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How do you know when your wife is leaving you? When she discovers she's been wearing your girlfriend's clothes..... Jon

I'm not positive, but I think the forks are the same. Any good machine shop that understands how forks work should be able to straighten them for you with little problem. Take both tubes in to be straightened as it's rare for just one side to bend in a shunt (one side will usually get bent more than the other, but both usually get bent). The machinist will use an aluminum block with a cutout the same size as the forks (38mm) so the press bar does not cause a flat spot on the tube (although this is not generally a problem with pressure applied at the tripleclamp junction as the seal and bushings do not ride up that far) and the tolerance with the tube ends in V-blocks should be no more than .003". Jon

A lot of riders lay the bike on it's side, take off the clutch cover and pour the oil on the clutch pressure plate to fill. Be sure to use a new Allen or an old one with about 5mm dressed off the end. Both the drain plug and the little buttonhead screws holding the cover on strip real easy if you use a worn Allen key. The oil you are using should be fine from what I can guess. Jon

From what some of the builders have told me the steering dynamics of a street sidecar outfit (non-leaning) and a Trials sidecar are quite different. From what I've seen of the MX type sidecars, however, they often follow the leading-link front ends of the street outfits. Makes me wonder if an Earles front would work on a Trials rig, I imagine it's been tried before. Jon

Usually if you pressurize the system and no fluid is forced back into the reservoir, that's a sign that the piston has not retracted back (or down in this case) to the stop at the circlip, and the bleed hole from the line to the reservoir is not opened (the system is not able to equalize itself). Generally there are two causes for this (1) the rod at the back of the brake lever is adjusted too far up and/or (2) the piston return spring (in front of the seal) has sacked or broken (usually caused by rust in the system as water collects in the M/C bore or by wear on the sides of the spring, which gradually thins it to the point of breakage). You might want to pull off the rubber boot on the M/C and be sure the piston rod is back against the circlip. Jon

The Marzocchi fork does not have an external preload. Rather than a compression/rebound cartridge in one side and a preload spring in the other leg, it has a dedicated compression cartridge on the left and a dedicated rebound cartridge on the right. That way they are independently tunable. With a single cartridge handling both compression and rebound, any change in oil viscosity will affect both rebound and compression the same way. With the cartridges in each fork, you can make viscosity changes independently for rebound or compression and the single stage damping will be much more effecient. The preload is inside the fork leg and consists of a PVC collar that can be replaced with one longer or shorter to increase or decrease spring preload. Jon

O.K., Maybe not absolutely Trials related, but sidecars just the same. Hoping to spark a little interest in posts in this area of the forum from a site I subscribe to..... http://www.oddee.com/item_96715.aspx Jon

Did you hear about the magician who walked down the street and turned into a drug store...... Jon

I was just at the Pike Street Market last month and not offended by the flying fish. If PETA goes the rubber fish route, I'm starting "PETR", People for the Ethical Treatment of Rubber......... Jon

I know I'm always harping on this, but be sure to use a new Allen wrench or dress about 5mm off the end of an old one to keep the flutes sharp and to keep from stripping Allen capscrews. This is especially important with the special shaved down head on the clutch hub capscrew (this allows extra clearance with the end of the servo cylinder) and the aluminum drain and fill plugs in the Pro (or any other bike). Most riders don't realize that Allen ends wear and the flutes round over and this is the most common cause of stripped capscrews. I use a little blue Loctite ("serviceable" type, as opposed the "non-serviceable" red, stud and bearing mount type) the on the clutch hub capscrew. If that backs out, the servo cylinder will bottom against it and the clutch lever will hit a solid spot when pulled in and the clutch will not fully release. Jon

I know several riders who leave out the drilled capscrew. Be sure to take the stepped washer out too or you will have engine damage. The pressure of the servo cylinder on the clutch fingers holds the hub on. I run the washer and special capscrew in my Pro (loose parts inside of an engine make me nervous for some reason), but I've never heard of any problems with it left out. Jon

Ian, What is actually needed in the way of service would depend on how well the dealer set the bike up after uncrating. It's always a good thing to assume nothing has been done and that way you will be able to establish a baseline. Another good idea is to keep notes on items (just a Post-It note on the wall) you service that are out of the ordinary day-to-day stuff, such as steering head bearings and suspension linkage. You'd be surprized at how time moves and something you thought you did a couple of months ago will actually have been done over a year ago. To answer the last question, it will probably take a little over 400cc's of tranny fluid and Type-F ATF works well in the 07'. Change it often (I change mine about 5-10 hours of use of after a wet Trial) as the trans fluid also lubes the crank main bearings and more importantly, the needle bearings in the two-piece primary trans shaft (it's how GasGas can get a 6-speed gearbox out of only 4 sets of gears). Heres some items to service and I'm sure others will add a few to the list: Front/rear wheel bearings (pry off seal and pack with waterproof grease). Suspension linkage (don't forget the needle bearing sets under the swingarm, most riders do just the dogbones and that's why these swingarm pivot bearings are usually the first to go bad). Lube all pivot points on the bike like levers, rear brake bushing, throttle, etc. Drain all the fuel and mix fresh before riding (you've had it months and only used it a couple of times and most of the "high-end aromatics" will have boiled off and escaped out the vent tube). Check spokes and all fasteners. These are a few to get you started and it would take several pages to list everything, and you can use the maintenance schedule for the 06' Pro at http://www.trialspartsusa.com/manuals/eng.pdf (download the 06' Owner's Manual). Jon

Any good bike shop that has parts for dirt bikes should have them. The ones for the MX bikes are a little larger than the OEM GasGas part, but should work. Jon

The hose expanding under pressure seems highly unlikely (I don't ever remember seeing one do it in a newer bike) but a problem with the M/C bore seems to be the most logical explanation, based on info given. It's easy for a small piece of dirt to enter the reservoir during regular servicing and work it's way into the bore where it can scratch the wall enough to provide a small channel that fluid can pass through, past the seal lip. It could also be caused by a remaining piece of swarf in the bore left over from the machining process. I'll be interested to see if a different M/C solves the problem. Jon

If you had the kickstart mechanism out, perhaps re-indexing it may help, see: http://www.trialspartsusa.com/diagrams/Pro...2027%202009.doc I'm assuming you are using an OEM clutch cover gasket and not just sealer. The clearances are tight and the gasket acts as a spacer of sorts. Jon

You'll notice a tension spring with a loop that sticks out on the kickstart shaft. That loop must fit into the special machined recess hole on the sidecover. That spring loop and the crossbar on the waterpump shaft that fits in the slots on the primary gear are the two things that usually cause the case not to fit correctly. Make sure you are putting on the sidecover with the bike on it's side, otherwise the servo cylinder will often hang up in the clutch fingers. as they can flop out at the bottom of the pack and catch the "brim" of the servo cylinder top hat. Sometimes, the clutch hub needs to be seated firmly down on the trans shaft, but that rarely happens. Jon

Possibly. Some published spec.'s are for 550cc's, but a lot of riders use between 400 and 450cc's. Jon

Welcome, Samo. Your ability with English is a LOT better than my ability with the Slovene language.... We're glad to have you on the forum. I've seen photos that riders have sent me from Slovenia, it's a very beautiful country. Jon

The 75ml per 5 Litres should work well (use a full-synthetic premix oil). You also may want to re-set the fuel screw (engine warm and in neutral, quickly blip throttle from tickover and adjust screw in/out to get best response) and set the tickover speed with the engine in 1st gear and the clutch lever pulled in the "normal" way (not all the way to the grip, but usually in with one finger to the knuckle) and you shouldn't have any stalling problems. Cheers. Jon

Chris, If you want, have your dealer get you a "mode switch" #BT280634007, used on the 06' on up bikes, which will plug in the black/orange wires and attach to the handlebars. It's the "rain"/"shine" symbol rocker switch. Jon

Nigel, I think we have more breweries in production here............. Jon

I'm not positive on this, but I think the 04' Raga had the EPROM setup (with an infinite number of possibilities but required a laptop and special hookup cables/program) and the 05' had the two-stage program CDI. Did you look under your tank for the black/orange wires connected/not connected for the two advance curves? Jon

That's also a possibility. Here's another possibility, a quick look at the photo indicated that the screws holding the spring on the clutch are non-standard. The 02' came with 3mm buttonhead screws that stripped out the first time you tried to take them out, so I'm not surprized they were replaced. The 03' on uses a special GG 7mm 12-point screw that has a head only a couple of mm's high, so if the replacement slotted screws that are in the clutch now have a higher head they would probably hit the inside of the sidecover (notice the groove by the waterpump inside the case) and THAT would sure sound like a box of rocks in a washing machine. The clutch hub is a tight fit on the shaft sometimes and if it was not pushed down to it's stop all the way (tapped lightly with a punch to settle it on the shaft), it would protrude and the screw heads would contact the inside of the sidecover. The special clutch screws are part number "MT280332077" and you will need 10 of them. Jon

I think you may mean the bike toss that the AVTA do at the quarry for the Central Regional Championship round at Douglass, Kansas? Or, do we, in fact, have TWO sinister forces at work, trying to destroy perfectly good running motorcycles, one at a time........ Last time, I tried to talk the Kansas guys into setting it on fire first, before the launch, but they know better than to follow my advice...... Jon

It's hard to tell what the cause is, could be a tolerance problem and the tophat/sidecover post clearance is too little. As I remember, the 06' is the first year of the light (thinner) Belville spring, designed to lessen the pull resistance. Before you get a new master cylinder, you might try: (1) change trans oil to Type-F ATF and (2) change clutch fluid to DOT-5 (Silicone), which reportedly reduces resistance about 20% on the lever and makes for a smoother engagement. Be aware that you'll need to flush the system completely first. Jon