scifi

Wasn't it Newton that said... 'Give me a long enough lever, and I will move the Moon.' So just clamp it under the wheel of a car, and then use a ten foot lever to get it back to straight. As long as the axis of the swinging arm bushes are parallel to the wheel spindle you should be Ok. I once dropped a Bultaco 350T from the top of a Volkswagen at an arena trial, it landed on its crossed up front wheel, and bent the frame. That took a lot of unbending with the long lever. If you use some heat in the right place, you can take most bends out. .

If you look at the outer metal portion of the plug, then that is likely to be the same build up of carbon on the cylinder head and piston... Almost time for a de-coke.. ! If you changed to a hotter plug (higher number.) that would cure the central insulator carbon, but not the metal portion or head and piston. Maybe the dealer has set the mixture very rich for running in, and might lean it up a bit on its first service. . ooops Didn't see the second page, and new plug.

Automotive O-ring Set... Did you get the Metric or Imperial size set..? .

We don't know why your bike only had one spring, but what you need is another 450mm spring to make a matched pair. Show your supplier the original spring, and ask him for another identical one, in exchange for the wrong one he gave you. .

I once worked in a place that used lots of electrical relays, and we had an instrument that would check the performance of these contact points. To get the best results we would have to burnish the contacts to a mirror finish with a special stone. So the same applies to CB sets on motor vehicles. What actually happens is that the negative contact looses some of its metal to form a whisker on the positive contact. When this builds up, the circuit will not open and close instantaneously, and you get a reduced voltage for the spark. So you need to remove this whisker, and grind down the hole that occurs on the other contact. Maybe stop short of burnishing with an agate, but at least file the points up reasonably well, and make sure they are parallel.

Didn't think much of the camera quality, mostly handlebar mounted Go-Pros. But I suppose it is difficult to get a studio quality camera crew to some of the remote locations. .

If your ohms readings are accurate, it shows that you have some short circuited turns in the primary of your coil. Evan if only one turn is shot circuit, it will take all the energy out of the transformer action, so hardly any will pass onto the secondary winding. I had a brand new ( Indian.) Lucas coil that went faulty after just 200 miles... it also increased the primary current from 3 Amps to about 6 Amps.

Was about to get my Transit tested at the MOT Garage, and he said it would fail on chassis rust within 12 inches of a structural part... And he knocked a hole in it, to prove his point.. I have had some body panels done before, but can you get the chassis parts as well.? They are a complex shape, so don't want to start making them out of sheet steel, .

For your son, he will have to abide by the ACU rules, something about wheel size and engine cc. They used to give us the ACU and FIM Handbooks many years ago, but I suppose you now have to find that info on-line. Some clubs have practice zones (ours does.), but there is no real substitute for riding the events, starting with the easiest routes first. The electric bikes are really good, and they do an adult version..! .

Hi Grovsey, You might just know that modern trials bikes have no seat, which for us elderly riders is a bit of a setback.. So you have to decide, either modern, and mix it with the bunny hoppers, or older Twin-shock and have a leasurely time in classic events. Also you need to join a club, either ACU for modern or AMCA for Classic events. The Manchester 17 Club runs some 'Dead Easy' trials, which are a good day out, with not too many points lost. If you try the harder events, you will end the day with a cricket score. I ride both modern and twinshock bikes, and am doing up a 1959 Greeves Scottish, which I am not looking forward to riding, as it is very heavy especially around the front end, and won't do half as many tricks as the modern bikes. .

Hi Guys, our club trial has a section that is around a tree then down a steep bank, then a tight turn at the bottom and over a tree log. This gets me nearly ever time on my TY175. The engine takes in too much fuel from the Mikuni on the downhill, and stalls at the bottom of the bank. I have ridden that section by keeping the engine revving going downhill, but there must be a cure for the Carb. I think the float chamber has a breather hole at the top, which with the bike pointing downwards, pours neat fuel into the engine. the fact that the carb is already angled 20 degrees down does not help. .

They look good Jon. Just found one remaining Castrol Arrow in my garage, red with the green Castrol roundel, and loads of nail holes..! There is a firm called Running Imp that does Big Yellow Arrows, and many other bespoke designs, but they are costly. I think most Cycle Clubs have to now use these standard types of traffic warning signs at their events.

Hi Jon, I am sorry to hear that you had to pay for your Castrol Arrows, we always took them as being promotional material that they gave us. When I used to cycle for our local push-bike club, we had to only wear our sponsors jersey, and were not allowed by the organising body to wear any commercial names that were not sponsoring us. Looking at the usual field of riders in local trials, I often wonder why riders are wearing sponsors names, without being paid to do so.. Maybe the ACU should clamp down on this free publicity.

This is a bit like doing Heart Surgery by Telepathy.... There is one thing we don't know... How far does your clutch lever move..? I measured the ball-end moves 90-100mm from fully out to the handlebars. There are two adjusting screws that set the start position, and the free-play, which may need adjusting.

Many years ago, before front wheelies became popular, we used to take our bikes for scruitineering with the brake adjusted to lock the front wheel. After being scruitinised, we would loosen the brake so that it would not bind... The reason being that we did not want to cause a front wheel slide in the sections, if we grabbed the brake too quickly. But I suppose you now want to do front wheel pivot turns..!

Could be he has cut the tubes there, and wants some more strengthening on his welds. Or it's a mud-guard !

Hi Guys, just taken the cover off a 2008 250 Rev3, and it has plain washers. As far as my digital callipers could see, the movement was just about 1.2mm. It could be that you would get less movement if there are small air bubbles in the hydraulic line. However there may be several different types of slave and master cylinder combinations, to give different amounts of movements. .

Using Laminated A4 is not really so good in British weather, any nail holes let the water in and the ink-jet print smears very quickly. It might last a bit longer if you use a Laser Printer, but the paper does get soggy. I think our club found a cheap supply of Corex boards, and used black enamel paint for the words, the signs have lasted many years. You will also need some brightly coloured plastic flags to mark out the different routes through your sections. . Last time I had some Castrol arrows (40 years ago.) they wanted to charge me for them.! I think they said that they were dropping out of further publicity schemes. .

I started on bikes when there were basically two classes for road racing, 250 or 500. Surely these new 'Supersport', 'Superstock' classes are just road going bikes, which would suffer from any of these new rules.? Or, maybe ABS is the way to go in road-racing. .

A friend of mine used a RE Constelation in trials, but there was one section that he would not attempt as it could be painful. It was a muddy section with a two foot tree log to cross. Not so impossible on a TY175, but a team rescue job for the RE. .

I used to do Mountain Biking as well as Motorcycling, and found that some of the more expensive chains took about 3 hours to bed-in. During this time they would jump the small 11-13 tooth rear sprockets (why I don't know!).. The cure occurred quickly when riding through mud, as they would soon wear-in. To check if they were excessively worn, you lay the chain on the bench, and 10 links would be 10.0 inches. When this changed to 10.1 inches the chain was worn, and if it reached 10.2 inches it was knadgered. We sometimes used anti-fling chain-saw oil on our chains, as we had a few gallons of the stuff. .

Yes the air screw does make a difference, the books say set for a peak of the revs, but setting a bit further rich may give a better response to a blip of the throttle. Chain-saw manuals always say to set the fast running jet for maximum revs then richen to reduce the revs by about 1000rpm, to ensure the best mixture when under load. .

Looks like you need to be sure that the clutch lever piston is free to fully return to its start position, as it opens the reservoir port there. If you have got the clutch cover off, you could check that the pressure plate is moving out whilst you pull the clutch lever. Not too sure of the actual movement, but it should be near 5mm or so. .

My local Beta supplier does not list the stepped washers, so I am in the process of making some on the lathe. There are several possible combinations to get the lowest amount of pressure and still have no slip. You could have all 6 pointing outwards for the max pressure, or reverse 2, 3, 4 or all, to keep the pressure plate balanced. ( My Beta has just plain washers at present.) .

'At the beginning of the revs' would be in the range where the slide cut-away plays an important part. You could try sticking your thumb in the inlet, just before the slide, and seeing if the additional choke-restriction helps remove the flat spot. We had a Honda that hesitated at this throttle opening, and as we couldn't get a slide with less cut-away, we ground 1mm off the engine side of the slide, to lower the cut-away down a bit... it cured the problem, but you do that type of mod at your own peril..! .