mcman56

A weightlifting coach once told me that there was an old lumberjack trick for toughening up hands.......urinate on them. Supposedly, the acid in the urine would have some toughening effect on skin. I considered but never tried this "therapy". The hook grip combined with quick movements and deep knurling could really tear up hands.

Do you recommend olympic style squats...where calf touches thigh at the bottom? Would overhead (snatch postition) squats have the same effect? What about deadlifts? Should they be powerlifter style?

billycraig...could you be more specific on your trials training? What kind of reps and sets do you do?

Back to Drilling Discs.......Do the drilled holes help prevent or minimize brake squeel?

There are a whole bunch in the 7/8" size. http://www.renthal.com/application_result.asp?type=33 Measurement wise they look like the 6.0" 768-02 but I'm short and they do not seem tall so that probably is not it.

I am looking to upgrade an 02 Sherco to fat bars and would like to have the height, rise, sweep, etc of what is on there now. (I realize I could measure this but figure it would not be real accurate.) The bars are stamped 60 507176 but when I go to the Renthal site these are not listed. Am I missing something?

The TLR200 Reflex carb is the same as the TL125 and I believe most if not all Honda 125 carb bodies are the same. I have even seen what looks like China made coppies on the internet. They were being marketed as a modification for bikes like the XR100. These have the same oval bore and were speced as 22mm. When looking at the engine side of the carb, the bore is offset to the bottom.

Boysen power reeds can also help make it more user friendly. My 1997 270 had a little "hit" or step in the powerband just a bit up off of idle. The Boysens smoothed it right out.

If you can not find a head spacer, you could have one made. I had to make one for a 1997 Beta. If interested, I could provide details on what needs to be done. A weight could also be made.

My 2.9 has mainained the cleanest airbox of any dirt bike I have had. However, I recently notice a very fine dusting of very fine dust in the box. I'm in CA and have been riding in extremely dry dusty conditions but have not noticed this before. Is this normal or to be expected? There are no tracks or signs of an air leak. I cleaned the box and leak checked by filling with water. The filter is good and I use that super sticky Belray oil. The carb was almost perfectly clean. I recently replaced the box and may be looking at it a little more closely than before.....stimulating a little paranoia maybe???

Crikey!!! Well, his name is Gadget

After pressing POST, I realized the equation can be made much simpler. For your calcuations G, D, and d are constants so: F2/F1= n1/ n2 or % increase in stiffness = (n1/ n2) x 100 or n2 = (n1 x 100)/ % increase in stiffness

If full compression is not near coil binding the springs, one option would be to cut your existing springs shorter. Basically a shorter spring is a stiffer spring. I have done this on a TY250 mono and a TLR200 with good results. Springs can be cut with a hot saw or small grinder. If necessary, the cut end can be made flatter by heating and bending flat or even a little grinding. You will then need longer spacers to set proper sag. Put a steel washer over the cut end because it will probably not be as flat as a spring manufacturer can make. The question then becomes how much to cut. If you can stand a little engineeringish, the formula for calculating spring force is: F = (G d**4)/( 8 D**3 n) where ** is for exponent..that is d**4 = d x d xd x d G = shear modulus = 11.5 x 10**6 PSI for steel d = wire diameter of the spring D = mean coil diameter of the spring or (coil ID + Coil OD)/ 2 n = number of active coils Since the number of coils is in the denominator, you can see that more coils makes for a lower spring force. So.... calculate the rate for the existing springs. Estimate how much stiffer they should be...(10%...20%?) Then run the calculation backwards to see how many coils to cut off. Verify that they will not coil bind with that many coils and then cut away.

I just got a Shiro helmet and the ventilation system really works. It is the coolest helmet I have worn. The lining also has a cool wicking feeling. The fit is similar to a Bieffe but I needed one size larger. It is a nice helmet but.........look what it says on the box.

Do gas tanks grow over time? I have a Sherco and a Fantic. On both, it looks like the distance between mounting holes has increased. The distance could have grown up to 1/2". The tank material does not look like the poly used in Jap bikes. Is it nylon? Nylon does absorb moisture over time so does it grow? On the Sherco, this affects the fit between the tank and fender.

A hair dryer did not seem to be hot enough but a heat gun on low worked. There was a certain smell that occured when the plastic was hot enough to move so I did find a temperature indicator. I guess it was starting to cook. I stayed conservative on the heat. The only issue was a pushing or smearing of the surface where I pushed on the plastic. It is not a visible area so cosmetics were not important. Thanks for the heat gun idea and the idea to try it on the old box.

Copemech I did a little experimentaion with the old box and came up with a few questions on technique. In the process of forming, I managed to scar the surface ..probably some from a rough pusher but some from pulling apart of the surface and maybe too much heat. It is the bowl like area next to the shock so I may need to use a spoon for shaping. Did you heat and then push or did you heat and push at the same time? (It seems like concurent would provide feedback on proper heating but may be difficult to carry out in limited space and 3D geometry.) Did you try to localize the heat to the specific area or maybe to a 2X area so the surroundings would "help" the forming? Did you preheat the whole box..like maybe in an oven at 140 F? This seems like a good idea but I plan to run he bike today and would not like the air box to blow up in the oven tomorow while heating. My wife probably would not like that. Thanks, Dan

Two good ideas. I assume the box is PP or PE. With a heat gun do you heat and then push/ pull into position? Is there any warning before you overheat and blow a big hole?

I bought a 2.9 used but like new. When I first pulled the air box, the rear threaded inserts were starting to pull out. I assumed that the original owner had just overtightened the mounting screws but am now thinking something is out of alignment. Over time it has gotten worse and some cracks started. It was getting to the point where an air leak may start so I bought a new box. When trying to fit the new box, it hit the shock spring and the rear inserts were about 1/4" misaligned with the mounting tab. I did a little bending of the front frame mount and the rear mount but it still is not a great alignment. Looking from the rear, it looks like it should rotate counterclockwise a few degrees. I could tighten the screws as is but do not want to overstress the inserts. Has anyone had any issues or experience like this?

I don't know if this is your problem but I had an issue with a variable idle on a 90's Fantic. On that one, the slide was actually worn from vibrating around in the carb body. It was easy to see after pulling the slide up. For some reason it did not have any type of hard coating like most do. A new slide solved the issue.

I couldn't find a skid plate so made it myself. With your footpeg change, do your feet now hit the mounting bracket when slid all of the way in? That was my concern when I made the pegs so I kept the standard configuration. Do the alloy pegs hold up?

A few more pics. http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m137/mc...s10_2005002.jpg http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m137/mc...s10_2005006.jpg

I used a Parts Unlimited adjustable sprocket from Dennis Kirk. If I remember correctly it was listed for an ATC200 and was about $8. First I tried to check how accurate the existing timing was to the specs in a Clymer manual. The frame prevented totally proper placing of a dial indicatior but it looked to be 2 degrees retarded....probably chain stretch. I think I set it to 6 degrees advanced. (I can verify if you are interested.) With that little side cover it was very easy to do. The sprocket comes with multiple hole patterns so it would also be easy to experiment with different timing. You could also just file slots in your exsiting sprocket. I had bored the carb first by reshaping the engine side and making the oval taller. Keihin machined the same castings into 24mm versions and I basically coppied their design. The only difference is that the engine side taper on mine is a true cone rather than the more complex curve on the Keihin. Anyway....the carb gave a big boost to full throttle power but did not affect part throttle operation. The cam timing change added bottom end snap..like when blipping the throttle to go over a log. It also took away a good portion of the top end power that the carb mod added. Basically, it was a trade of top end power for bottom end power. For trials, it is a nice improvement.

The tight wound end goes up. If it is at the bottom, there is more spring (weight) to move when the forks move but I don't know if anyone could tell.