feetupfun

Those KLR 650 motors are fantastically long lived. You can expect 50,000km before it will need rings and a cam chain. If they stil have the CV carby, the fuel economy will be good too. The only downside I know of is that the suspension is 1980s trailbike technology so while it will be smooth riding don't expect it to be up with the latest bikes on broken ground. The hot ticket I remember for improving the front end for off-road stuff is to fit a TT600 front end (clamps, forks and wheel)

Front uprights shorten at bottom end. Rear uprights shorten at top end. Middle uprights shorten at top end.

My IRC fronts have been very slow to wear. The rubber feels same softness as Dunlop to me when new and carcass stiffness is also very similar to Dunlop ie carcass not as flexible as Michelin given same pressure. All proper trials competition tyres have softer rubber and are more flexible than the Pirelli. I have never been able to wear out a front trials tyre before the rubber goes hard so maybe I'm not the right person to give an opinion about which competition trials tyre is best for intensive long distance trail riding.

IRC fronts are good value in Australia and are much better to ride with than Pirelli fronts. I rate IRC fronts along side Dunlop fronts but not quite as good as Michelin fronts.

TY250 twinshock gear change shaft replacement does not require the cases split, but does require removing the clutch cover and the clutch basket. There is a circlip on the LH end of the shift shaft and once it is removed, the shaft slides out towards the right. Replacing the shaft is probably less work than repairing the cut-off shaft.

You could try a few more different solvents. There is bound to be one that works (alcohol, acetone, toluene, ether, citrus cleaner, hot water and detergent, dry cleaning solvent.....

Monty primary drive gear is on a taper which can be very difficult to separate. There are previous postings on the ways people have got the gear off. Yes the seal holder is just like a Bultaco.

If something snags the cable without safety wiring, the outer can pull out of position and may return on its own or with some assistance, but the outer does not see a tension loading (the inner takes the tension load). If the outer is safety wired and then is snagged, the outer may be stretched which would probably leave no options for continuing riding as outers cannot be recompressed once stretched.

I don't care which side, but I do care how ergonomic they are. A few years ago my wife wanted a modern bike and the choice was down to a Beta Rev 3 (left side kick)or a 2 stroke Yamaha motor Scorpa (right side kick). We bought the Beta because the end of the Scorpa kickstart was so high she couldn't get her foot high enough to reach it. She had no probs starting the Beta.

Samy this is to give you info about the sort of battery duration that is achieved with an OSET. My son has been riding an OSET spider 16 since 2007. During that period his weight has gone from 22kg to 24kg. The riding time capability on one set of batteries is marginal for a kids level one-day trial. We usually managed the issue by having him warm up on one set of batteries, then change to a fully charged set at the start of the competition and they would sometimes last the whole trial and sometimes not. We did manage OK this way but having three sets of batteries would have been better, especially if his sister also wanted to have a ride, or if he wanted to continue riding after the trial. If cost had been no object we would have had eight sets of SLA batteries (sixteen batteries) for two-day events. At home my son practiced trials on sloped ground and one set of batteries would last about 15 minutes of constant riding, and less if it included much riding up slopes, and maybe 30 minutes of constant riding if it was mainly on the flat. David

No pollution? Where does the electricity for charging it come from?

The current Scorpa is a bike designed and built by Sherco. The "Yamaha" in your photo is a Scorpa from when Scorpas were made by Scorpa and powered by Yamaha motors. Have a look at this 2009 250cc four stroke Scorpa and you will see the same frame as in that photo of the "Yamaha" http://newmotorcyclebuyersguide.com/scorpa-sy250f-sy200f-sy125f.html

Much better to pull the swingarm out to grease the bushes anyway than to use a grease gun Removing powder coating - its just plastic that melts as it is heated so if you can heat it enough to soften the coating without wrecking the coating on the areas you want to keep coated, then just use a paint scraper. If it was me I would use an electric industrial heat gun (paint stripper gun)to locally heat the steering stem and scrape it off as it softens and bubbles.

Think about it mate. Your topic says "fun in the garage" - people read that and have no idea what it is about so have a look. Most not interested and so don't reply. No wonder 500 views but many less replies. I was interested in replying about the bike until I got to your insult

Wow

My understanding is that the function of the pickup is to generate a pulse as the magnet passes. Maybe your resistance measurements across the pickup coil are being corrupted by that pulse

Oops! I've just deleted some messages so it should work now

It does look like the header pipe has a tighter bend

I just had some custom made in Brisbane, Australia. Price was fine but but freight might be prohibitive from there to the USA. You can PM me if you want the contact details for the person who made them for me.

It would be helpful to be able to see the triple clamps

I reckon the reason that the location of the handlebar clamps relative to the steering stem axis is unimportant is because it is the position of the handlebar grips (not the bar clamps)relative to the steering stem axis that determines the spatial relationship between your hands and the steering axis. Adjusting the handgrip position by rotating the bars in the clamps allows you to get the ideal fore-aft positioning of the grips. The reason why your Bultaco feels different to your OSSA in turns is mainly the steering trail difference and yes it is great fun to experiment with different front forks and triple clamps, but the Bultaco is quite limited for increasing the trail dimension by how close the mudguard already is to the exhaust pipe. I had a ball a couple of years ago swapping front end bits between a TY250 and a KT250, much as Woody did with his bikes, and while it was great fun and I did manage to make the KT to steer just like a TY250, it looked quite weird and the front mudguard got quite scratched up from rubbing against the exhaust pipe. I also agree with Woody that setting up the ride height and the action of the suspension properly at both ends makes a huge difference to the way the steering works in turns. It shouldn't be surprising because the front and rear heights and the way the suspension reacts to bumps and body movement affects the steering geometry.

The stand on the TYZ in the photo looks exactly the same as mine. I thought that the air-cooled mono stands were different to that

No its different to the air cooled mono stand. It is all aluminium and made from two sections of tubing of different diameter and a pivot end piece machined from solid aluminium. There is an inverted aluminium cup on the bottom end. They are extremely flimsy. I remember having to straighten mine after every trial, and having to have cracks welded many times. Pretty sure I will have a decent photo at home but have not had a chance to look yet.

Yes those extra frame loops were a change made part way through the three years of Cota 348 production. Other changes made through the production were fork springs, fork caps, and to the frame gusseting at the steering head. The brake and gear change pedals also changed through that period. I suspect that the 27mm Mk 2 AMAL carby underwent development in those years too but am not sure of the details of that.

Ok a 6 heat range NGK plug is a good choice in an air cooled trials bike for trials type riding and gentle trail riding. Changing to a fancy plug will make no difference to any fouling that is occurring. Iridium plugs wear slower than a standard plug but it is vanishingly rare for a sparkplug to wear out on a trials bike unless it sees many thousands of km per year. You do have quite a lot of oil in the fuel mix but it more likely that your problem with plug fouling is in the fuel/air ratio. If you still have the standard 27mm Amal they are notorious for wearing the throttle slide, the throttle slide needle and the throttle slide needle jet and being generally crude in their air/fuel ratio control. It is very likely that those parts require replacement and if you do that it will solve your sparkplug fouling problem till they wear out again - and it will run nicer too. Yes a 0.015" gap is OK but I would recommend a sparkplug gap of 0.020" or 0.5mm in my language if you are running the standard points type ignition. Sparkplugs usually come standard set with a 0.040" gap but that does not mean it is correct for every bike. If you fit a fancy modern electronic ignition then I would suggest setting the gap wider than 0.020" to take advantage of the higher performance ignition. The gap makes no difference to the fouling rate, but a narrower gap will keep sparking longer with a fouled plug because it takes less voltage to jump a smaller gap, and fouling reduces the available voltage by leaking current through the conductive fouling.