Nathan Noel‘s 1969 Triumph Bonneville T120R Restoration
After selling off the XS650 bobber in 2015, Nate went on the hunt for a Triumph to build. It wasn’t more than a week later that he stumbled across a ’69 Bonnie basket case up near Gurnee, IL, about 2.5 hrs away. There wasn’t much information in the ad and the pics weren’t any better… but, it was a ’69 which is a great vintage.
Lots of great things were minted in 1969 including Nate. So on a hunch he drove up and took a look at it. It turned out to be a basket case in every sense of the term, but it was a mostly complete basket case… which goes a long way with vintage British bikes; as demand for parts often outweighs supply. But the price was right about where it should be, so Nate pulled the trigger, and home they went.
Then over the course of two summers he undertook a ground up restoration, and with the help of his Triumph buddies, did a near 100% resto on this old girl. They tore the engine down, replaced all of the bearings and had the crank/rods serviced along with a fresh top end rebuild.
EVERYTHING was rebuilt, re-plated, replaced, painted, and powder coated. This spring Nate finally got the bike ready to run and now she’s prowling the road and looking better than she ever did.
Check out the original thread on DoTheTon.com for plenty more insight and photography of this build!
(via Dime City Cycles)
