mollygreen

Woody: Thanks. The front pipe is a Sammy Miller (complete with ground out sh*tty mis-match, as mentioned elswhere). Majestyman 340: The carb is the orignal, not new, just clean is suppose. Feetupfun: The kickstart lever was new and bought through Ebay, from Yambits. It is not a genuine Yamaha (cheap Chinese copy probably at

This was a piece I wrote last November as part of a forum entitled "Majesty Kickstart Lever". At the time I had no idea how to attach photo's. But I do now, so hear we go! I have just finished modifying and fitting a DT125 kickstart lever to fit my original TY250 kickstart lever boss and it looks very good, though I say it myself. The DT125 lever is only about 5" long and so gives a good couple of inches plus clearance under the exhaust when closed and looks a lot less bulky than the original. I had to ream out the kickstart lever and turn down the diameter of the boss spigot to get them to fit. I also cut the spigot down, drilled and tapped it to hold the lever on the spigot with a bolt and washer. This I feel is far better than the original washer and circlip. And all this for less than

COMPLETELY AGREE! I have a Yamaha TY250 Twinshock which I run on AMSOIL SABER PROFESSIONAL at 100:1. This machine has a 30 year old aircooled engine that still has the standard 70mm bore. And despite regularly riding it on the road, the engine is absolutely fine. There is no excuse these days for running any more than 80:1 if you are using a quality fully synthetic oil. If you're still using a semi or even worse, a mineral oil at 50:1 or more, then all you are doing is clogging the bikes exhaust, choking your friends, ruining the enviroment for all and giving ALL TWO STROKES a bad name to the point that all we'll be able to ride on in the near future is modern Four strokes. Think about it. This is the Twenty First Century after all.

That gear lever is a genuine 1974 Yamaha TY250 A NOS item that I bought for about $26.00 (delivered) from jgroom888 on EBay (USA) about 8 months ago. I just looked again and he's doesn't have any for sale, but somebody else does - follow link. The reason I like this particular non-folding tip lever is it that it always feels solid and when you're forced to change gear in the sections it doesn't feel vague and uninspiring like the cheap folding tip levers do, especially when they get worn out! They are getting rare now, hence the price. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Yamaha-Gear...sspagenameZWDVW

Thanks Andy. That's why I asked the question!

You got me thinking there Tony. So I went out and measured mine. They work out at 38" from the front spindle to the rest centre, with standard forks. I had never considered a dimension from the front before, only followed my gut feeling as to what I felt looked right from the side, in respect of how far back they were compared to the original mount position. Interesting!

I have added some more photo's to my original post to cover all the angles. (See above) On the question of making further pairs of footrests "to sell", I would need to know the Trials Central websites stance on promoting personal items for sale, as it may breech some rule or another and get me banned. The pair that are shown above have been "knife and forked" out by me in my garage and welded by a friend whom I use to work alongside in a company that sub-contract into the aircraft industry. (Hence the quality of weld) To make more sets commercially, I will need to speak with another local company who have laser cutting and fabricating facilities and ask them to quote for the complete manufacture of the brackets. This will need to include all programming and tooling costs, which will have to be amortised over the cost of the first batch, of say 10, 25, or 50, depending on how many I think I can sell. Then get a price for plating on top. After that I will in a position to establish overall costs, plus reasonable mark up and work out the sale price including P+P. Possibly offering them Worldwide through EBay? This is going to take me 2 - 3 weeks, so if your still interested, "watch this space".

Nice job of yours also. Yes, lowering the pegs certainly makes a welcome difference to the handling.

For those who might be interested, I've attached a couple of photo's of the footrest mounting brackets I made recently for my TY250 Twinshock. http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh79/mo...photos/0001.jpg http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh79/mo...photos/0002.jpg http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh79/mo...photos/0003.jpg http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh79/mo...photos/0004.jpg http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh79/mo...photos/0005.jpg http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh79/mo...photos/0006.jpg http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh79/mo...photos/0007.jpg They work out to be about 1 3/8" lower and the same further back than the standard mounting position. They feel very comfortable and make it a breeze to lift the front wheel over obstacles whilst adding more weight over the rear tyre for a bit of much needed extra grip.

Woody. I take it from this that you have one also. Did you grind out the inside to improve the finish? As previously said, I have worked in Engineering for many years, a lot of which was working for a company sub-contracting into the aircraft industry and specialising in double curvature sheetmetal and pipework. So I should know how it's done properly. Some of the work I used to do involved multi bend 1 3/4 o.d, thin wall stainless tubing that went somewhere on the environmental control system of an aircraft and was manufactured to a tolerance of 0.005th of an inch between the flanged ends with smooth inner joints for unrestricted air flow. Now I am not suggesting that an exhaust front pipe needs to be manufactured to that standard (outside of WSB or Moto GP that is) as the costs would be prohibitive but, it was very dis-heartening to think that manufactures are selling these front pipes (which are supposed to be an improvement on the original) with this amount of airflow distroying internal overlap. It is just a case of better tooling and more importantly and improved mindset as to what you are trying to achieve when manufacturing these after market products. Exactly the same can be said about the SM footrest lowering kit that I also have on my TY250. (But that's another story, neadless to say I am making my own improved version) A word of advise to anyone thinking of buying an SM front pipe, be prepared to do some work on it before you fit it, otherwise it may prove to a disapointing waste of money. On the other hand, I have seen pictures of Craig Mawlem's Majesty front pipe and they look well made. Does anyone have one? Are they as good as they look for fit, internal joint mismatch etc? and would they fit the standard TY250? I know that Craig is aware of what is being written on this site, so I would be interested to know!

No it isn't! The question of WES exhausts and SM front pipes came up before in July last year and I have copied in the piece I wrote for you all to enjoy again. I have a Sammy Miller front pipe linked into a WES two piece mid section/silencer system. Even though I live 5 miles from S/M's shop, I had to buy it from JK Hirst's as Sam didn't have any in stock, but that was OK as I had bought the WES from JKH also. (very good service). The front pipe that they supplied is an S/M one. As to the diametre of this pipe, if is is smaller than the original, it aint much and I haven't found that it chocked the bike, on the contrary, having a complete new exhaust has made my bike run bloody lovely. There is a difference of about 2mm in diametre between the front pipe (40mm O/D) and the WES middle section (42 I/D) and to get over this, I used a piece of 0.8mm thick gasket sheet rolled up in between the two pipes, stuck in with heat resistant silicone sealer and used a good quality strong exhaust clamp that I bought of off Ebay (I could have bought one from one of the stalls at Motorcycle World, but it was too late by then) and clamped the whole lot together, and it's great, I'am well pleased. One word of warning though, the WES exhaust has no guard and does get f*uckin' hot and burns your leg if you aint careful while riding! One last thing I felt needed to be done to the front pipe was to grind out the most horrible looking miss-match of the tubes that are thankfully accessible because they are at the exhaust port end. This is where a curved tube is welded into tube straight tube with the flange on it and the bit inside needs to be ground away to encourage a better gas flow. You can't get it all out completely smooth but I have made it a million times better and having spent the last 27 years in engineering, I couldn't bare to leave it like it was.

I have recently removed the flywheel weight from my TY250 Twinshock and went out on it this morning to try it out. What a difference! Much more responsive. It pulls right off the bottom of zero revs and I can now ride a section that requires 2nd gear somewhere in the section and ride the whole section in second, without having to think about changing up. This is where it is most noticeable as it will now pull second instead of dying if I'm not revving it enough, as before. Also I've had to turn the tickover screw out 1/2 a turn now the engines not dragging the extra weight around. The weight (and bolts) weighed 750 grams. The flywheel now weighs 1650 grams with it removed. Phase two could be a few lightening holes carefully placed to reduce the weight further, to say 1500 grams. If you have it in mind to remove your flywheel weight, I'd say give it a try. I don't think you'll regret it!

I run AmsOil Sabre Professional at 100:1 in my Aircooled TY250 Twinshock that I regularly ride on the road with no problems at all!

If you phone Robin at Falcon Shocks he will tell you that the Betor shocks are a cheep and nasty copy of his design. Something that Sammy Miller was involved in a few years ago. I have Falcon Shocks. They are excellent!

20:1? 33:1? 50:1? What are you lot doing? Choking everyone and everything around you, that's what! This is 2008. There are now quality oils available these days that are designed for air-cooled as well as water-cooled two strokes that can be run at 100:1. I have used Amsoil Saber Professional 100:1 pre-mix for years. I ride my TY250 Twinshocker on the road without any problems at all. With oil mix ratio's like you are taking about, are you surprised that everyone wants to ban the two stroke? Run 100:1. Do yourself and the environment a favour!

No, the earlier mono models did not use aluminium covers. Yamaha haven't used aluminium covers on the TY since their 1974 Twinshock. I had a 1985 mono with exactly the same rotting engine covers on both sides. It is more likely to be electrolysis rather than dissolving in water. I bought new ones. Those magnesium covers are a sh*t idea.

I had a Talon rear disc conversion as well as the front on my Yam TY Mono. It did'nt work that well and was a pain to set up right.

You will need to have the bike dated and a letter produced to prove the year of manufacture, speak to Yamaha with your frame number on 01932 358000. You can then get the bike MOT'd using the frame number. Insure it, again on the frame number. Take all your documentation to your local DVLA and they will provide you with a registration based on the year of manufacture. Produce a new MOT with the registration on it and finally issue you with a current tax disc. You then ring up your insurance company and give them the new registration and off you go. It's as easy as that. I done it recently with my TY250 T/S.

01932 358000

Well Lee, it's like this really: Q: Why do people buy BMW, Mercedes and Audi? They could just have easily gone out and bought themselves a Ford or a Vauxhall, lets face it, they will do the same job! A: You can't beat a bit of quality German engineering. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it. After all, it's only money!

I have just finished fitting a new pair of "Progressive Fork Springs" into my TY250 T/S and I am very pleased with the results. It is widely known that the TY250 T/S's forks are a bit on the soft side (especially after 30 years) and one of the publicised remedies is to fit the forks and front wheel from a Mono. I used to have a Mono about 17 years ago and don't remember the forks being particularly good (or bad for that matter), and so decided that buying a new fork assembly, front wheel and so on, probably from ebay, if one came up and if I was the succesful bidder and if once I'd received it, whether it would be any good, left a lot to chance, especially as the Mono front wheel has a reputation for rotting inside the tyre and you wouldn't know what you'd won untill it had arrived in the post. So, wanting to improve the quality of my original front suspension to complement my recently purchased new Falcon rear shocks, I decided to buy the WIRTH-FEDERN Progressive Front Springs I'd seen on Ebay from a seller in Germany. (pam-teile). They are manufactured in Germany and are supplied with a TUV C of C, in German, of course. They are supplied with all necessary spacers and washers required to drop straight in, and were delivered inside a week. They cost

Bring it out and dust it off and have some fun on it, you don't need a modern bike to ride Trials and enjoy it. (Unless you think that you are better than you really are and need a modern machine to give you an advantage) There are hardly any "proper" classic events within sensible driving distance of where I live, so I ride my Twinshocker in all sorts of Trials (on the C route) against Novices, O/40's, O/50's and whoever else, all riding modern machines. (some guys turn out with two new bikes a year?). I never worry about the competition or what my score is compared to the modern bike riders, as long as I feel I've had a good ride on my old Twinshock. I would love to see more guys out riding on old Air-cooled machines with drum brakes, (or discs, if the were standard on the machine as new) be it Twinshocks or Mono's. If more people rode them, more clubs would cater for them and the class would grow in popularity, encouraging more people to buy, restore and ride older machines in competitions. Up until I bought my Twinshock twelve months ago, I rode modern bikes and was frustrated by the fact that I wasn't as good as the bike. Now I ride my Yammy just as good as I've ever ridden any of my new bikes and subsequently enjoy it more because my own expectations are much lower. Lets see more older machines out there and the Clubs recognising this and setting out enjoyable, yet challenging routes for all!

Below is a copy of an email I received from Craig Mawlam of Yamaha-Majesty.com after I had seen a feature on his company in the latest Classic Dirt Bike magazine, which shows pictures of one of his TY250's with an ally kickstart. I emailed Craig to ask if he supplied these kickstarts, which you can see from his response below that he does. I did not take him up on it as it seems like a lot of money for half a new kickstart assembly to me, but others may think it sounds like a good deal, if they dont fancy messing about themselves. Craig Mawlam would be the best person to ask about the longevity and durability of this type of conversion. Here's his response: Hi, there is some work involved in making the GasGas item fit. If you send me your TY 250 kickstart assembly in the post I will be happy to do the work and return a nice lightweight alloy kickstart just like the one in the pictures back to you. The cost will be just

Paying for the privilege. - How very "New Labour"

How do you attach photo's to these forums?