Heather’s Triumph TRW Restoration

Bike: Triumph TRW 1956 (TRW24992 NA)

I’ll try to make short and sweet as it is a bit of a long story.

I purchased the bike in 1974 from a local bike shop; it was a frame with an engine and several bushel baskets of parts in various states of disrepair. The bike was originally a Canadian Army bike in green but it appeared someone tried to convert it into a chopper complete with purple forks.

I started to restore the bike in my spare time but took a year off in 1976 to travel and work in England and of course a trip to the I.O.M for the 76 TT. I returned to Canada with spares for the TRW; I think my carry bag weighed 86 lbs which would never happen today. The restoration was going along ok but slowly and about 2 yrs into it I needed money to finish university and sold off the TRW and 2 other bikes to a friend who put the bike into his cellar with his 25 other british bikes. Many years later he passed away and the bike was offered back to me for purchase which I refused since I had several other bike projects on the go; to my amazement my wife bought the bike and instructed me to go pick it up since she felt it was part of the family.

The bike sat in my garage for about 11 yrs in exactly the same state it was when I soldit off in the 70’s; my friend was a great collector but not much of a restorer.

About this time my daughter who was now attending university started bugging me to finish the TRW which fell on deaf ears. It was several years after that my wife suggested we give TRW to Heather as a graduation gift and we could restore it together as sort of a family project. My daughter got a job and several thousand of dollars later the bike was completed with help from Heather’s boyfriend Blaic, my old biker buddies and my son Geoff (named after Geoff Duke yes really) who spent countless hours on the web and phone sourcing hard to find bike bits in England including Burton Bike Bits.

2 years after we started the journey the bike was completed in April of 2011 and we figured we needed an event to showcase the old girl so we invited over 40 of our closest friends to attend the “start up party”. The people arrived with bottles of champagne to watch the blessed event and after about 40 minutes of heart stopping anxiety (we installed the cam shaft 180 degrees out) and about 12 kicks the TRW came to life for the first time in about 40 years!

They all cheered, the bike ran perfectly and party continued to about 4 AM as I was told; I lost track about 2AM.

Eleanor as my daughter calls her, has been to several vintage events including a fairly big event called the “Battle of the Brits” (250 British bikes and 400+ British cars) located north of Detroit Michigan where she won “best pre unit Triumph”. The bike was also featured in Mojo magazine.

Needless to say the TRW has been a fantastic project and sits proudly next to my 74 Norton 850 Commando and 2007 Ducati S4Rs monster; I think I like Eleanor the best.

Tom Hartley

See our range of parts and our Triumph TRW register here