? 1939 3S Deluxe impressed WD

[Oggie800]

Good Morning All

Thank you for accepting me onto the forum.

Hello from East Yorkshire.😁

I am new to vintage bikes and have been looking at purchasing what has been described as an impressed 1939 Triumph 3S deluxe.

I have since Purchased the bike.

I am having difficulty verifying the frame and engine numbers and was hoping that you very knowledgeable people would be able to shed any light on this for me.

The frame is Stamped TL.18932 but information I have found shows that 1939 TL numbers only go up to 11642?

The engine does not have a prefix and is stamped 3S 29227.  Additional military stamping is present with the Broad Arrow above M and 68 below along with, what I assume is the contract number of, C 5108

Please see images I have now uploaded.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited Thursday at 02:31 PM by Oggie800

[welbike]

Framenumber is 1940 5SW, so it's a mixture I think.

Cheers,

Lex

[Ron]

There's nothing impressed about it. The engine is from War Office contract C5108 for 3300 3SW's delivered in 1940. As Lex said, the frame number falls into the 5SW contract (C7828) for 1322 bikes in 1940....But there are gaps in the numbers.

Ron

[welbike]

Guide to buying British WD bikes!

1 Buy the book!! 

2 Buy the book!!

3 Read the book!!

4 Then take a knowledgeable person with you, and go buy a bike.

Sorry, had to say it.

Lex

PS, last edition is best of course, with the black and white picture on the cover.

Edited Thursday at 05:31 PM by welbike

[Ron]

The 5SW frame numbers were TL 18330-TL20833 (with gaps) and only 1322 bikes ordered for the main contract and then 2 smaller contracts with numbers unknown. That still makes over 1000 frames unaccounted for. Sadly lots of the records were lost after the factory was bombed in 1940.

I've helped with the Dutch register in the past https://wdtriumph.com/ and I have come up with a  formula for the 5SW frame to engine number sequence. Which wont help in this case. I think we only have 7 or 8 complete genuine 5SW's so far. 

War time Triumph numbers for the 3 WD models started after your quoted TL11642 and went over TL58000. 

It would be quite safe to restore that bike into WD spec.  Ron

[Oggie800]

4 hours ago, Ron said:

There's nothing impressed about it. The engine is from War Office contract C5108 for 3300 3SW's delivered in 1940. As Lex said, the frame number falls into the 5SW contract (C7828) for 1322 bikes in 1940....But there are gaps in the numbers.

Ron

Thanks Ron

The tank marking is as per the contract number of the engine but if the frame is 5SW with a different contract number which of these, if any, should be marked on the tank?

[Ron]

The number on the tank (census or serial number) is effectivly the bikes WD registration number. So if the contract number was used??? every bike in that contract would have the same number. Census numbers were issued in blocks to each contract and were alloted against the frame number (usualy in frame number sequence) 

The 5SW contract C7828 was alloted Census numbers C4320278-C4321625. I calculate yours to be the 603rd bike from that contract with tank number C4320880. Engine number would have been::- 5S 32499

Here is my own 5SW which was a bit later in that contract.  Ron

Edited yesterday at 05:37 AM by Ron

[Ron]

So far I have only ever found one period picture (confirmed) of a 5SW. The picture is captioned :-

"1st/7th battalion Queens Royal Regiment after their return from Dunkirk" 

As it happens, the 5S was initially rejected by the War Office, but after the losses at Dunkirk, Triumph were given the go ahead to use some of their stock of 5S engines within the assembly of the 3SW production. Apart from the engine, everything was exactly the same, including the clutch which I have noted was heavier for the pre war 5S.  Ron

Edited yesterday at 08:21 AM by Ron

[welbike]

Ron, Oggie, most early 1939-1940 contracts of any make can usually not be calculated, the bikes were put in big sheds, and the signwriter came in and started painting the census numbers, not paying attention to the frame numbers, or any order the bikes were placed in, this was especially so for bikes delivered to the RASC, later when the RAOC took over and the factories were paid a little sum per bike, they applied the numbers from the factory, and a bit of a system developed, so that in theory all numbers ended in the same 2 digits, so frame, gearbox and Census number, but there was a war on, and it's not always so.

Cheers,

Lex

Edited 1 hour ago by welbike

[Oggie800]

22 hours ago, welbike said:

Guide to buying British WD bikes!

1 Buy the book!! 

2 Buy the book!!

3 Read the book!!

4 Then take a knowledgeable person with you, and go buy a bike.

Sorry, had to say it.

Lex

PS, last edition is best of course, with the black and white picture on the cover.

3rd Edition has been ordered and it is on its way!

[Oggie800]

10 hours ago, Ron said:

The number on the tank (census or serial number) is effectivly the bikes WD registration number. So if the contract number was used??? every bike in that contract would have the same number. Census numbers were issued in blocks to each contract and were alloted against the frame number (usualy in frame number sequence) 

The 5SW contract C7828 was alloted Census numbers C4320278-C4321625. I calculate yours to be the 603rd bike from that contract with tank number C4320880. Engine number would have been::- 5S 32499

Here is my own 5SW which was a bit later in that contract.  Ron

Thank you Ron. That information is very helpful but now offers up a dilemma for me. Is my bike a 5SW with a 3S engine or a 3SW with a 5S frame?  I am assuming that if I use the census number C4320880 it would be a 5SW with a 3S engine.

lovely photos of a lovely bike by the way.  I hope that my bike will look half as good one day.

May I say that the enthusiasm shown and the information given so far by all of you forum members is very encouraging.

My humble regards go to all. 
Ian.

[Ron]

A vehicle or motorcycle is always defined by its frame or chassis. So you have a 5SW with a 3SW engine. I would restore it as such and keep a lookout fror a 5SW engine. They do sometimes surface.  Ron

[79x100]

There are two schools of thought on how the WD Serial might be based on restored machines...and it's only an owner's choice for his restoration anyway, it has no legal basis.

The 5SW was never really standardised as a War Office motorcycle. It would seem likely that as with other makes, at the first full workshop rebuild, they would have been dismantled and then fitted with standardised parts. In the case of identical frames, they would simply have become 3SWs with a 350cc engine. Triumph were not in a position to supply 500cc engines or parts after the factory bombing.

My personal feeling is that you have a nicely stamped 3SW engine, complete with early-war contract number and this will be easily visible on the restored bike. The frame number on the other hand is fairly hidden away and even a knowledgeable viewer would have to get out the reference books to be sure what it was from. C5108 was a September 1939 contract, placed at the same time as contracts C5107, C5109 C5110 and C5111 issued to Enfield, Norton, BSA and Ariel respectively.

The 5SW was a "Home Front" machine but 3SWs from C5108 saw service in France in 1940.

[Oggie800]

55 minutes ago, 79x100 said:

There are two schools of thought on how the WD Serial might be based on restored machines...and it's only an owner's choice for his restoration anyway, it has no legal basis.

The 5SW was never really standardised as a War Office motorcycle. It would seem likely that as with other makes, at the first full workshop rebuild, they would have been dismantled and then fitted with standardised parts. In the case of identical frames, they would simply have become 3SWs with a 350cc engine. Triumph were not in a position to supply 500cc engines or parts after the factory bombing.

My personal feeling is that you have a nicely stamped 3SW engine, complete with early-war contract number and this will be easily visible on the restored bike. The frame number on the other hand is fairly hidden away and even a knowledgeable viewer would have to get out the reference books to be sure what it was from. C5108 was a September 1939 contract, placed at the same time as contracts C5107, C5109 C5110 and C5111 issued to Enfield, Norton, BSA and Ariel respectively.

The 5SW was a "Home Front" machine but 3SWs from C5108 saw service in France in 1940.

Thank you for your input. 
You wouldn’t happen to know the census number allocations for the C5108 contract?

I would like to keep it as a 3SW identity but am not happy with the number present in the tank at the moment. 1- they are too large and 2- they are not correct, as already commented on. 

[79x100]

Regrettably, it's impossible to accurately calculate the numbers allocated to RASC machines (principally delivered to Feltham and Slough).  When your copy of Orchard & Madden arrives, you'll see that there were six blocks of numbers for the 3300 machines with gaps between, in the range C60788 - C72365.

We know from surviving Enfield WD/C and 3SW engines that they were all over the place. Quite a number were stamped with the actual WD serial.  Engine 27069 was C63511.

 There is documentary evidence to show that 26034 was part of contract C4631 and numbered C3917745. They seem to have been building bikes for contracts issued under two separate demands, at the same time....

Why did some engines carry WD serial and others the contract number ? ...At a guess, yours may have been a spare engine. In general, many contracts included 10% spare engines...