dan williams

Pity Beta got away from the flanged rim. Never had an issue with my old bikes with the flange.

Thanks for the vote of confidence but others know much more and Jon Stoodley and Billy T have forgot more then I'll ever know.

Airscrew starting position is typically 1.5 turns out from fully bottomed. The idle speed just lifts the slide a little so screw it in until it just begins to lift the slide for a start.

Pilot circuit sounds blocked.

Hmmmm all you need is compression, fuel, air and spark. Assuming you got spark and compression hasn't fundamentally changed that leaves the carb. When you cleaned it did you disassemble it and blow it out with compressed air? And by disassemble I mean take all the screws, jets and fiddly bits and lay them out on a paper towel while you ran high pressure into every hole in the carb body. Carb cleaner don't count because it won't have suffcient pressure to blow out a wedged spec of crud, it will spray in your eyes and cause a fire hazard. While you have the carb off pull the reed cage out and have a look. The described symptoms is exactly what my bike did when it sucked a reed. Reassemble the carb carefully checking the floats don't foul on the bowl gasket. Reinstall and tell us what happens. FWIW there have been plenty of times I've done serial carb teardowns when I didn't get it right. It happens. Keep us in the loop. We're keen to know you got it fixed.

Also check to see if your friends have the white "fast" throttle tube and you have the "slow" black throttle tube. I find after 4 years of constant riding a set of rings restores the power quite nicely. New piston isn't needed unless you pull the cylinder and find visible damage.

Hrummph I just saw this. How'd my name get dragged into it? Glad to hear it worked out well for you.

Your wife ROCKS!!!! Go ahead and find a trials toy and then you can complain it's an MX bike. Actually no, you can't complain even then.

...and? Don't leave us hanging.

'08 Rev3 mud guard won't fit. Different mount spacing.

Basically an SWM Jumbo. Powerful but heavy. I had one and traded it for an AT300 Mono.

Another satisfied customer.

Also have to ask what oil ratio you're running. It not only affects the here and now but how much residual oil collects in the bottom of the crank that suddenly shows up on those long hard high rev climbs. My bike also smokes a bit after a long climb but most do.

I've got the Diadoras. They feel OK but the soles are stiffer then the Gaerne and have less feel. Front stitching also ripped in the first few weeks on one boot. Other then that they've been fine. Next boots will be back to Gaerne though.

No worries, the guys buying the "2012" Raga are also getting a 2011.

I believe Beta usually starts promoting the next year bike around Sept-Oct time frame.

Basically you would see pitting around the waterpump and some had holes in the case that caused the cooling system to purge into the primary side of the engine. Use a good quality, already mixed coolant like Silkolene Pro-Cool or Engine Ice. The biggest problem with corrosion was with tap water mixed with regular coolant. Particularly with the magnesium cases this caused a reaction that ate through case material due to the contaminents in the tap water. Everybody panics when their gearbox oil is a little milky. Trials transmissions are not sealed and we do ride in all weather so just condensation alone can get into the gear oil which gets churned up into an emulsion. I've yet to hear of a transmission failure due to milky oil. As long as the bike is used regularly there will be a film of oil on the vital bits and any water will settle out into the bottom of the case 'til it's churned up again. If you're going to store it for any length of time then it's worth chasing the water out for a fresh oil fill but not so much with regular use. This has been the way of the world for years but now we have a sight glass in the side of the tranny and can see the oil and all hell has broken loose. I drained lots of milky oil out of my old air cooled Bultacos. Fill the oil halfway up the sight glass, fill the coolant to the top (some will percolate out as the bike warms and go riding.

There's no substitute for real trials boots. Trail boots will protect you well enough but you lose much of the feel of the machine. Remember there's a lot of walking in trials and trail boots tend to be too stiff to make that comfortable. Also make sure there are no steel bits like caps on the front of the boot sole as you may need to dab on a rock and having the boot slip is almost a guaranteed crash.

No, I don't think roughing up the plates is necessary. My theory on why roughing up the plates helps the sticky clutch has to do with the glue. I think roughing up the plates allows them to retain a film of oil which helps keep the glue from cold flowing onto the metal plates and sticking. Once the glue is cleaned up roughing up the plates just reduces the surface area for the friction material.

All fixed

If memory serves the Sureflex look pretty good out of the package but give them a good visual and if the tabs are clean and smooth and the plates aren't full of glue they're probably fine.

Soooo Chinese Ossa? Perfect opportunity for a Chinese company to swoop in, snap up the assets and existing designs of a technologically advanced bike and get into the trials game. It's going to happen it's just a matter of when and who.

Spare part for repair provided by Big Daddy Ron Commo. Thanks Ron.

The drill mod isn't necessary. Just set the floats per Billy T's instructions and nipper a hole in the vent tubes halfway up the body and it's fixed. The reason the Mikuni pees fuel out of the vent tubes is the vent tubes on the Beta are too long and end below the float bowl. If fuel gets splashed up into the tubes they can form a siphon and will flow fuel until the supply stops. Nippering a hole above the level of the float bowl kills the siphon. Any fuel that gets up into the vent tube will just go back down into the float bowl or out the end of the vent tube but it won't keep sucking fuel out of the float bowl. It really is that easy to fix.

Ahhhhh, thought I might have had the dreaded ignition failure last week but kicked it over to debug this week and it would start and rev with minimal throttle, die at mid throttle at low RPM. Hmmm I thought that sounds like a swallowed reed. Pulled it apart and sure enough a piece of carbon fiber stuck in the intake track. Unfortunately the reed didn't fail, the plastic reed block fractured and hopefully took a quick and uneventful trip through the engine. I love the way it runs too much with the VForce to go back to the stock reeds. Still cheaper than a new stator.