feetupfun

Does look nice

I just read the bike log for my hotrod TY175 but no mention of the advance curve. The records are only about testing different combinations of head gasket thickness and the timing of the spark at low RPM.

The one I put on a TY250D motor is a John Cane and I have not bothered putting a timing light on it. I just fitted it with the backing plate in the centre of the slots and the bike ran beautifully. The one I put on my hot rod TY175 is also a John Cane and I did look at the movement of the timing with a strobe but it was so long ago I don't remember details of how it moved. I do remember moving the backing plate to give me timing a bit later than standard at low RPM and that the timing did change as the RPM increased. I'll have a look in my bike log and see if I wrote something in there. A friend fitted a Rex Gaunt ignition on his TY250A recently and I can say that his motor performs pretty similar to my TY250D motor at low to medium RPM but seems to have a bigger hit at medium to high RPM

The fancy modern fork tube coatings are on there to reduce friction, not to protect the tube from crash damage

The cam that the points heel rubs against is normally kept lubricated by a felt wiper. I usually wet the wiper with light oil when I'm servicing the points. If you have good quality points and a working condenser, you probably only need to service the points at intervals of 100 operating hours or so. I've got a few TYs that are still running the original points and condenser and which are still working perfectly. My other TYs that now have electronic ignitions still had the original points and condensers working well when I fitted the electronic ignitions 5 to 10 years ago including one TY175 engine that has been mechanically rebuilt 3 times (due to high run hours) since 1975 but still had the original points when the electronic ignitions went in.

No if the seal leaks as you describe it probably needs replacing. It may have been leaking before you got the bike. If so, it would have lost some of the fork oil via the leaking and once the oil level gets low enough it stops coming out the seal. When you changed the oil, the level was then high enough to be above the seal.

My series 1 M49 Sherpa T uses a triangle muffler with top entry and I suspect it might be the same as would go on your Lobito. I bought a spanish-made aftermarket triangle muffler which looks great and makes it nice and quiet (and was expensive) but takes away a lot of performance. My bike is not road registered. I have repacked the mid muffler and I have used it without the triangle muffler for trials without a complaint. Without the triangle muffler it would probably not pass the inspection for road rego here. I don't know how strict the inspection is in Spain.

Don't worry I've got a set like that on my spares bike. Not pretty

They used rolled plate because that was an economical way to make them. What do you think the expensive modern aftermarket yokes are made from?

Man that sounds a lot of $$$ for those yokes. They are so plain and simple. I know Jared Bates advertised NOS ones about 6 months ago for very low $$$. Jared no longer sells Montesa parts but the person who bought Jared's stock advertises Montesa parts on eBay (USA) Have you looked at the Spanish shops that sell trials bike parts from that era?

metisse while the alloy LH pedal does look nice, the ones I have seen in use and ridden with are not very grippy when wet and I've seen plenty snap when they whack into a rock.

They can drag for a few possible reasons: The plates may not be moving parallel when pushed, although it sounds like you have been pretty careful to avoid this. There can be grooves in the basket fingers that cause the plates to push together if they see any contact. One or more plates may not be perfectly flat, meaning that the axial travel of the pressure plate may not be enough to free the plates from contact due to the increased effective thickness of the bent plate/s. All-steel plates spanish clutches typically have a long engagement because the plates are not quite flat. The original plates are stamped while modern replacement plates are laser cut, so they are flatter. As well as starting out not quite flat, steel plates sometimes distort with use, because they are so thin. the flatness of the plates can be checked on a flat surface like a quality piece of glass or a surface plate if you have one. It's possible that when reassembled, the plates were not put back in the same sequence and position in the basket and the effect of any grooves in the fingers may be now more severe. There may be insufficient axial clearance between the clutch hub and the basket and this may make the problem temperature-sensitive. If the clutch action improved again once the motor cooled down then I would be looking there. Next time you assemble the clutch put some oil on the plates and you won't have to worry about them not having oil. From what you've said i don't think that lack of oil or too heavy an oil is the problem. I use car manual gearbox oil in my Cota 348 clutch casing and it doesn't drag.

In that case you could use a thinner gasket for the magneto cover or use a slightly longer pushrod or shorten the pushrod by just less than a ball diameter and use two balls

You say it is dragging and later say it is grabbing. Is it doing both or just dragging? Dragging can be caused by lots of things but on an all-steel clutch, grabbing usually means lack of oil

You can fit the arm to the next position on the spline

You can measure the ID and OD of where it fits and buy a gasket from an exhaust shop or off the internet. There a few different types and which one works best depends on the geometry of the joint and how much movement it is going to get in service. Google "exhaust gasket" and you'll see what's available.

Dan what would be a common use for that Everclear product? There's nothing like that available here.

I didn't even know that disinfecting was a thing. I just wash my helmets out with warm water.

Very hard to diagnose over the internet using words. Can you post a video on youtube of it misbehaving?

Don't worry chappo I got the 348 out again today and have now fitted the plug to the central spark plug hole and it all fits fine. The other night when I looked at it I didn't twig at the time that you can very easily access the plug with the tank tilted up

Maybe there were more than one 348 exhaust pipe design. With mine it would be extremely hard, maybe impossible to get the cap off if the plug was in the central hole and it was a standard height plug. I see in the brochure photo, the plug is in the central hole but also in the brochure photo showing the left side of the bike, the exhaust looks different to mine where it goes over the head, maybe a smaller diameter pipe. I'll have a better look at mine on the weekend and try and work out if it is different to the pipe in the brochure photo.

I just had a look at mine. If you can remove and refit a spark plug cap on the plug when it is in the central hole with the exhaust in place, I'll be very impressed

Does it all still fit nicely with the exhaust pipe in place?

Yes they normally use a barrel that fits in the end of the brake arm and a nut on the adjuster thread. What advice do you want? I could do a photo of mine if it will help

Like this one?