dan williams

This is my preferred fuel dispenser. I have 10 of them and I fill them every few weeks. Small enough to throw in a pack for longer rides. Metal so they can take a crash. Light enough that filling my bike towards the end of a trials I'm not spilling gas all over the bike from wobbly arms. In the car I keep them in a Pelican type case.

Ya see here's the thing, clutches operate with a very narrow set of tolerances. These fit beautifully in the basket but they are too thick. Might they work? Yeah they might but I won't use them. When all six are used in the clutch pack the clutch pack is ~2mm thicker (eyeball measurement). My initial belief was they would merely make the spring preload higher. I'm an idiot (see Foot Note 1.) they also move the pressure plate out. The practical upshot being the slave cylinder doesn't have the travel to actuate the pressure plate. This could be corrected with a thicker thrust washer on the throw-out bearing or even a longer push rod. But you are now pushing the pressure plate, what I consider, dangerously close to the outer cover. The other thing I really didn't like was the top steel plate was right at the top of the inner hub. Would it work? Sure, but I don't have the warm fuzzys about long term reliability and failure of one plate in a clutch can lead to a cascade of problems. There is one place these plates would work great and that is replacement of the thicker two plates in the later clutches but replacing all 6 is not ready for prime time. I'll talk to Mike at Barnett and see if there are thinner plates in the same form factor. In summary, These plates are too thick to be OEM replacements Foot Note 1.: This is why you don't rely on calculations and actually put things together!

In Billy I trust. He's helped me understand an awful lot of the stuff I've later tried to expand upon. I still say if I could get within spitting distance of what he and Jon know I'd be a bright boy indeed.

See clutch fix pinned at top of forum.

One other thing I should note is you can get debris blocking the reservoir hole in the master cylinder and on some older AJPs I remember hearing there was a batch that was mis-drilled. Not likely but worth checking if nothing else pans out.

As said above check there is enough freeplay in your lever for the master cylinder piston to uncover the reservoir hole. If there isn't enough freeplay the system acts like a closed system and when the fluid heats it can expand and hold the plates just slightly apart. Check to make sure the throwout bearing isn't shimmed. I don't know if this is a Sherco thing but some other bikes use shims. You have a new basket so grooved slots are not a problem. Make sure you are not using an oil with additives like PTFE or molybdenum/tungsten disulfide. Only gearbox oil rated for wet clutches. I don't think the Beta clutch fix will help much with your slipping problem since it sounds too severe for just tab roughness. Despite what many people think trials clutches don't wear out unless you are doing a lot of full throttle splatters. Most plonkers happily get on with 10 year old plates. Likewise modern springs are made of much better materials these days and it's unlikely your springs are the culprit. Good luck finding the problem and make sure to let us know what you discover. We're all learning.

Yay! thow came up to Berwick last week. One of us! One of us!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. With the growth of wealth in China imagine a huge market opening for all things trials. Couple hundred thousand of these things in the domestic market means thousands of the more "exotic" European bikes which will be highly desired. 700-800 Ferrari's sold into China each year. Imagine if trials caught on in a big way.

That and bending the right angle tang to limit float travel and nippering a small hole in the vent tubes above the level of the float bowl to stop the vents acting like siphons if fuel gets splashed up into them.

Rectifying the ac is pretty simple and stabilizing the voltage is pretty easy too. Also want to make sure there is sufficient current to start the fan when it needs to. Induction motors need a pretty big kick to get going. Making sure the LED die don't get too hot is the real problem. The high output LEDs are usually on an aluminum backed PC board for cooling. There are quite a few places that will do a small run of PCBs for a few hundred dollars.

I bought an LED bulb from the discount bin for 12V lighting systems just to see if it would plug into my Beta's headlamp and work and it did but I never completed the project. I've been thinking it might be kind of interesting to layout a PC board as a number plate and populate it with bright white LEDs for night riding. Wide area on some and some narrow beams going forward with a few pointing down for wheel lifts. The Beta system is 85W which is a lot of light with LEDs. Something to do in my spare time this winter I guess.

Yeah one fork spring. Don't go into the preload heavy either. The point of having the heavier springs is to go light on the preload so the suspension stays supple over the smaller bumps. For us Clydesdales it's a big improvement over the skinny guy springs. I also go 2 1/2 viscosity on the fork oil. Seems to work especially well when the weather gets cooler. I also have a custom shock adjusting tool. An 8mm swivel socket on a 1/4" screwdriver ratchet thingy. Oh and you'll need a long thin screwdriver to get to the mixture adjust. I usually just buy a handful of cheapo thin flat blades and grind them round on the corners to fit the carb screw. Why a handful? Cuz you're gonna lose them. Leave 'em on the trailer, loan 'em to friends, lose 'em in the car, stick 'em in the ground after adjusting the bike....

Ride it and figure out what works for you. Bar position and suspension setup all work together so you are going to have to ride, tweak, ride, tweak to get it where it feels right to you. There is no standard recipe, especially with a trials bike.

Welcome to the sport. No one here is shy about giving their opinion.

Fair enough. I've gotten the same information from Mike but I'll not say the plates fit until I return the ones I have and get the proper set. The wrong plates are on their way back. From my measurements and Mike's comments it looks like the Barnett plates are approximately 0.3mm thicker than the standard plate I measured. That'll add 1.8mm to the clutch pack. It'll be interesting to see how that affects pull. EDIT: Close but not quite. See post below.

I'm talking to them and have offered to send them a Beta plate. Barnett has asked for the information to be removed as they have gotten a few return requests already.

Yeah that's what these fit. So much for believing what you read on the internet.

Well that was money well spent. The Barnett plates noted above DO NOT fit. They are considerably smaller than the Beta plates. You may now return to the usual filing and polishing. That is all.

Come up to Berwick this Sunday thow. Always good to see new faces.

You are not bending your knees and staying centered. On most bikes where you turn at speed the legs stay somewhat straight and you lean your body into the turn. New riders will keep that habit into their trials turns and it is incorrect. They will keep both legs the same length and try to compensate by twisting their butts which drops the inside shoulder and twists the body so the slightest pertubation causes the body to fall to the inside causing a dab. Try this exercise off the bike. Stand on a hill perpendicular to the fall line. Look at your legs. The uphill leg is bent more than the downhill leg. You are nice and stable and your center of mass is right between your feet. This is how a trials turn should feel. Now try to straighten the uphill leg. Your butt rotates to try and compensate and your position is much weaker. This is the mistake most riders make. Now get your bike and find a nice flat place to practice this. Bend your knees out and make figure eights while keeping your body between the contact patches of your wheels and your shoulders facing the front of the bike. Initiate and end turns with foot pressure. That is important. Stay centered and steer with foot pressure. When you get it right you'll find you can stop at any point in the turn and you will be balanced. Try it on a slight incline and the same rules apply. Stay centered and steer with foot pressure. You will also have to shift slightly forward and back as you transition uphill and downhill. Believe me you will absolutely feel it when you get it right. Keep those legs bent! Stay centered.

I got my springs from Steve Saunders.

I ordered a set of the Barnett kevlars. Will report when they come in. These plates DO NOT FIT. Barnett has asked for the part number to be removed from this thread. They are beautifully finished but they don't fit.

Beta sells thicker base gaskets as well. I have a lower compression head on my '13 300 and it does reduce the starting effort significantly but on the later bikes the compression chamber is a separate piece. I'm not sure this is the case on a 2003. .

These plates DO NOT FIT. Barnett has asked for the part number to be removed from this thread.

Discontinued? That's pretty strange.