woody

Steve's Ossa business is part time, not his day job, but he will reply to phone calls when able as long as you don't block your number. He doesn't, as don't many of us, answer if a number is blocked.

ok thanks Andy, will do next time

Glad you and your son enjoyed it Roger. It was very slippery in places but nothing overly demanding - a good learning exercise for riding that type of condition.... I remember he had 3 good cleans on my section and rode it well. The results go straight onto the club facebook page when done as most of the riders are on there looking for them before I've got home..... Then I normally put them on the front page here but hadn't got around to it immediately and ended up fairly busy last week so overlooked it. A soon as I get Admin to the club website sorted they'll be on there as well but not sure how long that will take. I used to e-mail them out but lost the group email I had and it's a lot of effort to create that again, plus not everyone puts their email address on the entry form. Hope to see you at future events and hopefully the next one will be a little drier. 28th May (Saturday pm) 28th August 30th October 26th December

I've uploaded them onto the news page but no idea how long it will take for them to appear as TC administrators have to authorise it. The Stafford Auto website is not up to date. I've just taken over running the club and don't have admin access to it so I can't put the results on there, or do anything with it until I do, and at the moment I don't know who previously maintained it. The results are on the facebook page which is public, so any facebook user should see them. If your not on facebook then no you won't see them. Facebook is real time and a lot quicker and easier to use which is why a lot of clubs use it now. I can send you a copy if you PM me your email address

There is no club that I know of that doesn't accept it

The two clubs with the 'fussiest' rules accept it, so which don't?

Premier has a redesigned pilot circuit which uses a new type external pilot jet that is located on the opposite side from the airscrew

It's a standard size bearing so easy to source a new one. Once you have it removed, you'll find the number stamped on it (as with the clutch side roller) I can't remember what they are as it's a while since I did mine The crankcase has a hole in it as the bearing outer case is closed at one end, so it seals the hole when in situ. To remove just warm the casing and tap it out with a drift from the outside inwards

I had a C15 trials using an early (1959) motor. It had standard road gears when I had it and I used it like that for some time. I didn't feel it created any gearing issues. I then had the opportunity to acquire a trials box for it. In all honesty I don't feel it gave any advantage at all. With either box I could use 1st or 2nd gear when needed. If I remember rightly, it was slower on the road with the trials box. I don't know how the two boxes in that earlier engine compare to the two in your engine, but In retrospect I'd be happy to have left it on the standard box.

There are supposedly ways of doing it but don't forget it's used as an octane booster so if it's removed the octane rating is reduced

But we never saw the effect on tanks back then as people have experienced now. I've seen an Ariel fibreglass tank that was turned to jelly inside. We never saw that happen to any of the fibreglass tanks back then, the worst we got was crazing and maybe leaks due to some of them being poorly made, but I never saw or heard of any melting as the Ariel tank did. And trials bikes had fibreglass tanks in the 60s with no issues and ethanol seems to have been present throughout that period too. Similarly we didn't see problems with petrol pipe, rubber seals or other components that people are reporting as being affected now. I use Shell V Power and fortuitously or otherwise haven't experienced any of these types of issues, and it reputedly has up to 5% ethanol in it. I've also started a bike that has had the petrol left in the tank for nearly two years and it took a few kicks to run and ran with no issues afterwards, so not sure where the idea fuel goes off after 15 days comes from. The period between it being refined and finally getting into the fuel tanks of our cars could be longer than that... If they could run cars on pure ethanol 100 years ago without it attacking rubber components, gaskets, seals, etc, there should be no reason why in this age of superior technology and understanding it should present today's industry with the types of problems being reported - you'd think. Which is why it makes me think there is more to it than ethanol. But I'm not a chemist so I don't know, just what I think based upon the history of using ethanol more than a century ago and as an additive all through the last one

Ethanol has actually been mixed into fuel for a lot longer than we imagine - for decades. It was what engines were originally run on before petrol in the 1800s. Following the discovery of petrol, fuel switched between petrol and ethanol for some time, the one in favour at any given time being dictated by tax levy or politics. In the very early 1900s they were looking to ethanol as the fuel of the future due to its cleaner burning and higher octane properties. Race cars used ethanol rather than petrol for better performance. It was regularly used as an octane booster for anti-knock in petrol right through the 1900s. Supermarket fuel uses it is an octane booster now. It makes you wonder if ethanol really is the culprit of problems seen now, but if so, makes you wonder even more why it has only recently become one, given the technology available now as opposed to decades ago with no apparent or reported problems. I use V Power and so far, no issues with anything

It will be on ebay in completed listings, the last time it was on was a couple of weeks before the show

I've used them in Ossa and Bultaco, Colin from TY Offroad has used them in TLR Honda - only positives, no negatives

No it didn't, neither did the equally over priced Beamish and Sprite

They've tried to sell this on ebay about four times recently with a £4k starting price, not surprisingly no-one has bid. It's a scruffy looking thing with the wrong exhaust, seat, sidepanels and the tank needs a big repair. I think £4k is ambitious for a restored M10, this one is way over priced, but so is everything they sell. They want £2k for the ropey Beamish next to it

Colin at TY Offroad has Barnett plates for Hondas, not sure if it is just for the TLR that he has them for, or wether they are the same as the TL200E. He's at Telford show this weekend http://www.tyoffroad.co.uk/

I've never really understood the purpose of those vents or how they're supposed to work. All I've ever had from them on most bikes with Betor forks is a squirt of oil in the face when the forks compress. I've always closed them off with a blob of araldite, so can't help you with this one.

Take a look here on Charlie Prescott's excellent BSA Otter site. It covers a bit more than BSA and there is a piece about my rebuild of a Sherpa 49 and how much was spent. The bike owes me around £2k in total and I have no idea whether I could sell it for that amount, but I rebuilt it to keep and use, not sell, so not bothered. I may have missed a few items in the overall costing but only minimal, it gives you an idea of what you can have to spend if doing a complete cosmetic job as well as mechanical. As well as my bike there is lots of information about bike rebuilds and lots of articles on other peoples' builds as well. http://www.bsaotter.com/dave_woods_1970_bultaco_sherpa_model_49.html There is also a piece on the 198a model I've just finished, with the overall cost coming in at about the same total http://www.bsaotter.com/dave_woods_sherpa198_a_rebuild..html I've also saved a bit of cost by doing a lot of the work myself, such as exhaust repacking, engine rebuild etc and I can get polishing, chroming and anodising done cheaper than normal retail costs, so that needs to be factored in too. As has been mentioned in the good advice by people above, you really need to want to do this out of enthusiasm for the bike you're working on as it's a long slog and the costs can spiral. If the job is done thoroughly, the bike will never be worth what it costs you to rebuild - see the number of unsold Sherpas for which silly money is being asked

Just wondering with the heat from the silencer, how it will affect any lacquer - might tarnish or yellow it? Don't know anything about temperatures reached on the silencer or the sort of temperatures that can affect the lacquer, but just a thought. Only other issue I can think of with lacquer is if it starts to lift anywhere and starts peeling off in places - I have seen lacquer lift when applied to bare alloy such as fork legs, car wheels. It shouldn't be a problem for your anodiser to strip off the anodising they've done, polish it and then anodise it again. As someone else mentioned, not a bad idea to use some of the off cuts to have polished and anodised as an indication of how it turns out

I've had lots of anodising done over the years by a mate who works at a plating company. The finish is dependent upon the finish of the alloy prior to anodising, so to get a bright and shiny finish from the anodising, you need a bright polished finish on the alloy. The other factor is the actual alloy itself as it can affect the way the anodising takes. I've had two rims done at the same time with the same polished finish and both in the anodising tank at the same time - different tone of colour red on each rim, despite the same treatment, dye etc. With what they call 'bright' anodising, if you have the alloy polished to effectively a mirror finish, as with rims or engine cases, and then have it bright anodised, it gives the appearance of a mirror polish but with the benefit of being anodised which keeps it that way and immune from oxidising of the alloy which eventually dulls and corrodes a polished only finish. They don't use lacquer on anodised parts. It's used on polished only finishes but usually to protect from oxidising rather than providing the shine. You silencers are a fantastic job, very impressive

Saying a 300 is suitable for a novice is not the best of advice. Most average to good riders are over-biked with a 300, never mind a novice. A 250, even a 200, will do anything an average to good clubman rider will ever ask of it and it will also be capable of doing a lot of things that they don't have the ability to make it. A modern 300 is too powerful and fitting spacers, weights, compression reducers etc etc is just needless when there is a 200 or 250 option. I rode a 125 Gas Gas recently that would do anything needed in a club trial and I'm pushing 18 stones in riding gear. I also tried a 300 Sherco and unless you are riding sections that require that kind of power - ie: monumental climbs or 6' steps with no run up, it's pointless. It was ferocious and would drag a novice through a section. I wouldn't want to ride one. Look at most of the traditional type nationals now, there are twinshocks and Pre65 bikes right at the sharp end of the clubman class results, heading many modern bikes, and there have been one or two outright wins as well - and that includes 175/200 Yams. 300 power just isn't needed and is of no benefit to a novice rider.

Start with 200cc per leg, recommended is around 220. Which weight to use is personal preference but maybe SAE10 where you are due to it being a bit hotter than here The recommended quantity in manuals is usually the maximum which can give a stiffer action, you can generally use less than recommended. If you start at 200 you can add a bit at a time if you find them too soft

ok - the online manual I have works differently, there's only one page with the index so you have to click the link to get to a page. Never even tried to scroll on this one... Found it now. Not sure what it's showing me though as it just mentions the two types of carb. Mick's bike had the double needle carb but the production bikes used the single needle version as it was reported to soften the power delivery. Mick used the double needle to sharpen throttle response, so what I meant in the post above is that carb may still be the one with the bike. As the current owner mentioned naff IRZ carb he may have been thinking of binning it when it could be the original factory fitted carb and a piece of the bike's history.

I can't access page 87, just throws an error The bike in the video is the 1971 bike which won both european championship and SSDT, just with different colour scheme again. The 72 SSDT winning bike was a proper MAR