tony27

Not 200+ for postage, 200 for the spoke set & whatever the postage ended up being. Would have been 500+ dollars before I even did anything to the wheel & that was just too much for me justify

I have a Akront rim to do the same using Beta outer spokes & the nipple. The problem I've come across is that the thread is M4 & none of the wheelbuilders I have asked were able to help I did see that twinshock shop from memory said they did spokes for this but I couldn't justify the 200 pounds plus postage to this side of the world

You're right about PTFE not being the right material for the job, it's okay for a chain slider but isn't flexible enough to use as a shark fin, is more likely to snap the mounts off swingarm than flex

Have a look at the weep hole under the water pump, should be clear. The hole is there to show if a seal has failed which it sounds like has happened On that age bike I would suggest rebuilding the waterpump, the seals & bearings are fairly cheap, hopefully the shaft isn't grooved as they cost a lot for what they are. I can't remember when it was that the shaft design changed but the uprated 1 will be the only 1 available now If you have the head off like it sounds like you do make sure you get new O-rings or did you remove cylinder & head as 1? I'm thinking that your base gasket may have failed for some reason letting the coolant into the crankcase Because you say there is a lot of milky residue around the kickstart shaft it will be a good idea to flush the cases out, you can overfill with kerosene or diesel & slosh it around then drain before doing a oil change straight after the first couple of rides

Speaking as a toolmaker who now works for a plastics company the material is most likely polypropolene (PP) which is what a lot of the plastics on a trials bike are made of

Everything can be done from the bottom of the cylinder, if a decent oil has been used there won't be any build up on the head

Probably piston kit if the barrel is ok. You don't need to remove the head when you rebuild it so some of those O-rings won't be needed unless you have to replate the barrel

Other place you can get a rattle is the clutch basket, the rubber dampers between the gear & basket shrink & go hard over time. Splatshop has a blog on their site on renewing them, total cost is 0.85pounds x8 for the rivets, 1.19pounds x8 for the rubber pieces. I replaced the basket at the same time when I did mine as it's amazingly cheap at 24.71pounds When you do the bottom end you can get the later main bearings which run seals & also get the Viton crankseals which last longer with any fuel that has ethanol in it. If a later part is a direct replacement it automatically supercedes the previous part which means anything you order should be the latest generation/upgrade

Have just read up on the bike, the motor is 2014 Sherco 125 out of the owner's son's bike he uses at European & world youth level

Looks very Gas Gas like

Can't say I've ever seen that before. Looks to me as though it was mounted to the outer race so it wouldn't be any use on a oil seal What sort of numbers are etched onto the bearing?

Lifting the bars will contribute to lightening the front end by shifting your weight backwards, having to lean forwards/down a bit should load up the front more Only other thing you can try is altering the bikes stance, either run longer shocks or slide the forks up through the triple clamps more

The PJ1 came from the local bike shop, etch primer came from either hardware or auto parts store Here's the paints I used

PJ1 silver spray can is what I used, started off with a etch primer as I wanted to seal over the magnesium properly. Silver is the colour that the cover originally was rather than the black that a lot of bikes seem to use & to me it makes the motor look smaller

There's a fair bit of extra work gone into that cover, I filled in the hole for the oil lines & the cable mount before blending it all back to get the smooth look I wanted as well as better sealing. Took quite a bit of time to get the JB Weld exactly as I wanted but I'm very happy with the final result. This is how it looks with the oil pump cover fitted The oil pump blanking kit comes with the gasket & screws for a fiver, well worth it if you plan on removing the drive gear & shaft but you will need to get the clutch cover gasket as well

If the breather hose is in 2 pieces that isn't a problem, the tube on dellorto carbs has a cutout at the bottom to let it vent, without the cutout it does nothing Have a look a splatshop's site for the readings your stator should have if you're still worried about it being an electrical problem

This is my TY250C cover minus the oil pump, the blanking plate kit came from TYtrials, the drive gear etc have been removed. Before fitting the kit the gear & shaft were still in place which kept things sealed up

A dodgy stator normally stops sparking when hot, definitely not what you just described. Sounds almost like you have some water somewhere that partially blocked your pilot jet for a short time

Plastics are the hardest thing to get for that age bike, 99 & 2000 were the only 2 years that used the particular set up. 99 was orange & grey/silver, 2000 was blue & grey/silver which may help with aging the bike. I can't remember whether 99 had a 125 available, I had a 250 & that was the only engine size available here with the 290 coming out in 2000 Generally Sherco has been very good at using the same basic engine parts for a large number of years with the newer upgraded parts being a direct replacement for the older pieces so you shouldn't have any problems there

The o-ring is to seal the inside of the spacer to the crankshaft, without it there is nothing to prevent oil etc migrating along the shaft. It's a strange design but seems to be common to most Yamaha 2 strokes for quite some time, my 81 YZ465 has it as well & the YZ490s are the same so the idea stayed around until the 90s

If memory serves me correctly the original number of links is 101, there is a half link required to give the odd number.

On the 250s the seals can be changed without splitting the cases, I can't remember if the clutch needs to be removed or just the primary gear First thing to check if you do the seals is that there is a o-ring behind the primary gear or the spacer/sleeve to seal against the crankshaft, a lot of kits don't have the o-ring & it is needed to completely seal the crankshaft assembly Removing seals involves screwing a small self tapping screw into the seal a small way the using vise grips to work the seal out

Reading your description of using the choke is a little confusing, is the lever vertical when you're using it? On dellorto carbs they act on a overcam principle where the lever has a shape that holds it in the correct position when up, I don't think it's really possible to overdo it as you run out of room pretty quickly I can probably take a couple of photos of a carb off the bike to show you as I have a Oko flatslide on mine

Is that a S7 engine turned sideways? Not seen many Sunbeams

If the clutch side crank seal goes allowing gearbox oil into the motor you can normally smell it