woody

Yes they are but you really would be better off spending your money on something else. They aren't competitive and are poor quality

So let's turn this around then and offer opinion as to what should be checked before an event to ensure that a bike is acceptable from a safety aspect - and there lies the first problem. How to arrive at a sensible checklist as opinion is going to differ greatly. Take an existing checkpoint - chainguard. Most older bikes were fitted with neat alloy chainguards. Most modern bikes have neat small plastic chainguards. Neither will offer any protection to a hand, arm, leg or whatever else finds its way towards that area during a crash in which the bike could be singing away on full throttle and the rear wheel is spinning like a strimmer. The rider or anyone else could suffer a nasty injury but the bike was deemed safe as it was fitted with a chainguard - but it hasn't prevented injury. The result, an inquest into ways of preventing it from happening again, new legislation which demands enclosed chains, solid wheels etc. etc. Extreme - probably. Unlikely - maybe not in this day and age. My point - what is safe and what isn't? Who decides? What is the outcome if a piece of signed paper decrees that a bike is safe at the start of an event but a component that was ticked off on the checklist subsequently fails and causes injury? Where do you draw the line? - Checking brake, clutch and throttle cables both ends for fraying. Frayed throttle cable can stick and causes injury - brake fluid reservoir levels. Too low and brake failure causes injury - worn chain/sprockets - Rider is allowed to start with these in a worn state and the chain jumps off near the top of a big step/climb. Bike instantly goes into reverse causing a nasty fall. Should he have been allowed to start. - Knackered rear tyre which splits around the knobble on a track or the road causing instant deflation and a crash - should it have been spotted or should there be a maximum wear markers on the tyres etc. etc. Personally I think it is a can of worms just waiting to be opened. I remember trials from years ago where scrutineering involved a quick check of the spokes brakes, tax and a horn. That was it and it only happened on road trials. That was 20-odd years ago and we weren't litigation mad then anyway. But the points I've mentioned previously are just as likely as these to be areas of negelct and just as likely to cause an incident as defective brakes or loose spokes could. So again the question is - what is a realistic checklist of things to tick off as 'passed scrutineering'. Answer - can of worms. With ultimately, some poor sod with his/her signature on a bit of paper held responsible for an incorrect decision that caused injury. And once this checklist has been established how long is it going to take one person to thoroughly check each and every bike before the event, where there are 80 - 100 bikes. If it is a 2 day event are they checked again on day 2. Are they checked on all 6 days of the SSDT. Personally I think that the rider alone should be responsible for the condition of the bike and that the regs should state this. Any problems/incidents and they alone are accountable. There is already enough red tape and paper work for club officials, this would only add to it in my view

Oh what have you done.... Getting a used barrell or barrell/piston as a pair is going to be a bit of a lottery to find one in good condition. If you buy one without seeing it get them to confirm that the exhaust threads are good. They can appear good and the ring can/will tighten up quite nicely on its own without the exhaust, giving the impression that the threads are ok. When it is on the bike with the exhaust fitted, the load on worn threads of trying to hold the exhaust in will prove too much if the threads aren't good and it will pull out, or just won't tighten when you try and fit it. Then there's the possibility that the piston may be worn and as far as I know there are no pistons in the UK at the moment. You need to buy from the States. If your barrell is ok apart from the fin I'd look to get the fin repaired with weld. Once you have to start forking out for thread repairs and pistons it's going to cost quite a bit. This isn't to say you won't find a good item but just watch out for the above. Keep an eye on ebay as they come up from time to time, Ellastone Offroad, A&B Autos, The Twinshock Shop are all possible sources. I've also been told that the later green bikes had different porting from the MAR. These are the barrells with the cut-outs in the fins (on the 250 that is - the 310 had cut-outs on all models, I'm assuming its a 250 you have) The MAR 250 had straight fins with no cut-outs, so again, something to watch if you want original look. Personally don't know about the porting being different. There is a WES rear silencer but it doesn't bolt straight on, I think you have to modify the outlet of the middlebox or something - whether this means an original silencer won't go back on I don't know. The original type bullet shape silencer is available as a repro from Spain and Dave Renham has had some in the past I think, or see the advert on th Mats Nyberg Ossa site. Forks appear on ebay but are being bought up for the Pre65 fiddle bikes as with anything else. They come up often in the States on ebay. You could buy a set from one of the trail bikes if it is only the stanchions you need as they will be the same - just depends if you can get them for less than a rechrome on your own Dished sprocket no longer available although there must be a few still lying around on dealers shelves. Bikes restored in Spain seem to be fitted with them but trying to find a retailer and then getting one will prove difficult. Steve Sell (think he trades as Marlimar on ebay) makes a new sprocket carrier which bolts to the hub and allows you to fit a modern GasGas type sprocket. He's also starting to manufacture other stuff too. Or you can just use the flat sprocket/spacer conversion that has been around for years from Sammy Miller. Gearing is personal choice, I run low gearing 10/42 but 11/42 is more common. Availability of a new Amal depends on which barrell you have and also which you replace it with. MK1 barrells had bolt on fitting, you can still buy bolt on MK1 Amal new. Some of these barrells also appeared on MK2 bikes, probably using up old stock. MK2 bikes used a push fit MK1 Amal. You can no longer buy these new. Mk2 Amal fits and was used on the later green bikes and Grippers. 350 green bikes used a Bing. Jets for MK1 or MK2 Amal are usually 25 pilot, 106 needle, 160 main, no. 3 slide, needle on middle clip. There is only one needle taper on the Amals (for 2-stroke) Anyway, a splendid choice of bike - you can look at the picture of the MAR on the Classic forum that Mr Greeves is about to buy for inspiration....

Am I the only one then, who fitted a Mitani front pipe and couldn't tell a scrap of difference in performance? - it was exactly the same as the original pipe. Fact is I never expected any difference from 2mm increase in diameter, it wasn't bought for performance so I wasn't dissapointed. I bought it purely because I hated the tuppeny ha'penny look of the original front pipe on a

Other than what has been suggested, you're limited to what else you can do really. My old 325 type 92 which my mate now owns, has a completely standard set up apart from the Venhill light cable. It doesn't have any spring adjustment as it has the springs held on by the pins, not nuts so tension can't be altered finitely on those anyway, other than washers under the springs. However, it is set up properly and is easily pulled in using one finger. No slip, no drag, no mods. Levers make a difference, I think it has domino fitted. Cheapo levers may not give a smooth action. What you really need to do is throw the clutch lever away and practise riding without the clutch and use a slow action throttle. The Bult will slug down to nothing on the inertia of the crank weights alone and is very hard to stall. Make yourself do it and sacrifice a few rides by practising it in sections. It will improve your riding no end. You can turn full lock circles in 3rd gear without the clutch on a Bult when you get the hang of it but I doubt you'd need to get it out of 1st on most sections anyway. Clutching unecessarily gets you into more trouble than it gets you out of.

Just to qualify - I didn't mean point it up the nearest hillclimb and wind it onto full throttle. My 4RT could be put into gear and ridden straight away, gently, to get the oil circulating properly, just the same as letting it idle would. The Scorpa 4T I tried (250F) wouldn't do that, they would just die, needed to be warmed up in the manner you stated - way too long in my opinion. No 4 stroke MX/Enduro bike I've had has ever needed so much time to warm up, they could all be ridden away a few seconds after starting them, as can my C15 trials bike, so it's nothing to do with carb vs. FI.

Which bike...??? 4RT no, you can ride them virtually straight off a cold start up. Scorpa 4T takes some warming up for whatever reason (I've tried 2 and both the same) Don't know why as the YZ250F I was using in enduros warmed up very quickly

From what he's described, it sounds like (note sounds like - I'm not saying is) the problem I had. If the head of the bolt has sheared off or worse, the bolt has ripped out of its housing (like mine), then the kickstart stop plate is no longer held in place. It is L shaped so if you imagine it as a leg and a foot, where the ankle would be is where the locating bolt goes and where the toes are is a locating peg that a hole in the stopper fits over. So if the bolt is no longer in place, the stop plate floats free, which could be why the kickstart has gone too far forward. The kickstart mechanism will still work but if the only damage is the head of the bolt shearing off, there is the risk of further damage by continuing to use it. The kickstart ratchet will just use the crankcase as a stop and that is when things can get expensive as it will gradually smash it away. Best get that clutch cover off quick and have a look

Nice fiery little thread this has turned out to be - seemed like a perfectly reasonable question to me..... No, I'm not Woody Hole - not telling you what my hole is made of

The head of the bolt that holds the kickstart return stop plate could shear off, as it was too soft, this is what the recall was on the original bikes, to replace it with a high tensile bolt. Also, on a number of bikes, the crankcase where this bolt locates (inside the clutch cover) has broken away eventually resulting in the bolt being torn out of its housing and taking a small part of the crankcase with it. This needs a strip down to repair the crankcase by a very competent welder, or a new crankcase half. This is obviously not commonplace but it has happened more than once - one of the reasons it is always a good idea to kickstart the bikes in the proper manner as kickbacks on the kickstart can be one of the causes

Brilliant to see all those lovely twinshocks. Love the encouragement as well as the sounds of consolement to those who get a 5, presumably from the women doing the filming. I've still got tears rolling down my cheeks from the crash that the crew on the Blue Bult outfit have down the hill. Great stuff. Love to go there next year.

You'll be heartened to hear the latest one then - can it really be true that they have banned Santa in Australia from saying Ho Ho Ho this year - because it is offensive to women......... Apparantly, all would be Santas are being trained to say Ha Ha Ha. For god's sake what is going on. Why don't the people who dream this crap up recieve a f*****g good kicking instead of an endorsement to make their proposal happen. And why don't the people who have these rules imposed upon them just turn around and say f**k off, we're not doing it. The time is coming when this has to happen - surely - please - it just has to. The reason for this nonsense is because Ho is short for whore and this may offend the women

Apparantly. there were RS250 models available in Japan that used the TLR200 chassis, wheels etc. fitted with the RS250 engine, TLR250 tank, so they do look like a TLR200 with a 250 motor and tank. I don't know this for a fact, it's what I was told once, but I have seen 3 or 4 RS250 models like this for sale over the last couple of years. It's a 250 motor, not a 200 - has the 250 barrell. The definite point of ID is that the motor should be prefixed RS.

Yes, Japanese tuner Kondo did 250 conversions for the RS200 motors, which is what the Seeley uses and they have a good reputation. You're right in that it has to have the stroke altered as well as a larger bore to get 250cc, therefore the conversion was quite a lot of work as the engine had to come apart, rather than just an overbore. It's unlikely, although not impossible of course, that anyone in the UK would have had a Kondo conversion on a Seeley but Honda did use 250 Seeleys in the SSDT ridden by Lejeune and the Jap rider whose name I can't remember right now. Could it be one of those? Unless someone did their own conversion using TLR top end. None of which matters anyway. Fact is, it's a 250, not unique but rare, nice bike, keep it if you can. It would be difficult to find anyone who knows for definite whether any Seeleys were offered from new with the 250 conversion. If it is registered, try tracing the previous owners through DVLA (if they will do that) and see if you can turn anything up that way - maybe Honda UK could be among previous keepers.

One of the sets is discontinued now, so no longer available from Yamaha - really good idea given how many TY Monos are out there. Can't remember whether it is front or rear off the top of my head. All you can do is try all of the dealers and see if any have any new old stock on the shelves (for the set you can't order any more - the other set can still be ordered from Yamaha by the dealer) As far as I know there are no aftermarket replacements and Central Wheel won't make them (or wouldn't when I asked some time ago) from an original pattern. Nigel Birkett had planned to have some made but don't know if he ever did so worth a call. if you are looking to replace spokes because they are just scabby, rather than broken or missing, you can get the spokes and the nipples chrome/nickel plated. I did this and they came out well.

If you search back through the Bultaco or Twinshock forums (can't remember which) John Collins did a good piece on setting up a Bultaco clutch properly

I've just been trying a new CDI unit and HT coil on my Ossa MAR which is a replacement for the original motoplat HT coil. The CDI unit is made here in the UK and is built to provide 26 degrees of advance in the higher rev range, say at two thirds throttle (I may be a degree or two out on the advance due to my next to useless memory but it is thereabouts) Give it full throttle up a climb or through mud and that is where I could tell a difference. When the revs get higher there is a reasonably strong surge as the ignition advances and the motor really revs out. I was a bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to notice any difference over the standard set up, partly because sometimes you believe what you want to believe and also because the Ossa can really rev its nuts off anyway, but after riding 2 trials on it and playing about on it afterwards up some big climbs I'm happy that the unit does what it is supposed to do. At low revs the ignition behaves exactly as standard and provides a soft delivery with no advance, so there should be no noticeable difference, but I couldn't help feeling that pick up was also a little stronger and cleaner, not massively but maybe just enough to notice, but this could simply be due to the new CDI and HT coil providing a better spark than a tired Motoplat unit. One climb after yesterday's trial was a pretty steep and uneven climb with roots running horizontally across it at various intervals. It was on the expert route of one of the sections. The lads on the modern bikes were mainly using 3rd to get up it. I looked at it and thought bugger it, the bike's due a rebuild so if I trash it, it won't hurt too much... I nailed the throttle to the stop on the Ossa and it went up in 1st. It was singing a bit but it went up. Whether it has extra revs with this unit I couldn't say but it certainly felt like I could hang onto a gear for a bit longer, effectively making the gear a bit longer. The bike is a standard '75 310 MAR with no mods to the engine, well used and in dire need of a rebuild and TLC, but does it rev. The CDI and coil will fit under the tank but require the mounting bracket on the frame to be lengthened as there are now two components instead of one and the original bracket isn't long enough. This is easy enough to do and only took me about 15 minutes to sort something out, just a strip of metal bolted to the original mount. There are 2 types of coil, one of which needs the metal strip bent into an L shape at the end as its mounting bolt needs to point lengthways as opposed to sideways. Doesn't matter which coil is used as the advance is built into the CDI, not the coil. This is designed to work with the Motoplat electronic stator, not the points ignition. At the moment there is not a replacement unit available for the stator itself but this is being developed so hopefully there may be one soon which will mean that there could be a complete replacement electronic ignition for the Ossa models fitted with electronic ignition. Not sure if anything is planned for the points engined bikes but if so I'll post it. I've no idea on price or how many of these are available. If anyone would like any further info they will be available through TY Offroad. All I can say is that it works and is a viable replacement for the motoplat HT coil, particularly if you have a duff one. No need to go looking for a used replacement or trying to find another new one, this will do the job. At worst it is equally as good but in my experience it provides a noticeable improvement with the advance curve at higher revs which is genuinely useful on longer climbs or burning through mud.

Ah yes, remember it now. He had a job lot of stuff from a local dealer amongst which was the Paris Dakar 200 bike (don't know the proper model name for it) which had an electric start engine. There was a spare engine with it which was in bits and this was this engine that I was looking at the camshaft from. He didn't fit one of these engines to a TLR200 though, the bike he had was a proper Honda production model, maybe an MTX, so unfortunately I can't offer any help as to what would be involved in fitting one of these engines into a TLR200 chassis.

Any chance you can point me to the original posting as my memory is next to useless and I can't remember much about this. I think it was a bike a mate of mine had got hold of in a job lot - if you can find the original posting it may jog my memory as to what I was on about

Can't help you as I don't know which electronic ignition you are running, but I'm curious to know which system it is - especially as it uses a 1 pound flywheel. Is that an internal rotor with coils around the outside? Most trials flywheels are about 5 - 6 pounds at a guess for Bultacos, Ossas etc. The only aftermarket electronic ignition I've heard of uses the standard Bult flywheel

I've had 2 and 4 stroke Yam enduro/motox bikes and it is common to all when the clutch is used a lot. Like you say, it overheats, the plates swell and this causes the cable to go slack as the pressure plate moves away from the pushrod end which means when you pull the lever the clutch doesn't fully disengage.When it cools the plates shrink again and normal clutch action returns. Not much you can do about it really other than to stop and take up the slack in the cable when it happens - but then you have to let it off again when it cools or it will slip. No idea whether aftermarket plates or baskets etc will help. I just tried to use the clutch as little as possible. Hydraulic clutches are not supposed to suffer from this as the fluid will always compensate for plates swelling and keep clutch operating normally - can still happen to KTMs though which are also only too willing to impersonate kettles when the clutches caned hard

Well, haven't ridden it for 4 or 5 years now, mainly because it isn't one of my favourite events. In all the years I rode it (as a Classic round) there was never much to really have a go at and it all came down to a couple of sections in the last group to take a few marks. There are no horrifyng stoppers as Doogle has mentioned, all the sections are rideable so don't think you've anything to worry about there. The rounds at Bootle, Lancs County, Torridge and Hillsborough are the harder events of the series Next year there is the possibility that here will be a 50/50 route - details yet to be finalised I think, see seperate thread on the subject - so that riders who don't want to compete on the full championship route can still enjoy riding in a traditional trial using eased routes on 50% of the sections. Going back to the Peak, in the years I have ridden it the Police have been very visible at the start venue and out on the route, particularly one year when they were waiting back at the finish to check bikes for road tax etc. - there was a very large gathering of riders in a field a short distance from the finish area for some reason.....

Don't know for definite that it is on, but chatting to Pete Salt at the last Miller trial he said they were looking to try and run it again soon. Not sure of the planned date but the venue will remain at Mow Cop, near Stoke

Talon will generally do you whatever teeth number you like - have you asked them. I've had none standard sizes from them. I've a Yam mono rear wheel in my Majesty. The mono has a smaller sprocket than the twinshock but they did me a sprocket for the mono wheel with the number of teeth to suit the twinshock.

Thanks for that, I was thinking of trying a dellorto myself on a MAR but wasn't sure of the jetting to ask for - have a starting point now.