled rods with the nuts at the top. Probably soft tune cams but you could use them in a bike along with the timing gears, oil pump and magneto.

Oily

Forgetting the works Trophy are we?

Oily

lets hope someone is chugging around using them then,after all they helped the war effort!

There was coverage of the generator unit in Stationary Engine magazine back in the 1990's, the barrels or heads have a threaded hole in each side for the cowling retaining bolts IIRC, this is not on the bike engines.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

(sigh) I go away for four days & a crossover speciality appears! Here we go.

Much of what has been said here already is correct - the adoption of an existing engine etc, etc. Details so far not mentioned .........

There was a post-production bronze head for T100's available for a few months in 1939.

The generator engine was the first to use the three stud magneto fitting rather than the platform for the magdyno. The barrels had - like the 1939 T100 - an eight stud base flange. The spigot height is different on the generator barrels & heads, so they must be used together. Generator & early Trophy heads have inlet & exhaust valves of the same size, GP & later Trophy heads were ported, gas flowed & had much bigger inlet valves operating in perilously thin seats! The barrel bosses were not drilled & tapped until fitted, thus giving the impression that there were a lot of spare GP & Trophy barrels about.

Barrels with lumpy pistons, big valve heads, a special manifold block, twin

276 carb bodies, a remote float and an E3134 cam for the inlet were briefly available (from memory) in 1949/50 as a factory race kit. The engine was overtaken by the development of the far superior close-pitch finned T100 which had splayed exhaust ports. The later race kit (Tiger 100C) included a special head with splayed inlet ports as well as exhaust. My mate Trevor Wilmot had one & both he and it took a lot of catching I recall!

The units were indeed used as APU's in Lancasters, running at 4,000RPM I believe. I suspect that attempts to run a Triumph twin with a bolt-up crankshaft at 8,000rpm without special attention & a bored out oil pump would lead to the swift demise of the white metalled big ends .......

I have a bare crankcase for one. There is (or was before the fire) a generator unit in the National Motorcycle Museum off the M42. Here's a picture of a more or less complete unit.

Regards,

J. Kim Siddorn,

Ahem. I must admit to a selfless act today ;o)) I was on my way back from York to Bristol & remembered that the National Motorcycle Museum has a Triumph APU on display in time to turn off the M42.

They were great! Could I go in without paying and take some photos of this one engine. A quick phone call & of course you can sir.

Not wishing to overplay my hand, I did walk quite swiftly past the rows and rows of exotica - (in particular, a twin magneto single cylinder 500 Excelsior Manxman with a bronze head that spoke O so loudly to me. Factory prototype ......)

The Triumph genny must have been fire damaged, as it has been rebuilt & lurks at the back of a TRW & a BSA M21 with a Welbike for company. I needed to step over the rope & move signs, so was forced to walk back to the desk by a different route & ask. Eyes right.

Yes, of course you can sir. Please don't let any of the bikes fall on you.

OK ...... Back by another route, eyes left. In front of a CCTV camera, I lifted the rope off its hook, moved four signs stepped carefully over the TRW without it falling on me & took eleven photos before carefully reassembling everything & walking back by yet another route. Eyes everywhere! Effusive thanks & back on the road.

Of course, I had not brought my camera with me, so had to use my phone, but the photos are not too bad & you can see them at

I hope Teresa likes them - or perhaps it is someone else?? ;o))

Regards,

J. Kim Siddorn, Regia Anglorum

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