jse

Find a large nut that fits into the axle and use a pair of Vice Grips to hold and you can twist it slightly to help it slide out. Jon

Another trick that usually works is to install the carb bell into the boot and then push the carb back into the manifold. Jon

I totally agree. .008" is too tight, especially in an air-cooled engine. In TYs I usually set the squish at a little over 1mm, or .039". Jon

ATF is approximately 7.5 weight and has good lubricity and an anti-foaming agent so you could try it as an experiment. Jon

Possibly a broken k/s return spring. Did you recently have the sidecover off? Jon

Just as an addition as jadieki may not be aware: if the bolt is left out be sure to also take out the stepped washer underneath it. The bolt is drilled just to normalize the internal expansion/contraction volume changes and "flow" increase is not really an issue. I keep the washer/drilled bolt in my 02' Pro clutch hub just to stabilize the hub assembly but I see no problem leaving them out. Jon

yes.

It would probably be a LOT cheaper to have someone who knows these forks look at them. A misplaced top-out spring would be my first guess. Jon

There are no "service" manuals available for the GasGas that I am aware of (only parts and basic owner's manuals) but Jim's site will cover most questions you will have.

http://www.trialspartsusa.com/manuals/2000TXTPartsBook.pdf

Biff, as I remember, there is a "cross" on one of the spring towers and a cross embossed next to one of the pressure plate spring holes and they need to be matched up together. This may be part of the problem. Jon

There was an engine parts manual published for the 2002 Pro engine (I have a copy) but not a chassis manual that I'm aware of, much of the engine manuals you see after that were a modification of that original manual. Burnleytazz has a optional wedge-type carb spacer installed on his engine. You could obtain one from your dealer and it was used to tilt the carb up a little to gain clearance between the carb float bowl and the top of the engine cases. I made one for my JTR370 when installing a 28PWK and it was a common mod for the Keihin on the early Pro 250/280's. Jon

Some slide off easily and others are a bear to remove, even the same year and model. Jon

While replacing the shift centering spring in my 2002 Pro, I wanted to take off the center hub/basket assembly, which in this engine is a very tight fit, so I made a tool to do so. I remember someone posting that question lately but could not find the topic in a search so I thought I'd post the solution. If you've looked down inside the center hub, you would have noticed that it is threaded for a short distance at the very bottom (the center stepped washer bottoms against those threads and it has that short-headed 4mm capscrew that strips easily). Those threads in the hub are exactly the same size and pitch as an 18mm sparkplug (18X1.5 I think). I made a slide hammer out of stuff in the scrap bin but you can also go to a machine shop and have them made you a 6" length of 18X1.5mm threaded rod with a little T handle welded on it. Screwing the rod into the hub center will pull the hub up and out very easily. Jon

425 or 450 seems to work in most cases. You'll want it to be about 3/4ths the way up the sight glass window with the bike upright. Jon