billyt

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cwImtQw3WA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnmy7wyXCJI This is actually what he was looking for........ He got the wrong Pole........

Too right Chuck. Or puddeling in the rubber boot that goes from the air box to carb.

The Hot start on the Beta is a push or pull knob. Since your 4T is a newer version then the hot start mod may already have been done. The initial mod was opening up (drilling out )the orifice of the hot start jet on the side of the inlet boot. Some other 4T folks remove the hose from the hot start jet that runs into the air box. It is not as effective when it runs into the box as just drawing in straight ambient air. For the amount of time a hot start is used there is no issue with drawing out side unfiltered air when used. If you do remove it from the air box you have to seal up the hole in the air box it leaves behind. Removing it from the air box also helps with disassembly & reassembly of the carb, air box etc as there is one less hose to deal with.

Schmorgas. What year is your 4T? Have you done the Hot Start Mod?

Wayne........ You should have asked for Hank Hill. Mark Cope is his stage name.

Bongo. I am only assuming it sat for a long period of time as he seems to be in Nova Scotia and they have a period of time when they cant ride due to harsh winters. Check out my article in the Beta forum called "A Clutch Story". I may answer your question regarding oils in clutches. Cheers BillyT

Pear. Bongo is correct in what he is saying, however I would change the gear box/clutch oil before I did anything! After sitting for four months or so (winter in Nova Scotia) the oil could be suspect.

So Mr Belair. The big question on the minds of Montesa lovers in the USA. Who is going to import these beauties into the USA? When can one get one and from whom?

Is the cir-clip still on the end of the shaft? If so remove it and see if there is a hub/base of plastic left that will slide off. If so, then the blades have came off the molded hub/base. If there is no hub/base on the shaft then someone either took it off or it was never installed at the factory. I would imagine that the cir-clip is the last thing installed as the impeller shaft would have to slide through the seal in the crankcase and could not do so if the cir-clip was on it? So for a factory worker to put a cir-clip on a empty impeller shaft (i.e. no impeller) is weird and highly unlikely! If there is no cir-clip then it makes the thought that a Beta factory worker left the cir-clip AND impeller off more plausible.

b40Rt By dealer I assume you mean a brick and mortar store with full time mechanics and a sales staff? I am in the USA, brick and mortar trials dealers like in the UK or parts of Europe are very few and far bewteen over here. The closest brick and mortar Beta dealer would be the importer or the importer's rep. That would be a 400 mile one way drive. Other than brick and mortar stores we have somewhat local dealers who work out of their homes and/or back of their trucks and sell trials bikes as a side hobby. In many cases a rider knows more about bike mechanics than the hobby dealer. I am fortunate that I have good dealer (a 100 mile one way drive away) who is good with the spanners (Bill Merrit) but I prefer to do all my own work when I can as I enjoy it.

Not sure If Andy will allow me to post this oil bottle. But here goes. PS: The RS on the label stands for "Reduced Slippage".

Jeff This is a new bike. One month old Factory 300cc. There is no spec in the way of a Beta service manual as yet. The clutch in this bike is a little bit different than my 2013 Beta 250cc. Not quite sure how different but the advertising spec says it is different and when you look at it the clutch plates are different colour and different thicknesses. There is no water in the clutch line. I have tried clutch oil levels from 400cc to 550 cc with no effect on clutch performance. There is nothing more to try as my clutch is nice and soft, disengages as and when I want it to, even on a stand. It is a story I posted for those out there with clutch issues. May or may not help them, but I do think it is very important to trouble shoot what the clutch issue is by the three main areas, i.e. Mechanical, Viscous Coupling and Physics. That way you are more likely to get to the root cause. If you want to wonder then go experiment on your own bike. I know I enjoyed the experience and learned a lot of about trials clutches in the process.

Saw tooth I am not saying that this is your hanging up issue but your carb tangs are set wrong in these pictures. Try and find my article on what these tangs are for, notice I said these as in two tangs as there are two of them and they both serve two different purposes. We need to start there before we go on any further. Look for BillyT Mikuni carb article on this site.

After many years of riding trials it finally happened to me, the dreaded “clutch drag”. I guess it was inevitable, I had read about, heard people talk about, but never actually experienced it for myself. Can it be real or just a myth? I had read with much respect and interest Dan William’s research and solutions to his clutch dragging issues and read all the testaments to this being the miracle cure. Being faced with the issue for myself I soon came to realize after all the years of riding trials bikes I have never had a need to really dig in and understand what is actually going on with a trials clutch. But if I want to cure this dragging clutch on my new 2013 Beta 300cc Factory then I better educate myself on the clutch workings. Standing upon Dan’s shoulders of the great work he has done it was a good starting point for me. So you take out the plates and clean up all the glue crap between the fibre steps! Okay, no doubt this works, but why? Surely there must be more to it than that? Some people although in the minority have claimed this did not work for them, Some people use ATF some use purpose made clutch/engine oil all with various results, but why? So let the research begin. Lets break clutch drag into three basic culprits: Mechanical Viscous Coupling Physics Mechanical: The following fall into this category Warped friction plates Warped clutch plates Swollen fibre plates Notches in the outer clutch basket Notches in the inner clutch basket Nicks on the metal tabs of the friction or fibre plates Not enough travel on the clutch push rods A race clutch that has tight tolerances resulting in less clearance between plates when disengaged. The clutch not separating evenly due to machining imperfections Viscous Coupling For those of you not familiar with Viscous coupling it is basically a fluids ability to transfer motion between two plates a slight distance apart through the fluid itself. It is used on various 4WD systems and machinery. Physics The viscosity of the engine oil used The temperature at start up affecting engine clutch oil viscosity The temperature of the engine clutch oil once the bike is warmed up. Centrifugal force Shear of the oil surface between two plates. Vacuum. Surface tension Excess glue and residue in between the tabs causing the above So lets clarify some of these things from a technical perspective. Shear of the oil surface between two plates, Vacuum, Surface Tension If one takes two sheets of glass and places some oil in-between them and the presses them together the next person who comes along trying to separate them by pulling them apart in lateral (equal and opposite) manner will not be able to do so. They will have to slide them apart one surface going up the other down. This is due to the oils surface tension and the air that was forced out upon squeezing them together has now created a vacuum. Multiple that by several clutches friction plates to fibre plates and one can quite easily see how the potential for a friction plate to stay stuck to a fibre plate is there. What is needed is a surfactant. A surfactant is basically what soap is, it breaks the surface tension on our hands, dishes to let the water actually get to the surface etc in essence making the water wetter by breaking down the surface tension. But who in their right mind would put soap in their transmission or clutch LOL 2.0 Centrifugal force Have you ever seen or tried the gyroscopic trick where you sit on a free moving rotating chair, you are given a bicycle wheel to hold at the axle. You hold the wheel upright an assistant spins the wheel and you try to turn it side ways. It tries to fight you and wants to stay upright spinning in its own orbit both axle and radial. Well a spinning clutch is basically a gyroscope. It is spinning and wants to stay in its own radial orbit. You pull the clutch in, wanting it to separate in the axle direction by basically friction plate’s fibre plates moving away from each other. But the gyroscope effects are fighting it wanting the plates to stay in their own orbit. Couple that with the above sheer friction of the oil and it is a wonder that plates actually separate at all. So if your clutch drag issue is caused by surface tension, sheer of the oil, vacuum then Dan’s procedure or ATF is the way to go. I propose that Dan’s procedure works by reducing the sheer of the oil surface tension, and helping break the vacuum. This is achieved by the filing of a ninety-degree angle when you are filing away the glue and crap. The sharpened ninety-degree angle edges helps break down the oil sheer, breaking the vacuum as each plate is spinning trying to slip against the other and the oil in between. The excess glue build up only adds to the problem by keeping the oil shear and vacuum going. With no distinct hills and valleys it is detrimental to plate separation. I will also propose that this is the reason ATF works without the clutch mod as it sheer strength and vacuum causing characteristics are much different than regular clutch/engine oil. And now for the caveat: How does one know what one of the three basic areas i.e. Mechanical, Viscous Coupling, Physics or combination of all three is the culprit? Well that's where my experimenting came into play. Temperatures in the high 80F Dry weather, Sea level. Bike came with Motul engine oil. Changed to Mobile One Motorcycle oil after a few rides. I have used Mobile One for many years. He is my scenario. With the original Motul oil the clutch dragged. The clutch continued to drag after changing to Mobile One motorcycle oil. The clutch dragged inconsistently as I was riding it. It was good it was bad all through the day. In the past with other Beta’s I have owned I could place the bike on a bike stand start the bike let it warm up and put it into 1st gear pull the clutch in and the back wheel would stop or be very easily stopped by placing a hand on it. This was not the case with this Factory 300cc What I needed was away to logically break this down into which one of the three main areas (Mechanical. Viscous Coupling, Psychics) was causing my issue. Mechanical: Brand new bike…. The reality of warped clutch plates or fibre plates hardly likely. Swollen fibre plates hardly likely. Notches in the basket not likely. Other wear or tear not likely due to age of bike (barely broken in). But until I took the clutch apart I would not know for certain. Viscous Coupling: Trying to find out the Viscous Coupling characteristics of Motul or Mobile One was a long shot at best so I put that one to rest. Physics: There was nothing I could do about gyroscopic effects. I was contemplating to dump a bottle of washing up liquid into my Mobile One engine oil. That would surely be a great surfactant it would break down the surface tension letting the plates separate. Okay bad idea! I needed another way to test the surface tension theory. As stated earlier I think Dan’s process works on reducing the shear and surface tension effect so why not try it out. So off comes the clutch. Checked for all the mechanical potential issues warped disks etc no issue there. Checked out the clutch for Dan’s excess glue etc. There was excess glue all right but did not really look that bad. But I followed Dan’s instructions, painstakingly removing all traces of glue etc from between the plates. Re-assembled the clutch pack and re installed. Another 500cc of fresh Mobil One motorcycle oil and fired her up. Got her good and warm and…….. and …….. the clutch was still inconsistent. ****……… now what. Short of calling Dan I proceeded. What other Physics issue could there be that I can actually control? I still had the nagging notion that viscous coupling was not eliminated from the equation but I needed a way to test my theory. So why not dump all the oil out of the cases, with no oil in the bike Viscous Coupling would not be an issue and therefore I could verify or eliminate Viscous Coupling as a culprit. I needed to do this in such a way as not to burn up my clutch or seize my gearbox. Dumped the oil, put the bike on the stand, started it up revved it slowly, pulling in the clutch to fling off any oil in between the plates, letting the clutch go in a VERY gentle manner as not to burn the plates. Pulled the clutch in, Put the bike in 1st gear let the clutch out slowly. The back wheel started to turn (of course) pulled the clutch in and PRESTO the back wheel stopped turning all by itself. Repeated this several times with constant results. What the crap I thought! I do have some viscous coupling in this equation. Now what? I cant run my bike without oil! So it was off to Google to find out what oils for wet based clutches where out there. No motorcycle oil manufacturer out there talks about viscous coupling specs of their clutch engine oil. So it was trial and error. To cut a long story short after testing many different oils I tried a bottle of Castrol 5W 40 RS 4T engine Clutch oil and it did the trick. I can put my bike on the stand now start it, pull the clutch in and the back wheel stops. The clutch is consistent. I am happy. But the story does not stop there. Why is that Mobile One has worked for me all these years and now it does not? Why is that Dan’s process works for some people and not others? Here is my take on the whole clutch drag issue. One has to first determine if it is Mechanical, Viscous Coupling, or Physics at play or a combination of all of the above. No amount of glue removal will help if the clutch plates are warped or friction plates are warped. No glue removal will help with swollen fibre plates or notched tabs. However if oil shear, vacuum, and surface tension are at play Dan’s process is the cats meow. I feel I had two issue on my bike since it is a factory spec bike and the clutch is somewhat changed for this newer model it has a 2013/2014 factory clutch “A race clutch that has tight tolerances resulting in less clearance between plates when disengaged”. This amplified the oil sheer and vacuum effect and surface tension. Due to the tighter tolerances on this clutch the viscous effect was coming into play as the clutch plates do not separate as far and the Mobile One and Motul oil viscous coupling characteristics what ever they where contributing to drag while the Castrol Oil did not show signs of viscous coupling. Dan’s process alone did not eliminate this effect but I am sure if one does his process on an none race clutch or one that has some wear on it will do the trick for you. So before you trouble shoot your dragging clutch, do some homework and determine if it is mechanical, viscous coupling or physics at play. So, if your bike does not show signs of drag on the ground, can you put it on a stand start it up put it into gear pull the clutch and have the back wheel stop all by itself? If so you have great clutch. Cheers BillyT

Osiris I think you designed this very well considering the limitations you where faced with. At the end of the day it is your car, your bike, and your design. If it works for you then give it a good powder coat and show it off and use it. Just keep an eye on transmission issues or small cracks, it may take a while if they appear at all.

Furse, I agree. Most class III tow hitch receivers are rated for 300Ibs tongue weight and 6000 tow weight. Most people design/build their motorcycle carrier based on a class III hitch. Class 1: up to 2,000 lbs. GTW up to 150 lbs. TW Class 3 : 5,000 - 6,000 lbs. WC 300 lbs. TW Osiris car hitch is not a class three as it only look like class one which is a 1.25 inch or 32 mm receiver. A class one is limited to a tongue weight of, according to the chart 150lb. I think his car can handle the towing capacity, but in this case he is not towing, the tongue weight not so much as he has it sticking out perhaps one foot and so there is leverage and a bending moment so it is no longer just the weight of the bike it is the weight of the bike multiplied by the length of the horizontal metal arm sticking out. There will also be a lot of rotational movement as the bike rocks on its centre vertical arm due to how high it is on the upright arm. All this on a piece 30x30mm" square tubing? You can see in his pictures that the back end of the car is sagging under the tongue weight. If the roads area as bad as he says in Russia then he has made a very low car even lower to the ground, add in a ground that is very rough and the potential for hitting a ground obstacle even greater. Osiris, is the car a manual or automatic, are you driving off the road onto the dirt with this set up to the riding area? Cars and trucks are rated for tow capacity by two main things. Tongue weight: is determined by how the weight at the back on the tongue in a straight vertical line in how it affects steering (by lowering the car at the back subsequently pointing the nose up and affecting steering by making it light in the front end). How it places extra burden on the suspension. How the chassis or bracket is designed to handle the extra load on the welds of the hitch etc. Tow Capacity: is determined by the cars/truck chassis, brakes and transmission. The chassis must be able to handle the extra load and the brakes and transmission must be capable of stopping the extra load. Osiris, We are trying to help you avoid damaging that really nice car and nice Sherco. Maybe we can send you some aluminum channel if you cant get it over there? Can you post some close up shots of the towing platform from different angles without the bike on it?

You seem technical competent but material challenged and doing the best with what materials have available. If you feel confident then go for it. The bike may be fine and the car may be fine. My point was to draw your attention to what some others who have mounted a bike this way have experienced. Why did you mount it so high, is it so that you can see the license plate? Cheers

I dont understand I fully appreciate that you have a car chassis. BUT you are still putting the weight of the bike on the back of the car regardless. My channel is made out of aluminuim and hardly and extra 35Kg. I doubt it even weighs 5Kg (aluminuim channel). You can drill big holes along its length and lighten it even further if you wish. When you hit a bump the bike will go up and then come down on the plate and with the plate. The mounting plate to bash plate relationship is critical. At least have a BIG piece of rubber in between them. Cheers

Osiris I appreciate your inginuty, engineering and design. A word of caution........ When you mount a trials bike to a steel platform like that vie the skid plate, engine every little bump that the car sees (and could be many per your description of the roads) will get transfered into the gear box, engine area. This mounting was tried for regular dirt bikes i.e. mounting it by its bash plate instead of the wheel and suspension. The results where not to kind to the transmission and engine after a while as the shock was messing up shifting an even cracks in the cases. Why not run a channel across the back and mount it by the wheels? There are many different ways of designing and building the bike rack transporters I have attached a picture (click on picture to see the whole picture) of how it designed and built my bike rack. The front wheel lock pivots down to allow the front wheel to go forward and then pivots up and locks in the upright position. The bars are drawn back vie the tie downs to the centre member drawing the bike back to the pivot upright taking all loads off the suspension when transporting. Many other little tricks it does that can not be seen by this picture.

The heat is needed as it has already been smacked and the aluminium is altered in the area that took the hit i.e. stress. If you just wack it again without heat it may straighten out but it will be very weak and will break the next time is sees any stress on it.

"The Vicous Power Of A Trials Bike" Heat the lever gently before bending or hitting with a block of wood and mallet.

The word "Luddite" keeps coming to mind for some of these posts!

I think you need to re-torque the cylinder head bolts. A slight weepage is normal after some time and re-torquing all part of a good maintenance regime for 4T's.

Or Scorpa/Sherco