dan williams

Just as a matter of course it's good to loosen all the bolts in the front end from time to time to make sure nothing is torqued in such a way that it is applying side pressure to the forks. Wear on the friction coating is to be expected. Rub anything long enough and it will start to show signs of wear. Er, sounds a bit dirty that. One thing you might want to check is that the wear is even all around the tube. One of the theories for the fork seal issues on early 90s trials bikes was the thinner/lighter fork tubes were flexing more and causing uneven wear around the seals. It is unlikely you have flex in the front end of an '06 that would cause uneven wear but a slightly tweaked front end could show up as uneven wear.

Yeah I forgot about ultrasonic cleaners. Unfortunately you're still left with the problem of clearing the moisture out of the passages that must be done with air on the Keihin.

I don't think it's a good idea. Steam won't damage the metal but the high temp on the plastic bits might be a bad idea. Wouldn't want to think of how the floats might react to hot steam. Best thing to do is get a can of compressed air, the proper screw drivers including the "security" torx driver for removing the center pillar and doing the full disassemble and clean. One thing I've noticed with the Keihin is it's tendency to get a water bubble in the pilot circuit exit holes. The holes are so small the surface tension of the water keeps it from evaporating so a little water is even more of a problem then dirt. Sorry but there's no substitute for doing it the right way.

Check this, http://www.newenglandtrials.org/classified...&clearoff=1 Hope the link works. I think this guy bought the replacement and found someone to rebuild his old shock so never used this.

Just as a general rule of thumb if you're going to strip the carb down to clean the jets run compressed air through the carb body as well. Goo doesn't just get stuck in the jets. Also when you say you cleaned them hopefully it was with compressed air and not running a wire through them. That always freaks me out when I read that on here. Also be careful with assembly. The girlfriend had carb issues with her TTR125 that I didn't want to deal with because she was getting a bit whiny about me breaking it so she took it to a dealer. Still didn't run right so I had no choice. Dealer cleaned the jets then reassembled the carb wrong.

There should be a little play side to side as the connecting rod big end has to be self centering to some extent. If you can feel no clear play (clunk) when the rod is pulled and pushed (stop giggling you adolescents) it

They also have a picture they say is Adam Raga's girlfriend endorsing the Xispa. If that really is Adam's girlfriend that's pretty irresponsible to put on the web. Even if it's not it's still a slimey thing to do. Granted that girl could sell me a bag of doorknobs and I'd be happy but that's not the point.

Yup it's normal. For those of us with a winter it's part of the spring time ritual, getting over the sore back and wrists. As suggested you might want to look at your bar position. Although it seems counter intuitive, having the bars too far back causes your weight to be too far forward and adds stress to your wrists because you stand too tall your, er... lower ballast region, moves too far forward and you have to try to control body position with your arms with little leverage rather then just being naturally balanced. In a proper position on the bike you won't need any pressure on your hands to be balanced at rest. Having the bars too far back is a common error for new trials riders. If you have the bars too far forward the bike will be extremely quick steering especially on the loop. Too far forward also tends to strain the back as you try to compensate by hanging your butt to the rear leaving the arms under constant stress. Usual bar position is straight up to slightly forward.

Looks like a Fantic 301 to me

I eventually got tired of the DellOrto on my '95 and changed it out for a Mikuni. Best fix I ever made. It's probably different now but when that bike came out the DellOrto on it was a new design with a two piece pilot jet. Unfortunately parts weren't available so I could never get the thing jetted properly. Sorry if that's no help but the Mikuni really made the bike much easier to ride.

Ah yes the Can-Ams. First year I believe was '83 with a red frame called the CMT 310 with a Hiro motor. Next year same bike, white frame called the CMT 320. After that the 350 Rotax based SWM Jumbo clone in '85. Very scary to ride at least for me and then the 270cc aluminum framed mono the 300AT in '87. My 350's frame number was 853200001. Not sure but I think that meant I had bike number 1. Not sure what the '86 bike was since I didn't own one and my buddys had moved on to Beta by then.

See here http://www.jackscycles.com/lpse.html

Just wiring the kill switch ground through the steering head bearing violates bike wiring 101. When I started building bikes long ago as a kid (only way I could afford a bike) I read time and time again that you don't do that. Adding the lighting circuit ground to the same lug is just insanity. The diode in the kill switch circuit on later bikes proved that Beta suspected something similar. Unfortunately changing the lighting circuit to ac negates the diode fix. I doubt it's the coil insulation. That's a technology that's been proven for 150 years and a coil simply doesn't fail unless you pump too much current into it or feed it a voltage that breaks down the insulating goo which has to be in the megavolts or you mechanically damage it. The semiconductors is another matter though and all of the modern ones are much more prone to damage then their predecessors. The reason for this is the shinking of feature geometry. This is done for three reasons. Smaller transistors switch faster (hence your 3GHz pentiums), they use less power and they can make many more parts per wafer bringing the manufacturing cost down. This is true even for power semiconductors as used in the ignition system so they are a lot less tolerant of reverse voltage/over voltage conditions then a semiconductor of the '70s & '80s. I can see two probable failure mechanisms. It's not a stretch to theorize damage to the semiconductors in the CDI system from the primary voltage of the ignition system. If you've ever been tickled by the kill switch on a wet day you know there's a lot more then 12V running through that puppy. Likewise it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that an 85 watt rated lighting system with a 12V output is capable of considerable amperage. Possibly enough to burn out the primary coil of the ignition system. The starting current for the fan alone with the radiator face down on the bench was on the order of 6.5 amps. This explains what I believe to be the two most common failure mechanisms one stator coil and one CDI box. Mixing those two systems together on one ground lug is just plain crazy. I've loved every one of my Betas and I love the '08 but the exploration into the stock wiring was an eye opener to be sure. There are Beta faithful that are mad at me for bringing this up but it's such a simple fix for such a drastic problem that I can't understand why every local Beta dealer and rider isn't pulling their buddy's aside and saying, "Pssst... let's take a look at your wiring for a minute. I'm just going to snip this kill switch ground wire, move it down here and reconnect it under the coil." That's been pretty much normal procedure in the US and certainly here in the northeast and I haven't seen an ignition failure yet. Then again we don't need lights here so it may be serendipity that the fix is just part of good grounding procedure. If I had a full schematic of the CDI internals I could tell you with a pretty high degree of certainty what component failed. Then again I'm a product engineer at a semiconductor company so I've spent 25 years probing and debugging ICs. I doubt Beta (or any other manufacturer has anyone on staff who has that kind of experiance. I'm sure they've been back to their supplier umteen times demanding an answer why their product is failing and the ignition manufacturer has hooked it up proper and been unable to find a failure. That reminds me of a story I heard years ago... The A-10 Warthog tank killer aircraft had been in service for a number of years and was suffering a high rate of engine bearing failures. The US Air Force was beating on the engine supplier GE Lynn for an explaination. GE took several of the A-10 engines and beat the hell out of them running at 120% power for days on end and doing all kinds of abusive things and the engines just would not die. Finally producing a 6" report on the testing and results which needless to say didn't satisfy the Air Force one bit. As one of the GE engineers was leaving the A-10 base he looked up to see an A-10 doing a slow roll. Ding! The light went on! The A-10 uses a modified commercial engine that was never intended for inverted flight. The bearings were lubricated with a half bearing cup type of deal. When the aircraft was inverted for more then a few seconds the oil drained out of the bearing and damaged the bearing. The fix was a retrofit to an enclosed bearing and the engine failures stopped. I used to live in Lynn and could hear the GE plant when they were testing. Call me a motor head but I loved the sound. Then again I lived a few miles away.

Yeah after years of Baldrige awards and "Six Sigma" quality control BS some have finally started to realize that the best quality control is the guy on the assembly line who knows what he's doing putting it together the way he knows it should be done. Unfortunately so little has been done to capture that knowledge because it didn't come from an MBA that the idea of craftsmanship in a mass production environment has all but been abandoned. Hence the nostalgic feeling of finding some 50 year old piece of kit that still works perfectly while your fancy new whatever breaks 10 meters from the store.

Careful you don't break off a screw or crack the hub. All disks are now floating type and have some freeplay. Just as a rule of thumb, if you're nervous you're tightening too much you are. None of the modern machines has much metal behind that bolt no matter where it is on the bike with the possible exception of the crankshaft. Most disks have some type of finger washer on both sides to approximately center the disk.

It's really important to fix the wiring by moving the ground reference from the steering stem to the chassis. I firmly believe that will stop the majority of blown ignitions. The time to do it is before the bike suffers a failure. http://www.newenglandtrials.org/Beta_wiring.pdf

Haven't done a top end since my '95 but... Before bike seemed to run OK but a bit hard starting. After felt like a new bike. My guess is you just need rings. The piston and cylinder don't wear very fast with the hard surface coating on the current engines. Try just rings first and I think you'll be a happy camper.

As George Carlin said, "Save the planet? If the planet wants to get rid of us it will flick us off like a bad case of fleas!"

I got to ride an event up there some years ago. Hugo and the rest of the ATAQ guys are good people. The ATAQ (L'Association des trialistes amateurs du Qu

If your Beta has a lighting system on it you should read this. http://www.newenglandtrials.org/Beta_wiring.pdf

Classic illustration of a fundamental problem. If you want people to participate you must make the information accessible. I googled the following terms (Dudley Trial 5th Oct) and the only hit that was relative was this thread. Think about it.

Welcome to the wonderful world of web hosting. I put a notice up on the front page of newenglandtrials.org. Some of the NY and VT guys will probably check it out.

If you're on your way down the east coast through New England there's still a few events to go. Let me know and a Beta is yours to play with. http://www.newenglandtrials.org/ October 5 Exeter RI RITC Sam Singer/Joe Antonelli October 11 Northville NY CATRA Pete Lacagnina October 12 Northville NY CATRA Pete Lacagnina October 26 Meriden CT Meriden Motorcycle Club George Eddy

Yeah but once we're all on the dole think of the riding time we'll have.

See this http://www.newenglandtrials.org/Beta_wiring.pdf