thats_a_five

Hi Jimmie, I remember you, your wife and dog well. Yes, Barry killed us both days! For a guy with only 3 rides on a modern bike, he did awesome. He is a very good vintage rider as well. He and I have been riding almost every weekend this summer. Yes, Barry did take some videos of the PM riders and I believe has posted them on the COTA site. Plastic welding is pretty tricky. Much like metal welding the parts need to be very clean and you need the right filler material. A regular pencil type soldering iron will not work. It is too hot and small. Harbor Freight Tools sells a plastic welding iron for about $15. I was able to weld my stator cover after some practicing but the fenders I tried did not hold up. I understand completely about your situation with your son the newbie. Good on you for trying to get him into trials and riding together with him. This is a good time to reinforce being responsible for your actions. Possibly even motivate him with something like "for every 'A' you bring home from college, I will drop $$ off your bill for fixing the bike." Keep your feet up! Anyone who rides trials and has never looped a bike should give themselves a big fat five. Bill

Hi Jimmie, My friend Barry and I were at Karey's place a couple weeks ago for the Vintage ride on Saturday and Modern ride on Sunday. Barry had the beautiful TY175 and I had the very ugly TY250. Good times and good people. I thought about Lolo Pass and have heard it is a great place to ride. Its good to hear that you are making progress on the bike. I have worked with some pretty good welders and tin-knockers and you will probably be surprised what they can do. Probably will want to have the bike so they can make sure things fit together and fit the bike when they do it. I hope you get back on the bike soon. Bill

I put a "Cree" LED headlight on my bars. Runs on the 12 volts from the stator. I wired it with an inline plug so I can easily take it off the bars or put it back on and plug it in. Really bright and only 15 watts so you put two if you really wanted to light up the night. Cost me about $23 with shipping on eBay.

I suggest you pull the tank off and carry it to some local bike breakers. It doesn't have to be a GasGas cap as long as the thread size is the same.

Bummer about the crash. I bet the newbie feels bad. I think you can fix the bike for under $100 if you don't care about it not looking "showroom fresh." Here's a couple thoughts. I have repaired many plastic bike parts with Shoe Goo. That stuff is amazing. Clean both sides of the plastic, let it dry thoroughly then put about a 1 1/2" wide coating of Shoe Goo on both sides. Let it dry for the 24 hours to cure. I have repaired fenders that way and in a subsequent crash, the fender broke along side the Shoe Goo! A good welder can refit and repair that pipe. Drill out the rivets on the end cap, remove the pipe and packing and get the housing rewelded. Then reassemble, with new rivets (I prefer screws). Probably be real quiet with the dirt in there, but may affect your acceleration. You do need the mid box as others have said for proper scavenging. If there are significant changes to the repaired bike it might need jetting corrected. If the throttle housing is a Domino, look on eBay. I see complete sets with housing, tube, wheel and cover in the $20 range. Get back on that bike!

It does sound like a vacuum leak. Crank seals, intake gasket, cracked reed, gunk in pilot jet from ethanol fuel? I would start with the things that are easy to check.

Haha, I always get cleans. Well, except when a) someone puts up that colored ribbon or someone is watching.

If it is ethanol swelling, you can drain the tank and let it dry out for a few days. Swelling will usually shrink back to size. I have stopped using ethanol fuel in my bikes.

Ouch! See if you can find someone who repairs horse saddles, and such. They handle thick leather regularly.

That is a well proven bike model and is a great bike to learn on. I would suggest you learn how to ride the bike as it is before even thinking about doing mods. If you are very tall or heavy you might want to get some bar risers or heavier springs. Don't start changing things until you build your skills on the bike.

Does the fan come on after you have been riding? Hissing could be coolant or steam escaping from the radiator cap. Have ypou checked the coolant level?

Did you check the cam on the flywheel that opens and closes the points? It should be clean and smooth or it will wear the points quickly. Sometimes coils will work or not work due to temperatures. A heat gun and or cold water to the coil may help you check that.

That sprocket looks to be badly worn with 2 broken teeth. I would recommend replacement. Rear sprocket and chain deserve attention also.

I think the plugs on top of your forks are the same as on my '94 TXT, a large hex plug. Best thing is to use on the plugs is a 6 point socket that fits, not a monkey wrench. Loosen the triple clamp bolts and slide the forks up about 2" to 3" so you can tighten the clamps to grip the fork tubes below the plugs. Apply some penetrating oil around the plugs and let it soak to hopefully get down into the threads. Then try to loosen the caps. If they still don't come out, use a heat gun or gas torch to heat equally around the fork tube around the plug. Heat and try loosening, repeat as needed. The plugs are aluminum so will melt at around 750-800 degrees F. So only use enough heat to let them loosen. Usually once you loosen them about 1 turn, you can let things cool for safety, apply more penetrating oil and it will now soak down through making the threads turn fairly easily. If this doesn't work put away the bike and go get a pair of those things in Zippy's post and enjoy.

These old Yamaha's seem to be pretty tough and long lasting. After sitting that long you will definitely need to do a really good cleaning of the fuel system and carb. The cables may be completely stuck but if not, you can just keep working some penetrating oil in from one end and let them hang until it comes out the other end. The alloy wheel rims do have a tendency to corrode from the inside out so check them. The clutch plates may be stuck together so be sure it is in neutral when you start it the first time. I find many parts I need for mine on eBay. Side covers do come up from time to time if you have difficulty welding that one. If the seat pan is in good shape, hang onto it! They are getting pretty expensive. There are often seat covers available if you decide to buy rather than fabricate your own. 40+ year old shocks usually are only spring holders with little or no damping left. Fork seals usually need replacing as well. The threaded plugs that go into the top of the fork tubes can be a P.I.T.A. to get out. Loosen the top clamps first. Apply penetrating oil and let it soak for a while. Heat can be your friend if they are badly seized. Brake drums are probably badly rusted. Shoes probably need renewed. FYI, the front brakes on these seem to only provide a suggestion to the bike to slow. Not exactly powerful in the braking department. Have fun!

35 Too Old!!!!! Hardly. Most of the guys in our club here in Seattle, USA well past 40. I started riding trials when I was about 50 and that was 11 years ago. One of our members is closer to 80 than he is to 70. Get out there on a bike! Practice however and wherever you can. The more time on the pegs the better. Go to the Trials Training Center web site. There are a whole lot of training videos you can watch and go practice. Most important thing is have FUN!

That unit is called a "hall effect" sensor. Basically, there is a magnet on the wheel that passes the sensor and sends a signal to the speedometer. This is the same type of sensor used by many electronic ignition systems to trigger a spark at the spark plug.

Take a look under the little rubber boot on the master cylinder. If it has dirt or rust, the piston will not have full travel. This can cause people to adjust the clutch incorrectly. BTW, I have ridden "Pro's" that had no clutch drag.

There are two types of nuts used to hold pegs on. 1) Regular hex nuts 2) Self-locking nuts. Regular nuts can rust to the bolts making them difficult to remove. Usually a little penetrating oil will help. Worst case you break the bolt and replace with new bolt and nuts from the hardware store. Self locking nuts have a nylon ring built in that grips the bolt threads. This can easily be overcome with a wrench (and hex key in the socket head). Self locking nuts are used because sometimes if you overtighten the nuts, the pegs will not pivot up when striking an object. So, you have to leave the nuts a little loose. Regular nuts would vibrate off, self locking will stay on. The main thing to be aware of when removing pegs is the orientation of the spring. It must be installed so it is pushing the pegs to the down position.

That's good to hear. Have fun. Keep the rubber side down and the feet up!

The woodruff key holds the flywheel in the correct position to the crankshaft. The points are opened and closed by the center of the flywheel so it will not run if the flywheel is not correctly clocked. Replace the woodruff key, reassemble and test. Make sure to tighten the flywheel bolt correctly. Most of the time when a key shears, it is because the flywheel bolt was loose.

I am not sure if it is OK to list company names on the site so I will simply suggest google or bing search for "TY175 parts." You can certainly put more modifiers in the search such as UK, US, etc to find sources closer to you.

Another good source of repair help is Jim Snell's repair videos on youtube. http://www.trialspartsusa.com/index.html

Yes it is possible that the water got in when you pressure washed it. When it overheated, the pressure in the cooling system may have pushed water into the gearbox. Either way, get the milkshake out and refill with lubricant.

MIlkshake oil means you have coolant in the gearbox. The oil seal on the water pump is a common problem on Gassers. Coolant in the gearbox will make the clutch drag very badly. That is a different problem from the stalling. The symptoms you describe sound like a plugged idle circuit. Make sure it is clean, clean, clean. The tiny holes can plug very easily. I use a tip cleaner for an acetylene torch and good solvent to clean them, then blow out with compressed air. Let us know what you find.