In This Tech Article
Who knows how long our crank has been sitting around with oil in it, but from the trouble it was to get the sludge trap tube out, it must have been a long time. Disclaimer: Yes, we are building a Triumph, yes, we are The Bonneville Shop and YES Stacy is wearing a BSA shirt. That’s because we like all motorcycles; don’t let it get you down!
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Basic Steps to Remove the Sludge Trap
In order to remove the sludge trap, first you want to remove the bolt that is holding the trap. We don’t recommend messing with the other bolts because they are actually counter weights.
In the service manual, it tells you to put a spoke in the sludge trap to pull it out. Good luck with that, we actually don’t recommend that.
We take a 5/8 course thread tap and a large nut. Place it in the sludge trap and it will start cutting into it – we’re not trying to save the trap or cut useful threads. You’ll feel it jump a couple of times as you tighten the tap and periodically back out to loosen the metal from getting trapped inside of the cutters.
When you get a few threads in, run the nut to the crank. Tightening the nut should pull on the sludge trap to loosen it up.
On our 1968 Triumph T120R we definitely needed to remove the sludge trap. You’ll see how much oil was in this one. The worst we’ve seen. Whenever you rebuild these 50 year old bikes, you’ll want to put a new trap in.
Our Old SLudge Trap
