dadof2

007 #138 I have taken a while to come back to this. Wanted time to chat with a few MXers. My view may be biased because most of my contacts rode in the big bore two stroke era and now its their sons riding. They have mixed feelings towards EFI, they don't mind it as such although some have had fuel pump failures and inexplicable misfires that have been very expensive to fix because they are EFI. Many of the younger riders have never known anything but 4T and EFI and have nothing against EFI but dislike the high overall cost running these bikes. Several are choosing to run evo and super evo 2T instead. A top 40 rider said if he was not sponsored on a 4T he would run a new 250 2T yam, which has a carb. A local MX meeting was cancelled late last year and run as a practice day because of insufficient entries, a number of the none entries were due to rebuild costs of EFI 4T bikes, the riders had run out of money. This would not have been the case with 2T. The present rules are heavily stacked against 2 T bikes, allowing 4Ts to be twice the capacity. Following comparison is interesting, 1987 CR500 (carburettor) 46 kW 102 kg 2 Stroke 2015 CR450 F (EFI) 39.5 kW 111kg 4 Stroke So despite 28 years development and EFI weight has increased and power has gone down, and I know which one would be cheaper to buy and maintain. This sort or comparison reinforces my view that at this time is part of an ideological drive to 4T rather than a development in best interests of sport. I Think the 450 has something like a 46mm throttle area to enable high revs, without EFI this sort of size would be near impossible to fuel effectively. Perhaps the time will come when someone develops EFI for 2T trials which is comparable cost wise to a carb, outperforms it, is reliable and easy to fix. Until that point there would seem to be no reason to change.

"Dadof - the reason why this thread is not given information by people in the know is because people like you cannot discuss it reasonably. Your comments so far on Tc make it clear that you cannot draw reasonable conclusions . You twist and contort what you've said to fit the argument of the moment because your so desperate to appear on a higher ground than everyone else with a professional knowledge on so many things . It's a pity. Many people have visited the Gasgas factory over the years and many know what they make and what they don't make there in some detail. They also know where and when the debt was run up" ​ 249 I am a bit disappointed to see this from you, I genuinely appreciate your contributions and articles. As an argument or discussion progresses there are bound to be adjustments in position or clarification, this is not twisting and contorting. I hope you are not suggesting that every post has to be technically correct and legally flawless at its first appearance. I know Nigel alternates between bobby’s helmet and lawyers wig but I did not expect you to join him. I am perfectly capable of drawing reasonable conclusions but in the case of GG do not have sufficient information to do anything other than speculate. If you and others do genuinely know things why so reluctant to post them? Perhaps a significant part of the debt is whatever they paid Pierbernat to buy him out? If its so well known where GG have gone wrong, and therefore by implication should have been obvious to "experts" in advance of it going wrong, how was it allowed to happen? I do not care whether I appear to be on higher ground or not, perhaps the fact that I have worked professionally and am qualified in several different disciplines gives me a wide knowledge base? I have on several occasions thought of setting up a manufacturing or maintenance business, which is something I would like to do, but on each occasion a proper business analysis in advance has lead me to conclude it may not be viable or the probable margins do not outweigh the risks. I have then seen several people try to start those or similar businesses. Nearly all have failed and given up and the 2 that are still going are finding it hard and may either quit or be force to close or contract. Certainly they make a very poor return if any on their investment. Several of these people were better prepared (as in product knowledge) then me but they let enthusiasm and wish to run a certain type of business blind them to a proper financial appraisal. Can the banks assess and run GG any better than Standard and Poor assessed Equitable life for example Come on then, let those with inside knowledge tell us where has GG gone wrong and why did they remove Enduros from JS?

I once had a Bantam, did wonders for my trials technique / fitness. Great for my breathing and leg muscles, I nearly always had to push the sod home.

There are 3 problems welding this case. 2 of them specific to magnesium. 1) The casting may be porous and may have absorbed oil which makes a good weld impossible. Warming it with a blow torch and flushing in brake cleaner usually gets rid of sufficient oil. 2) Magnesium shrinks a lot on solidification and a further 1.5% on cooling to room temperature, this causes cracking. 3) Some magnesium alloys are flammable (porsche wheels for example) but bike parts generally are not. Test for this by melting a portion of the broken off piece the pulling the TIG gas shield away sharply. To repair this I would not try too weld the broken piece back on. I would butter the broken surface with several layers of 4043 using minimum heat input pulse / intermittent technique, Then I would weld heavy aluminium straps across the surface, at 90 degrees to the bolt. The straps would be something like 12 wide by 6 thick flat bar.

Nigel from #103 it seems its some of your assumptions that are wrong. Regarding your final sentence in #97, my comments are neither right nor wrong, they may be either and if you read carefully, you would have seen I had already acknowledged this by describing them as speculation. Jgas for example do not make their frames at their assembly facility (so I understand) but they do own the production facility and employ the workers. This type of split site operation is not uncommon in vehicle and other product manufacturing. Do GG do something similar and therefore it would not be apparent on a visit to one factory. I did hope that as you have visited the factory on more than one occasion you might have some well informed ideas on what has gone wrong, rather than commenting on my speculation. The money that created the debt has gone somewhere, but where???

It would give the nurses a good laugh if you end up in A & E

The maps alter the ignition timing advance curves and give different power characteristics. You lose control slightly less fast on the soft setting.

Near certain the gear selector spring, about £4.80 from splat shop. You will need to remove the clutch to replace it, so if you don't have one already a clutch holding tool will be needed. About an hours job. You can usually do it without replacing the clutch case gasket. You have to take the gear lever off and pull the gearchange shaft through to the clutch side so polish any rust and sharp edges off with emery or you will need a new oil seal as well. Do not start the engine until its fixed, if the broken bit of spring goes between clutch basket and crank pinion you will have a lot bigger bill.

Your stance and body positioning look about right. Perhaps experiment with the handlebars back a shade, not much say 15 to 25mm at the grips. Tyre pressures maybe a shade too high / hard. What pressures are you using?

#91 When I made that post I was aware that GG probably do relatively little manufacturing, I have not been inside the factory but some of the videos GG have released do show manufacturing processes such as welding and machining. Without seeing GGs books (assuming they have them and they are correct) for a number of years, visiting the factory and talking to staff anything I or anyone else concludes is just speculation. My impression is that for a company selling only 9000 units per year in competitive (and therefore price constrained) market they have their fingers in too many pies, with each activity supported by too few sales. Also they seem to have a lot of stock both pre and post production and a lot of space to accommodate that stock. Both space and stock costs. I am qualified to audit businesses both financially and for QA purposes and over the years have visited quite a number. Some of the saddest cases I have seen is where the company is maintaining production and sales, the staff are working hard with lots of overtime and the bosses / owners are happy because the company is making a profit. Its a bit like the titanic, non on board have a clue of the coming downturn. Unseen problems include old buildings with high utilities costs, insufficient new product or new market developments, insufficient funds being retained for future investment, lack of staff training (ageing staff) Perhaps Nigel, having visited the factory you can give us your insight into what has gone wrong.

Have a look at the Greeves posts on same subject

Sods law says "whatever bits you have spares for will not be the ones you break"

Generally agree with Dan but I think it may be a shade earlier. Try looking up some old pictures of Rob Crawford from early 90s remember looking at his bike and thinking the barrel was a funny shape and that the fork sliders were likely to get scratched.

Just out of curiosity what is the part you are calling "a balancer"

#78 "Lastly werent you buying a jgas then declined because of a wait, or was that someone else (cant be bothered to remember) but point being if they cant supply to peeps waiting for bikes what kind of business model is that to aspire to?" It was not me thinking of buying a Jgas, but I did point out that a local GG dealer was choosing to ride a Jgas. The business model I feel would be appropriate for GG is broadly that used by Jgas. Therefore a small assembly factory using parts bought in small batches from subcontractors who have specialised production equipment. My time as a production manager coincided with the move away from manual techniques from design and manufacture to CAD/CAM CNC. There was no way we could justify the cost of moving all our processes to CNC, usually you were looking at a multiple of 10 to 15 for capital cost and an increase in productivity of at least 20 times. We invested in CNC for the core activities and subcontracted the peripheral items to specialist suppliers who were investing in CNC for that type of product. Productivity, turnover and ROCE then grew at an average of 10% per year. GGs business needs to be about supplying well designed and built motorcycles, not wasting time casting and machining metal. Unfortunately judging from their debts they have either been running the business at a loss or over investing in capital equipment.

Because they spend a lot of time running at low speed / low fuel flow the float valve on trials bikes tends to be sized a bit on the low side, sustained wide throttle openings tend to lower the fuel level in the float bowl until its too low to properly fuel and lubricate the engine. When you slowed down at the end of your run the piston / cylinder would be very hot with clearances in critical areas at a minimum. Closing the throttle to slow down shuts off the fuel flow completely starving these areas of lubrication so there is a rapid increase in friction. If you are unlucky the piston seizes completely but it sounds as if you are not quite at that stage, but pretty near. Use the cold start enrichment for frequent short bursts and blip the throttle frequently when slowing down. You don;t give age of your bike but the sprung loaded pin the the float valve plunger can become worn and notchy in operation. Check yours moves completely smoothly over is full travel. If it has rough spots this can cause the symptoms you describe.

Manufacturing in Countries such as China and India is very difficult and unpredictable for the component volumes required for the trials market. Good quality parts can be made in these countries but a rigorous quality assurance scheme has to be in place and low volumes do not justify the cost of this.

What Atomant wrote was "Do you remember Sir John Harvey Jones looking at failing companies and seeing how they can be turned around." I knew what Atomant meant but I felt it worthwhile pointing out what actually happened. There has been too much short term fixing and apparent achievement only for it all to unravel afterwards. Regarding Ched Evans, plenty of people share my view that he has done his time and should be free to return to his former employment. It will be interesting to see the result of the review into his case when it is complete. The verdict may yet be overturned. The GG press release on TC when read carefully suggests the situation may be terminally serious. The two key sentences say there has been failure to reach an agreement and production stopped. Couple this with the effect this situation will have on prospective purchasers and things do not look good. My guess is they will have to cut back on those large trucks and rider support. I can remember when Honda UK had to severely cut back its road racing to reduce costs to counter the treat from grey import sales. ​Despite my previous criticism of GG gearbox quality and other over light build defects I hope they (and OSSA) survive but they may have to move to a business model more like Jgas. Regarding Asian women, Well an Asian selling their "product" for the right price is likely to be sounder financially than a Welsh slapper who gives it for free whilst drunk.

John Harvey Jones was not the success some seem to think. In the early 1980s much of British industry was seen as overstaffed and it was relatively easy to make staff cuts and boost short term share price. A great many decent hard working people lost their jobs as a result of his action, many of the job losses probably unnecessary. A genuinely good boss boosts quality and sales rather than focussing just on short term shareholder returns. ICI no longer exists http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/supportservices/2781922/ICI-finally-consigned-to-history.html Is that the sort of troubleshooter GG needs? Before anyone points out his Knighthood, they gave those to Jimmy Saville and Fred Goodwin as well. GG may have a lifeline if the Euro continues to fall, it will make its products cheaper in non Euro markets meaning they can increase margins, maybe better still if Euro goes completely belly up and Spain can return to a devalued Peseta.

The case saver plates don't always work, the chain can come round the sproket in 2 layers and exert so much force it rips the plate mount out of the top of the gearbox. Fortunately the crankcase is weldable. What seems to be best is an extended swinging arm protector that "peels" the chain off the sprocket.

Modern jet engines are quite a lot more efficient and cleaner than trials bike engines although the volume of air traffic completely negates this. I detest most of the green lobby and would give a firm 2 fingers to the likes of Price Charles, Bob Geldorf etc who preach to the rest of us whilst enjoying very polluting lifestyles themselves, just a bunch of fkkng hypocrites. There are 3 commonly used arguments against off road motorcycles, land damage, noise, and exhaust pollution. We can't do much about the first except point out it recovers naturally and quickly, but we (or at least manufacturers) can do much to reduce the latter 2 and remove them from the anti off road lobby's arsenal.

To clean an aluminium case before welding, cut out the areas where weld metal is to be deposited then soak it in hot potassium alum solution overnight. Remove any non aluminium parts first. For cutting out do not grind, use carbide burrs in a drill, dremmel or die grinder. Edit - What I used to do was put car body filler on these vulnerable case areas before I rode the bike. It stops the damage happening and you just burn it off with a blowtorch and wire brush when its time to sell the bike.

Agree with #3 but make sure it is a GOOD engineering shop preferably one that is used to head / barrel repairs. Aluminium contracts a lot on going from liquid to solid. The barrel will need uniform preheating and controlled cooling along with a minimum heat input welding technique to allow contraction to take place as the weld proceeds and then finish on a run out plate. I have seen successful cylinder block repairs with epoxy but would not try on a thin edge like your beta barrel.

Agree with Bisby. I would not try luminweld or its equivalent from ESAB, needs a fair bit of skill and is difficult on edges. I would build up weld on the edge with TIG. If you use JB weld (which will work) scrape a small groove along the centre of the gasket face to help key it in place. To flatten a gasket face I initially file it then use grinding paste on a sheet of plate glass. If you can't find anyone in tour area who is a good TIG welder you could try Tony Baker on 01768 881 653. He is not far from Nord View where the world round is held

Smart but that seems quite a bit of money. What do people think is reasonable price (in UK) for trailer generally as follows Unladen weight 200 to 300 Kg Max weight loaded 750 kg, therefore unbraked 4 wheel Painted steel frame, plywood floor, lower sides 3mm aluminium, upper sides and roof 1.5mm aluminium able to carry 3 trials or 2 mx bikes.