ross brown

Sherco forget about 'maxing out the preload on your rear shocks' to get it to steer. Just go out and buy a swingarm from a thumbnail photo like I did... I went to look for my new mudguards at the post office today. The mudguards had not turned up after almost three weeks since ordering from the UK. But the replacement swingarm had just come in. The clean grey one on the left is the OLD swingarm. Note the weld marks on the left hand tube from a previous owner's patch-up work half hidden under the new grey powdercoating. This is the reason I did not risk applying heat and straightening it. Just in case the earlier welding came un-stuck. So on the basis that a fix-on-a-fix might be more trouble that it is worth I went shopping on the web. But surprise, surprise. The shock mounts have been altered. The shock mounts have been reinforced and raised 35mm. I didn't spot this alteration when I looked at the For Sale thumbnail. Caveat Emptor. To be fair to the seller, a US parts firm, they probably didn't look that close and realise it wasn't stock. Anyway, its here on the other side of the world now. It is straight and on the plus side, it will help sharpen the steering using a standard-length shock. I will fit it tomorrow and hopefully - fingers crossed - it will all line up. Of course, with all that gusseting and extra steel my TL will now be even heavier!

Did anybody else laugh at this. [quote name='gazzaecowarrior' I have no lane access. It's bad enough bringing a bike through the house never mind a trailer. Photos of cavalier bike usage indoors! At the risk of being accused of a thread hi-jack, I can't understand why my wife was so concerned about a Montesa being transported through the house! Anybody else have similar transport problems ie. no access to the rear of the property except THROUGH the house. Back on topic. I have never felt 100% comfortable using a rack as the bike DOES move around at motorway speeds when a bump is encountered. I've even tied the bike to the roof rack to secure it. And while this works, it adds to the complexity of loading and un-loading. In wet weather the rack also prohibits easy access to my gear in the back of the 4WD/car. As posted elsewhere, not all of us living in cities have space for trailers. Fortunately, I managed to fit a 6X4 garden trailer, turned sideways, into my driveway. A 7x4 would not fit. So it comes down to horses for courses. Perhaps most tellingly, now that I have both rack and a trailer, I'd say I choose the trailer 9 out of 10 times over the rack.

[ Looks to be a good 3/4" Thanks for that. At that distance it makes sense for the sprocket to bolt to the spacer - hence four new bolts in the photo- while the spacer users the standard nuts (that fit to the bolts out of the hub).

Fergie - An excellent Idea to machine down an old sprocket and save $75 (everything on ebay is around 'plus $20' to get it from US to NZ . I'm happy to keep to the 520 chain upgrade (good chain and front sprocket is OK). However - and I'm going only from dead reckoning here as I haven't any reference to a measurement of exactly how dished an OEM sprocket is - I think the spacer needed might be close to 2cm or 3cm. I don't know exactly as I don't have an original sprocket to compare it with. A large gap could also mean that the sprocket bolts out of the hub wont be long enough. Good idea none the less. I will measure the space needed once my ebay swing arm (USD$115/one woman owner/never been twisted/all threads good/ all bearings round) arrives in a week or three time. Thanks. Ross

"Then I can RIDE IT!!!!!!!" Excellent. I'm still someway off that goal. I ordered a replacement swing arm this morning. Brake shoes, sprocket cover, and mud guards are all somewhere between ebay and me. Like you, while waiting for parts to arrive I tried the side covers but I managed to undo only two out of 12 from the right hand side cover, and five on the left side. All the rest are rock solid. So had to go out and buy an Impact Driver this morning. I've found two companies talking about sprocket spacers so that flat sprockets can be used. B&J Racing in the US and Trail & Trials in the UK. The B&J spacer is $55. Trail & Trials has this lovely quote on their web site "Please note this is a flat sprocket and will need a spacer which we are currently working on and it should be available 2010." Unfortunately they have not responded to my emails so I don't know if they ever launched this product or not. I'd like to keep the option to have flat sprockets if I can as this opens up a greater range of sprocket brands and sizes that are available. Interestingly they are saying "We supply a 12 tooth front sprocket & 60 tooth rear sprocket. This is the ideal set up for trials." The set up I inherited is 13 and 51 teeth with a 520 chain.

"think i'll reward myself with a beer" I can see that the steering head angle looks steeper. The swingarm also looks shorter than a standard Xl. But that may be just an illusion. Is it standard?

Quote "How do you think your swing arm got bent? Are you sure it is tweaked and does not just need the spacer? It is unbelievable to me that someone could take off a dished sprocket and think it would be ok to just replace it with a flat one without a spacer. Some people's kids!!!!" Not quite scientific, but look how the hole for centre of the mudguard does not line up with the centre of the tyre. At first I thought it might just need a spacer and the whole thing was an optical trick, after all, the Honda frame has an asymmetrical cross-bar to give the exhaust more space when viewed from behind. Then I tried various wheel adjustments independent of how the actual snail cam indents were numbered. When I took the chain off, it was obvious that there was a wheel-to-chassis alignment issue as well as a rear sprocket displacement with the countershaft sprocket. No mater what I did with the rear wheel adjustment the wheel would not line up in the vertical plane ie. the top of the wheel was always leaning closer to the top of the left shock than it was to the right. So off with the swing arm. Here we are looking at the swingarm pivot while the axle is clamped level. No prize for where the bubble should be. In both the photos below, the swingarm pivot is now clamped in the horizontal plane and we are looking at the axle end of the swingarm. Measurements are from a jig on top of the arm measuring downward. The tube sticking out at the top of the photo is the lower shock mount. Here we have the left swingarm where the start of the axle cut out is 42mm from the top of the jig. The Swing arm doesn't actually touch the jig. And here we have the right swingarm where the start of the axle cut out is 35mm from the top of the jig and the arm is hard up against the jig. 6mm difference at the axle turns into quite a twist at the edge of the tyre. Now I have to decide to twist and straighten, or replace the swing arm.

Before the twisted swingarm, and rusted-to-pieces exhaust stepped into the middle of this Road to Rehab, I had a plan. A week before the bike arrived and while my kids were at swimming lessons and I was stuck pool-side for 45 minutes watching them swim up and down, I wrote out what I thought needed doing to bring my TL up to speed and into the modern world of Twinshock usage. I didn't want to undertake a perfect restoration that would leave the bike looking 1976 fresh out of the box. Instead I've always fancied the RTL360 look. But before I began playing with the motor, I thought I'd better get the running-gear up to speed first. Let me just back track here. My TL arrived with no front brake cable and rear brake shoes that didn't touch the sides of the drum! So the first priority was to give it some brakes; any brakes. There must be quite a few other people out there on Trials Central who, like me, live on a hill and don't have a flat driveway. If I move outside of the level floor of the garage the 230lb lard-bottomed TL (the front feels lighter than I remember it, but picking it up by the rear subframe is surprisingly heavy) starts to roll under the influence of gravity. New EBC grooved brake shoes should arrive this week. The plan using a couple of TL250 images care of Google - and not of my bike as it hadn't yet arrived-looked like this. I've used the print out since as my to do list. The triangular exhaust rattles so loudly if you shake it, that it sounds like it is a single hollow chamber and all of the innards have rusted loose. I'm considering a new TL125 pipe or a Honda CT200 farm bike pipe. The CT is a good 10 years younger than the TL and it a twin shock. The photo below is of a CT200 pipe and note how it wraps behind the shock. Works TLs of the late '70 had a similar large volume look to their muffler design. Has anybody else had experience with either of these pipes on a TL250?

eBay Uk. Dozens of replacements. And the AU$ has never been stronger.

Hi Sherco 29 Your new guards are looking good. I've just ordered a silver rear guard and a silver front one, but may yet run with a Montesa 315 Red front guard which I have spare. Photos to follow once the silver guards arrive. Well this week was two steps forward and two steps backward. Or so it seemed. Steps forward include the clutch lightener adapted from one for a TLR200 and a CR80 gear lever with folding tip. Red brake cable from Venhill in the UK is a delight - such a smooth operation for a cable. And here we have this week's test. Note the chain tensioner. As the majority of force applied to tension the chain is in the vertical plane the bolt that holds the chain tensioner to the swing arm need not be anything special. However, on my TL I have found that the thread for this bolt is neither 8mm nor 10mm. A week later, I'm still trying to find a 9mm bolt! If it is 9mm, then its the only one othe bike. I may just give up and tap it out to 10mm. The Discovery phase of this rehab continues. A friend very generously let me have his left-over 520 gold chain. So last week we got to look closely at sprocket and wheel alignment. Now, let's all sing it together ... 'swingarm needs-a-straightening'. The sprockets have been upgraded by previous owner to 520 size which I don't have an issue with (identical to XL250 of the same year). But it looks like a replacement flat sprocket was just bolted straight onto the hub without any spacer to compensate for not using a dished sprocket. Ahh, the joys of a rehab.

You asked about the chain guard. Well the guard around the rear sprocket does not exist on this neglected TL. You can also see the new foot pegs left over from my 4RT. More than double the width of the original TL pegs. Today when I tried to install the chain tensioner I found that the thread on the swing arm is too big for 8mm and too small for 10mm. Of course it is 9mm, but who uses 9mm?. Not my local engineering supplies shop! Below, you can see that the header pipe has been replaced at some point. Haven't got around to the pipe yet. Nor have I attacked the cases with AutoSolve to clean them up. Triangular muffler has holes in three places and has been brazed previously by an earlier owner looking to plug holes. It will have to go. Knobby tyre too is marked for the scrap heap. On the plus side, there are plenty of allen-head nuts on the bike now.

Your exhaust really did turn out well. Funny thing about the mudguards, I've been thinking should I go with silver/grey/gray or another colour. Silver being the original colour, but then again the RTLs used red. See photo below. White coloured mudguards remind me too much of Preston Petty fenders from the '80s. Then again, white is one of the racing colours of HRC ie. for the RTL250s. I've also seen some black coloured guards. Well I wouldn't have a white car but black cars are cool. So why don't we have more black coloured bikes. I see Gas Gas are using black front guards and both Montesa and Beta are using white mudguards with black decals. So maybe black is the 'new Black". Hmmm, still undecided on what colour to opt for as I am not doing a period restoration. I started the TL250 rehab process properly today. I got the bike up on a stand and the petrol tank off. Oil in the old girl's veins too. New Spark plug in. Forgotten just how deep the plug is located in the head compared to a modern bike. Almost every engine bolt was loose. I found out that the rear hub DOES have brake shoes but that they don't touch the sides of the brake drum! WIll have to explore if they are just worn or from a different sized hub tomorrow. Stand, rear brake pedal and bash plate all off to the powder coaters today. I'll have to get around to painting my exhaust later. Drilled out the only non-metric nut (so far) that I have found. Fitted my 4RT OEM foot peg to the right side of the TL. Peg mounts needed to have a nut underneath sawn off, then the hole opened up as new pegs don't bolt to the mounts but have pins that pass through the frame mounts and bolt up underneath. 1mm of metal needed to come off the peg mounts as well as letting them spread slighty to accept the new slightly wider and 36 year younger pegs. Tomorrow's to do list: the left hand peg, take some photos, brake shoe cleaning, handlebar fitting, fork oil and a waterproof seal around the airbox.

Here's my TL as it was when purchased. Frame has been powder-coated, and its a case of building up from here. I'm looking forward to spending some time this weekend to get to go over my bike properly and no doubt build up a list of the 1,001 things that will have to be done. When, not working today, I went and sourced a variety of allen-head bolts to replace the the bolts on the triple clamp. exhaust etc. I had no ideas stainless steel bolts were so expensive! I've got Hebo pegs on my 4Rt and are putting the OEM 4RT pegs onto the TL. Discovered I'll have to get out with a file and take about 1 or 2mm off the peg brackets so that they will fit. Will adapt the bike rather than the pegs so that I can change to aftermarket modern pegs if I want to later. The 4RT pegs are already double the width of the skinny 1976 pegs and move the rides weight backward as well. New handlebars go on tomorrow and I've just ordered a forged alloy gear lever with a folding tip from a CR80 so that should slip straight on. New red front brake cable from Venhill has arrived along with a clutch lightener from Shedworks in the UK. There are two or three holes in the exhaust and I've heard that a CT200 exhaust fits. However, standing and looking at the bike - as one does when any new member of the household arrives - I can't help but feel that the triangular exhaust is an integral part of the TL's identity. Here in NZ there is a firm that makes new pipes to TL125 specs, so I will investigate fitting one of those while keeping the original header pipe. Surprises? Well the sprocket is not dished and there are no spacers between hub and sprocket, the chain is a 520 size not a 428 and it all lines up. So someone has put on a different rear wheel at some stage. Perhaps from an XL. I've also found a couple of welded on nuts (exhaust mounts) that weren't metric! Any earlier owner being lazy I suspect. Had the back pedal in my hand today and was aghast at the weight. Feels like it was built by a ship-builder! Another surprise, for get about the price of fuel. Fuel Lines are priced like Gold. 20cm of neoprene rubber was going to cost USD15! All in all, I am thrilled to have another TL in my garage. I had one 20 odd years ago. It looks smaller now. It's still heavy , but looks lower than I remember. I still like the masculine full bodied look that they have where the motor fills ALL the available space under the tank.

Hi Just picked up my own "TL250 Rehab' project yesterday. Every home should have one. Parts may not be easy to get for these puppies, but I am learning that many Xl250/XL350 parts fit, so it might not be as dry out there as a first Google/ebay search might seem. Photos to follow in a few days. Ross

Hi, Have a really close look at you car owner's manual. My Honda CRV towbar came with a sticker on the towbar that says maximum vertical load is just 50kg. Yet if you go into the manual, the figure quoted by the car manufacturer is 100KG. Why the discrepancy I asked? The Dealer couldn't (be bothered to) help me. Because the car manufacturer states that up to 100KG is acceptable we can rule out too much weight on the back of the vehicle making the nose of the car light as a valid reason. That leaves the structural integrity of the mounting system and the tow bar and whether the fixings are substantial enough to take the weight. If you stand on the bar, I doubt that the weight of an adult male over stresses it. If it did you wouldn't feel safe towing anything with it! When I stand on the bar with my 90KG weight (40KG over the limit) it makes no impression on the structure. There's no cracking, bending or sign of impending catastrophic failure!!! Therefor, I can only assume that the 50Kg limit is an overly safe, cover-your-a***, arbitrarily low limit set by the local distributor and tow bar manufacturer. The bad news is, as raised by other posters, is that in the case of an accident Mr Plod and Mr No Claims may choose to use view your 'abuse' of the tow bar loading as being reason enough and not pay out on insurance. Should this ever happen, you could argue- depending upon the weight specified in the car owner's manual - that you were in fact within Manufacturer's specs. Ross

You're right, it pathetic video quality. It's the concept I like.

Awesome video. What we've always known but rarely seen demonstrated with this level of rider skill. Enduros win on acceleration and are much more comfortable and easier to ride over big jumps. You can see over the first jump that having a seat and long travel shocks wins out over short travel shocks, no seat, and suspension-by-leg. But when it comes to letting the front wheel float over rocks and logs, horsepower and height lose out to balance and a low centre of gravity.

Keith Next step- buy a 4Rt as company for the TLR. You'll never look back after living with fuel injection! I built my pitch to the wife around ... slow, safe (not on public roads), and no brolly girls. Welcome back.

Try using one of those foam noodles that kids take swimming. Simply lie it on the floor and on in bare feet stand on it. Then try and keep BOTH toes and heels off the floor at the same time. Sounds easy, but at first you get a lot of 'pilot induced oscillations' where you over compensate by using too much strength to transfer weight from toes to heels and back again (its that typical male thing of replacing technique with strength). I find it helps you soften your knees and trains you to transfer body weight to keep balance.

I doubt that I will ever be able to look at a swimming pool the same way again!

After angle grinding all the knobs off your tyres, look closely at that rich red paint on your 315, it might have lead in it. Heavy! Ever wondered why Montesa swithced to white mudguards for 2004?

Nice steady view. I take it that the camera is mounted to your chest and not the helmet. Is that right? Watching cameras mounted to helmets I have often found that you don't get to see the handlebars - just the route ahead. Especially when riding at a fast pace ie. enduro bike along single-track forest paths. Whereas with your video, having such a steady a view of the bars really helps 'put the the viewer in the driving' seat (excuse the no-seat irony) Loved it. Thanks. Do post more.

Seat fell off my 315 too. Mind you, compared to my TL250 from 30 years ago quite a few Kilos have fallen off as well!

I'd like to have heard the sales pitch when he sold the Cortina and tried to explain away the four holes drilled in the roof of the boot! Can't see how the best place to anchor the weight would be to use the boot lid (thin and movable) rather than the body of the car (solid), even if the rack was attached through the lid to the underside of the boot hinge. Still, it is a cool looking set-up. As I recall Lotus used to offer a ski rack for the Esprit that was equally spectacular and Saab offer a ski rack for their convertible that angles the skis up over the roof. Note. the complete lack of tie downs. On the other hand, with this rack you could almost get away with one tie down around the front wheel.

Those Mont "Auto" gearboxes do command a premium!