dan williams

Maybe we should find a dealer in the UK for your lanyards/magnets and my clutch washers. Then we could just send over one box.😃

My evil nemesis Dave makes these. The lanyards are really good. Bright colors so you can find them and non-elastic so they don’t launch or hit you in various sensitive body parts when they come off the bike. Dave makes a lot of custom bits like number plates, choke lever extenders and kickstand feet. NOTE: Dave isn’t really evil it’s just that I can’t beat the guy. Even though I’m on a ‘20 EVO Factory and he’s on an ancient TY175. 😃

Wow! That looks like you messed up and double oiled your fuel.

Hopefully we get to ride the event in RI together in Sept. If you haven’t ridden Exeter it’s not to be missed.

Your oil is roughly the same as 15wt motor oil according to the charts I can find so nothing odd there. It sounds to me as if your clutch is operating properly but you could try adjusting the set screw in a bit while making sure the master piston still sits on its circlip. Does the clutch drag at all? One thing most new trials bike owners do is adjust their levers so they can get all their fingers on the lever. I understand as I had a Maico years ago. But most of us ride with one finger on the clutch and brake and move our lever perches as far to the center of the bars as they will go. This changes the leverage and the feel of things. Just a thought. Anything you post to this forum will get you a wide range of opinions but in the end you just have to mess with the settings until you get something you're happy with.

You’re fine. That’s the correct rest position.

I’ve found the better riders tend to like having the clutch engage a bit further out. I like it to start to grab fairly close to the bar which is why I like the clutch to be really progressive. What oil are you running?

Give the hydraulics a bit of time to settle in before you adjust. Six 2.7 plates is the older configuration and the one I prefer. You can get some adjustment of the bite point by shimming the thrust washer on the throwout bearing but you might just need to back the lever adjuster of a bit.

On bikes with clutch packs of six fiber plates like Betas and Shercos the clutch fix improves the clutch action significantly in a lot of bikes. Your GasGas clutch has a much smaller pack due to the use of a diaphragm spring so the Beta clutch fix will have less of an effect. Like all bikes it's critical to make sure the clutch mechanism provides all the expected throw (pushes the pressure plate the correct distance) but the diaphragm clutch is also sensitive to where that throw occurs in the transfer curve of the spring. So as lineaway said you have to set the height of the mechanism correctly or it will never quite work right.

There is an inherent sticky problem with the Beta clutch which the fix fixes but before you start replacing stuff you need to make sure the actuator mechanism is actually doing what it's supposed to. All it does is move a pressure plat approximately 1.2mm. Put the bike on its side and pull the clutch pack cover (the round one) off. Be careful not to damage the piddly little round O-Ring gasket. Now with your finger on the pressure plate pull the clutch lever and make sure the pressure plate moves. If it does good. The fix will probably help you. If it doesn't the problem is in the hydraulics or somebody left the ball bearing out of the throw-out assembly. A fairly common mistake. '97 is a Beta Techno. The EVO model didn't come out until '09

Thanks. I’ve got an EVO for trials. Just want a non-trials bike for chasing the wife around on her trail bike. Don’t need a 13” suspended race bike so this sounds perfect.

Not exactly trials but there’s an ‘02 Pampara for sale that looks in good condition. Are parts available at all or would this be a mistake?

Oh thank god! Given some of what’s come out of the FIM it wouldn’t have surprised me. Remember when the minimum weight requirement “leveled the playing field”? No? Just like the elimination of stop and hop “leveled the playing field”. Both made it much more affordable and greatly increased participation. Except they didn’t.

Saw an article in todotrial that a Chinese tire manufacturer is to be the sole supplier for the WTC and it will “improve” competition by having less traction. Somebody please tell me this was an April fools joke.

On a MX bike you are blowing a lot of oil out the exhaust. On a trials bike the engine speed is so low that a higher ratio will just pool in the crankcase and gum up the exhaust. Most run their bikes around 80:1 but 100:1 is not unheard of especially if you’re a plonker. For reference the Vertigo with fuel injection runs at 200:1. Modern engines with water cooling and electrofusion cylinders don’t have the same thermal stresses as the old iron bore air cooled engines. Even at the higher oil ratios I haven’t seen an oil related failure in a modern engine.

2021 should be significantly better.

‘93 Beta Gara. White rear with grey front. Orange fender is probably off a ‘96. 80:1 is fine with synthetic oil. Gearbox oil is not super critical as people run everything from gearbox oil to ATF to 10W30 motor oil without a problem. Clutch might be sticky when cold. Fix is noted above. Mikuni may piddle fuel. Fix is noted above. Don’t be too obsessed about oils. It’s an old bike. Take it out and have fun.😁

Probably the same place as my Color Computer and Amiga.😃

I remember working on the clutch in my ‘77 AW400 and it was miserable. My buddy used to work on his by jacking up his truck, sliding the bike under, and lowering the truck using the frame to compress the clutch pack. 😁 There is a difference I think with the Maico disc springs vs the diaphragm. With the stacked discs the spring rate is unaffected by the radial stress on the center of the hole in the disc. On the diaphragm spring compressing the spring should reduce the size of the center hole. Since there is a ring preventing that compression the compression in line with the fingers provides another torsion. I think that’s how the reduction in rate occurs as the diaphragm passes through flat. I never said the diaphragm clutch was new. Just that I never saw it explained in a way that made sense to me. I’m still learning.

Hi Billy, Yeah opening up the cockpit was what I had in mind. Haven’t moved footpegs. It’s a thought but just haven’t got that far into it. Moving the bars was cheap and easy to start with. I remember Ryan used to sell platform pegs that I liked because it forced me to foot back further but I haven’t seen them for many years. But you know me. I do enjoy tinkering.

Rode some today with the clamps forward and it felt pretty good. Took a little while to get the turning recalibrated.👍

Ok probably an odd question but… There’s three offset positions for the factory bar clamps. Mine have been set in the middle but I’m finding my weight is getting too far forward. Rolling the stock bars forward helps (yes it’s counter intuitive) but the sweep of the bars puts my wrists in a slightly strained position. Do any of you use the forward offset position and if so how do you like it?

I was thinking that bike looked familiar. Then I noticed I managed to sneak into the background of some of your photos.😁 Thanks to you and Warren there's some serious drooling over metal work going on at events now.

Makes the bike grunt. I swear it'll pull a gear higher in any situation and stalls very rarely even crawling. The logic is the reeds weigh less so they have less inertia and can open and close faster storing more charge in the crankcase at low rpm. At higher rpm reeds of any type will just stay open so there is no difference in the engine assuming there is no significant difference in the reed cage and how it affects airflow.

I admit the graphs are exaggerated but I think this analysis gets to the core of the thing. I'll have to do more research and do some math on actual diaphragm springs and friction coefficients to see if I can refine the description. But like always, I could be barking mad and have no idea what I'm talking about. Certainly wouldn't be the first time. Probably won't be the last either. But isn't it fun that life is full of mysteries to figure out. 😁