Ossa Tr74 (Mar ?) Issues ?

[cabby]

Went to see a nice looking, clean 1976 Ossa tonight with the intention to buy.

On first sight, looked better than the pictures, eventually fired up, sounded fine, revved well, engine sounded good, however......had three issues...

1) Despite sounding good had next to feck all drive ?? Like no matter what, it hardly went at all, chap said I might be in the wrong gear

2) Front forks were almost solid, like hardly any movement in them at all ??

3) Brakes were almost non exsistent ?

Now I have no idea about older bikes, but I did expect them to have a bit of go, but anyone care to offer a theory or two for issues 1 and 2 ? as I was already warned about Ossa brakes being crap.

To be fair to the owner, he did say it had sat around for a good while, having only ridden it twice in a year.

Cheers.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Thedbf

[feetupfun]

^{It could be somesthings wrong with the bike, or could also be that you are not used to riding 1970s bikes. You would know if you tried a similar bike that was known to be in good condition, or if you got someone who knows OSSAs to ride that one you looked at.}

[lineaway]

Are you sure the clutch just was bad? The old bikes were slow and the brakes poor , but it still had a fairly high top speed for a trials bike. We also ran a low or no idle which was acomplished by the heavy flywheel and no stop rules kept us moving!

[cabby]

Thinking maybe with it sitting about the plates may be stuck, doesn't answer the solid front forks though ?

[nigel dabster]

did it have 5 gears?

[esteve]

If the overall appearance is "nice and clean" and the engine sounds good then I'd buy it. It might be the crankcase seals; when they go an engine can become gutless? Foam air filters can degrade and choke the intake?

Forks are repairable/replaceable. Are they bent?

Brakes: clean them/service them - use a decent brake lining (e.g. Saftek or Classic Brake Services) and have them turned to match the drum ID. Check for cracks in the front hub; I know someone who had to repair his almost shattered front hub (on a virtually brand new bike) during the SSDT with araldite and some steel sheet; he finished. After that he and all the other Ossa riders in the area replaced the front hub with Honda 50 stepthrough components (pretty sure it was Honda 50; definitely small capacity Japanese).

[cabby]

TBH, I have no idea if it had 5 gears or not, didn't have a clue what gear I was in from Nuetral given how it rode. Forks didn't look bent, just almost solid, and as I say, brakes non existent. Both these things I could probably have overlooked had it not been for the lack of go.

I was actually disappointed to have walked away without buying it, but was concerned about having to possibly throiw money at something I have no clue about what the issues were.

[bisby]

There could be a number of reasons for the lack of go, If i retard my ignition my ossa goes as flat as a pancake, mine is a gripper but i think top dead centre is the same (2.3mm before TDC from memory)

could be airfilter not able to breath, wrong size sprockets, chain too tight, carb worn. may even have a thick head gasket, mine is 1mm i think you can buy up to 4mm.

brakes, new shoes and shims should make them work you wont be locking the front end up though.

forks, old saggy springs? too heavy oil? 7 to 10 wt. could the fork leg clamp at the spindle be set wrong. Bad crome?

All the above except forks are cheep easy and easy to fix.

Steve.

[cabby]

When I say the forks were almost solid, I meant, almost solid, which surely wouldnt be saggy springs, if so there plenty compression but probably little rebound, believe me, there was little of either. Ye brakes can probably be sorted, as for the no go, its hard to explain, just could barely get the thing to take off at all.