[Gogar]

Triumphs are great and not too hard to work on. I'm not too familiar with late '70s, but if they're reasonably the same, they're simple and fun. If a '79 uses Amal carbs, well, then that's a little less fun, but not too bad. Sometimes the slide chanber can go out of round if your carb-to-head flange is not completely flat. You tighten the carb down too tight and it will pull the chamber out of round, and the slide will stick at WOT, which isn't fun. If you get mad, you can put mikunis on it.

But as I said, this is only my experience with late 60s and early 70s, so I'm not sure exactly what on your bike. $3k is reasonable if it's running fine.

Also, if you have a carb-sync-tool, you'll have a better time getting the carbs to match on a bonnie, but you can usually get pretty close anyway.