Build a Bultaco TSS from scratch

been enjoing this thread, as soon as i saw the talk of a badito, i thought of bultacoparts.com. Check him out, the only time i went to his place he had a tss on the bench!

+1 on bultacoparts.com. I get all my pursang motor parts from there. good guy.

cool, my friend rides their bandito sometimes!

+1 - lynn is the best. best parts dealer for buls. quick shipping and answers question thoroughly..

I'm checking out and probably pulling the trigger on the 2 bandidos on Sunday.
Stay tuned.

*One thing I've noticed about this engine is that it has primary gears instead of a chain...I kind of like that.

Gear drive, now that would be a big step in the right direction. I hate to think about the primary chain on my bikes, OSSA, and HONDA CB77 SUPERHAWKS. So maybe they spin the motor backwards, on the Buls?

I read about the primary geardrive by gear wheels too.
A surplus in transmission, but harder depending load changes and you cannot fit different flywheel weights so easy,
(this is maybe not so important for a road racer?)


I don't think the behavior of the Bultaocs in general beeing easy to start backwards will change therefor?
(The engine doesn't sound healthy when running backward but works, staating the engine backwards by rolling from
a mound is indeed very easy, have tried this in my youth times with good results. (Certainly a typical teenage stupidity back then when everything was cool that worked when it was not suppose to do. )

I think either way I roll the dice, these Bandidos are an incredible investment.
Hopefully they aren't in too bad of shape. I'll let ya'll know on Sunday!

After researching further, I have some more info for the thread.
In 1968 Bultaco released the "strongest" and most desired of the Bandidos. This bike was bored up to a 360cc and increased HP. It came in a motocross and a scrambles model. The scrambles model simply was a longer wheelbase and 31 degree angle head. The last production year was 1973 where in, over the years, they toned the engine down with smaller displacement and a different stroke which brought it down in the up 30s for HP. The 71 models I'm looking at shouldn't have suffered much of that power loss.
What makes them unique is the center port, the gear driven primary, right side kick, and double down tube frame.

All in all, it's a perfecto candidate for a street race bike. Hopefully I can bring myself to converting one of them!

The reason I said backwards was because a chain primary, the engine and clutch turn the same way. If you drive engine to clutch with a gear the clutch will turn the opposite direction of crank. Something has to make the change.

At the engine of the bandito the secondary gear shaft of the motor is not at the clutch axis, it's behind. Seen here:

Like COOL! Im diggin Banditos! Never gave that bike a second thought, now I see how special, unique of a BULL they are. Center exhaust and double down tube frame, plus no primary chain. I bet they are hard to find, thanks for puttin up the picture!!

You have had two days to pick them up and post pics, why has nothing happened sir!?

You sex me up with stories of awesome two-strokes and purty fairings, and then NOTHING!? NOTHING I TELL YOU!

Don't worry baby birds, I shall feed you. I went yesterday to check out the Bandidos. The guy was real great and had some awesome stories. He used to short track race the bikes. He said that often times the engine would out race the frame (exactly the engine I want!) I verified the VIN on the complete bike and it was, in fact, a 69-71 Bultaco El Bandido Mk2. All of it was there with the exception of the 32mm Amal which the spare engine had one. He even had the original metal fenders in perfect condition and the original tank. Several pairs of Akron wheels all laced up as well. All in all, it was complete for 1 bike and in good dusty condition. The other bike was parts. All I saw was a dirty frame, swing arm and seized motor. He said he had boxes of parts and other stuff as well.
I'm probably going to buy it all off him as the bandidos go for around 3-4k unrestored and can sometimes fetch around 9k restored. This would completely fund my TSS endeavor. Anyways, on with some pictures I grabbed with my phone.

Looks like fine grist for an awesome project. 32 mm is probably a little light in the loafers for that motor after it's modded. For non-AHRMA flattrack races, I ran a 34 mm Mik on my '67 250 Pursang which worked perfectly. AHRMA Classic 250 limited carb size to 32 mm. Have fun!

This guy had a 34mm mikuni on it (you can see in the pics.)

So it does. I really like double tube frame. I had to shoehorn a big K&N filter against the single seat tube on mine.

Good luck with it all.

I'm scheduled to pick up the Bandidos on Easter Sunday.
Guess you guess will get treated to more pics after that. I'm actually going to use almost everything on the bike for the racer. The forks will need modifying, brakes will need some adjustments, clip ons, frame reinforcements etc etc.
Woooo! This is all starting a lot faster than I imagined.

So you will take the original Bultaco brakes, as I know they tried to develop their brakes and did make som noticable improvement but still even the later brakes are ... well ... I like Bultacos very much but the truth is the truth ... crap.

I'am very lucky that my Bultaco has the theoretical maximum speed of 90km/h or 55 miles/h down the hill and with wind from behind. Still I would guess I need twice as much of braking distance on the street as if I would have bad maintainced Grimca hubs mounted but my Sherpa is a trials machine so there is no need.

Maybe there are steel liners inside I do hope so for you if not ... there is a swap available maybe Bultaco did here too some improvements as they did to the engine comparement, this will be interesting.

The forks look nice, hopefully they are still straight? If not this will cost some money but the difference between stanchions that are only 2mm out of straight to a pair that is really straight and with fresh + polished chrome is worth the money. If you need new and probably also progressive springs and adjustable preload Magical offer this feature very recommended in my personal view.

Looking forward to the next steps, well done so far.

Looking forward to watching this project develop.

The brake thing - As far as my Metralla and I relate it to my early 911 - a lot of people say they are less than adequate - but they didn't say that back in the day.
They are very nicely matched to the machines performance level and were by all reviews impressive back in the day - "...braking performance is exceptional" (Cycle World Jan. 1964) and "You can bring it to a dead stop from 30mph in 27 ft." ( from a 1965 print add).

Of course compared to today's standards they are not so great, but if you ride the [old] machine you got instead of the way you would a modern machine they are plenty adequate.
When used as a control tool they are not so aggressive as to kill momentum and give really nice feedback and allow subtle modulations.
- And that for me is what is so cool about these old momentum machines - the feeeeeeellings.

Here's a pic of my birthday present to myself and my M8 to hold us over till Blaine's project gets off the ground.

Very cool race bars!!!

To the brakes, - again, here I'am probably a little bit blinkered from my personal experience,
comparing the rear brake blaine.hale showed us here:



To the brake of mine, (before rebuild):


The set up looks likewise beside the actuating through wire and through rod at the Bandito.

After rebuild the brake plates:


When mounting I found out they did not work at all, they where sliding so much I could not even turn the wheels, these are NOS brake pads! I chalked them, put them in again and found out that they where slide nearly everywhere:




I then gave them away to the shop that mounted the complete brake plate with the brake pads mounted to a shop and they turned them down:



So they do really fit now to the drum of the hub:




As you see I did everything possible to get them perfect adjusted, still the braking power is not very high ...

When looking at a Metralla I at least see that the front brake is cooled and have double action, the rear brake has only single action but should have a double pin for each brake plate when I remember right ??? With the double pin
you have the advantage that the brake plates will have better contact to the hub.



What would be an improvement too would be to mount steel liners inside the hub instaed of the brittle chroming shown in the pic above, this will improve braking too, (again I have no clue what Bultaco mounted inside the Bandito brakes ... )

Will be interesting to see ... looking forward to pics of the parts.