jse

Here's the front page of the 1977 November Plonker's Press with a young Rick Land on the front. Dale tells me of a story about Rick at that Colorado National. Young Rick was riding a section and was clean except for a couple of ledges to go over at the exit. He went for it, cleaned it, but was totally out of control just out of the exit and was heading for a 500 foot drop off. Lyle Drear grabbed the bike about two inches from the edge, saving Rick from total annilation. Rick tells me: "That photo was actually of me doing a floater into a preplanned dab for a tough corner. Ah the good old days, now every corner is tough with tons of unintentional dabs..." I think Rick speaks for most of us seasoned riders.... Jon

Oops, wrong model. Yep. The Vette's switched to disc's in 1965, I think it was Zora's Spirit possessing my keystrokes. The guys at the brake shop did our machine work on brakes and flywheels for the drag cars at the time and they had a set of these weird drum linings from GM that had square pads of the sintered iron bonded on rather than a single strip on the shoe. It looked quite brittle but proved to be strong and I talked them into making up a set for my Bul. I was worried about extreme wear on the liner but none was noted in the time I had the bike. Jon

I'm guessing it's like Clint Eastwood's question: "How lucky do you feel?". Chances are that you may have damaged other components, like a shift fork, and there's no telling what may break or be damaged by the modification. Transmission parts are fairly expensive and the Pro engine is very precise in it's design and operation and if it were my engine, I'd split the cases and fix the real problem rather than try to work around it and possibly create more damage. Jon

Due to the mechanical leverage/pressure plate travel, a lower finger height (thicker clutch pack width) will tend to result in a harder to pull lever (and a "faster" engagement). I'd shoot for about 17.5/18mm height. There is a limit to how high you can go on the fingers as the servo cylinder will not be able to retract back far enough, although I imagine you could space the cover out a little with an extra gasket, but I've never tried that as it might create an unforseen problem. Jon

The shift shaft comes as a unit (shift shaft, pawl, springs and rollers), in spite of the blowup of the seperate pieces photo. Often, the shift shaft centering spring support will break at the braze line rather than transmit the shock to the shift pawl, but as you found out, not always. Splitting the cases is fairly straightforward, just keep track of where things fit and take your time. If you leave the kickstart mechanism in, be sure to rotate the kickstart shaft back a little just before the top case meets the lower one so the gear will ride on the plastic rest (it will stick down from the back of the top case and you'll wonder what the heck it is at first) and be sure the end of the kickstart spring goes into the machined hole in the upper case when attaching the top case half or the top case will not fit flush in the back. Jon

I've had both the Italjet and Sherpa-T 350s in the past and although I would choose, for my riding style, the Sherpa for competitive results, I had more than a lot of fun on the Italjet too. I agree that you should ride the bike you like. The success of the bike will depend, in part, on how well you take care of it and how much time you are willing to spend on setting it up correctly and/or making any creative modifications necessary, within your class rules, to correct shortcomings. For instance, the Bul's I rode in the 70's were lacking wet weather braking ability and Trials organizers then seem to like to put long steep hills right after creek crossings just for fun. The Bul hubs had chromed linings so I machined out the lining and shrunk in a steel liner and had some sintered iron (GM Corvette racing had just released them to the public) brake lining material bonded to the Bul shoes and then arched to fit the diameter of the hubs. They worked perfect wet or dry. The difference in "more pick-up" between your bike and the Bul, I would guess, is probably, in part, a result of overall mechanical condition and tuning, rather than just the reed valve (reed valves allow more advanced cylinder porting spec.'s with less loss of low-end response). Jon

Hi again, Mark! I was poking through the NEOTT scrapbook a few minutes ago and came across a copy of a 1977 issue of "Plonker's Press" and saw this nice full page photo on Marland on the factory Honda four-stroke, so I tried to take a photo of it and re-size it to post size, hope it works. Cheers, Mark. Jon

Let's see if this post well: It's the roster of the 1975 Oklahoma Turkey Creek National and includes the support class. Jon

HA! I, of course, am one of the few beings still alive that know, in reality, YOU are really Lane's Evil Twin............ Your secret is, as ever, safe with me.... Jon

Hi Curt! Nice to see you on board! Jon

Martin, The sheet I have is hard to read but I think it was 24. I think that was one of Marland's "Clean or Crash" days....... Jon

There could be a problem with the caliper pucks binding in the housings, but the most common cause of rear brake drag I've seen is that the plunger rod on the back of the brake pedal is adjusted up too far, usually in an effort to lower the height of the lever tip for easy access by the toe of the boot. Sometimes riders will ride with the boot toe on the lever tip, which will cause the same condition, but that seems to be rare, although I've seen it once or twice. The situation is similar to the common clutch issue (and sometimes front brakes) where the adjustment screw on the clutch lever is adjusted in too far. All master cylinders on bikes need to have the internal piston return fully back to the stop, which usually is the circlip that holds the piston assembly in. Take off the rubber boot on the M/C and check the piston to make sure is coming back completely. What will happen if the piston does not drop down far enough, is that the bleed hole that allows fluid from the small circular reservoir to enter/exit will not be uncovered. The system is then "closed", the fluid heats up from normal friction of the pads on the disc, which expands the fluid (which can not bleed off to the reservoir), which causes more pressure on the pads, causing more friction and more heat etc. I'd check that first and let us know what you find. Jon

I remember a minor pipe burn that probably saved my life. A buddy and I had arrived a day early at a new Trials event riding area up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and were roaring around the trails checking the place out. Lots of small pine trees and rolly rocks and fast, twisty,sandy single track trails. I was in the lead and saw a small hill with rollers on it and started up the trail at top speed in between the pines. For some reason the tree (about 4 feet high) at the top of the short hill just didn't look right and at the last second I realized the situation and slammed on the brakes, laid the bike down and my buddy slammed into me. What my brain had quickly processed was that I wasn't looking at a 4 foot tree, but at the TOP of a tree, which I found out a few minutes later was about 50 feet tall and growing at the bottom of a 100 foot wide rocky ravine with 45 foot straight down, sheer drop walls. Probably the only time in my like I was happy to get a pipe burn on my leg....... Jon

Mike, If at all possible, if you could post some photos from the event, that would be great! The Trials sidecars are one of my secret fetishes (my other fetishes are apparently well known to the public) and most of the riders here where I ride don't even know there is such a thing. I've driven a couple, and been a passenger, and found them both fun and quite challenging. Jon

Coxy, I can probably give you a couple of suggestions that might help and my experience of the 06' clutch is that your condition is unusual. I doubt that a larger hose would help that much (probably only under higher volume movement of fluid, the smaller hoses are mostly are used to reduce flex) but completely flushing the fluid out of the system and replacing it with DOT-5 (Silicone) adds smoothness. It also may be that the seal/o-ring in the top-hat has expanded and creates a lot of friction and perhaps replacing that will help. I'm trying to remember and hopefully someone out there will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the 06' was the first year that the thinner Belville spring was used and your clutch pull should be less than an 05', for instance, so I'm thinking there's something wrong somewhere. You might want to check the top-hat movement by pushing on it carefully, there should be some minor resistance but the movement should be smooth. An obstruction in the hose or fittings might also cause a problem, but this is also unusual. If you really want to make the clutch butter-smooth (and your seals last a LONG time), you can lightly polish the top-hat and master cylinder bores with very fine rubberized abrasive (the brand I use is "Cratex") mounted in a Dremel tool. I know this is probably more than most riders want to do, but it does help a lot. I just happen to be familiar with it as I've used it for many years in building race engines. Jon

I collected a historic scrapbook (actually it's going into 2 now) for our club (NEOTT) and got old photos, banners, flyers etc from the old members and made copies for the book. I happened to run into this results sheet from the 1974 Oklahoma National and thought some of you "older" Trials riders (like me) might get a kick out of it. It brought back some good memories for me. Jon Crud, the first one was unreadable, I'll re-size it:

Actually, the less than full storage can, opened often, invites greater air-born water contamination (condensation) and allows a greater "boil off" of the volatile elements in the fuel. It's always a consideration in diagnosing starting issues, which often can be a combination of small causes. The clean carb and petrol down the bore seems a good way to start. Jon

Zip, If you have an old TL250, a 270+cc kit and a sidecar makes a good rig, which is about the only thing I think a TL250 is good for, with all due respect, of course........ Jon

I just happened to be looking through some old photos from my Northern California PITS days and came across a couple of rigs that were running at the time (we had quite a few for a while). Right-hand rigs on the brake side, and I'll see if they post o.k.: Jon

Here! Here! There's truth to that....... Jon

I just happened to think, some of the mono shocks use a wire circlip to retain the lower cap on the body of the shock (I don't have one to look at, so I'm guessing). If you'll back down the preload and compress the spring cap that's on the body of the shock down, you'll see several grooves and one will contain a circular spring circlip. Carefully pry that off the body and the preload cap should drop back off. The clip was one of the ways the the static preload was set, in addition to the grooved ramp collar that could be adjusted from the outside. Jon

Sam, Anytime a post starts with "PROBLEM SOLVED!", it delights us to no end! As does new Trials riders coming into the fold.... Your advice was spot on. Cheers. Jon

Most of the time the springs can be easily removed by backing off the preload adjuster but once in a while I run across a beefy one with not enough room to pull the retaining collar back far enough so I got one of the car spring compressors and modified it for bike shock springs. I'm sure there are specialized tool companies that have them but I was in a time deadline situation (big race next day). It's still handy even though rarely needed. Jon

Not quite sure if you knew what I meant, so here's a possibility that might work in a pinch: Jon

I don't know Curt personally, but riders I've talked with have nothing but good things to say about him and remark how much he's gone out of his way to help them. I too was glad to see him featured, way to go Curt! Jon