Trials Australia Forums

David Lahey wrote:And this nice one of Greg Harding's blue accent TY175

Why is there so much fork protruding above the triple clamp?

billy wrote:

David Lahey wrote:And this nice one of Greg Harding's blue accent TY175

Why is there so much fork protruding above the triple clamp?

Greg's "works" forks :) have tubes from some other bike and they are a bit longer than TY175 tubes.
That's my story.
Greg's story is that he made them like that so it is easier to tie the bike onto his carry rack

Hi Everyone,

David Lahey wrote:

billy wrote:

David Lahey wrote:And this nice one of Greg Harding's blue accent TY175

Why is there so much fork protruding above the triple clamp?

Greg's "works" forks :) have tubes from some other bike and they are a bit longer than TY175 tubes.
That's my story.
Greg's story is that he made them like that so it is easier to tie the bike onto his carry rack

Ah the fascination with my forks continues, apparently there were 3 x TY 175 converted locally with CR 80 legs (30mm) which is not that common a size. So I was told when I ended up with 1, even though a CR 80 is smaller they have a leading axle well above the bottom of the sliders, so this makes them a little long. It also makes the bike very stable in a trailer when you use the tops as tie own points

chippy wrote:Hello everyone,
Yes what a great Trial it was Greg. It was good to see so many twin shock bikes.

Moving on to the Twin Shock Masters for this year at Conondale. As we all know this year "theme" is the RL250. Now I know Greg is doing up some special RL and as I don't have one, he is lending me an RL for the event, even though I haven't seen it, so I am not sure what I am in for. Now at the TY challenge on the weekend, Greg handed me an RL exhaust colar that he wanted me to replicate in alloy. It must be some special RL or are you trying to build the lightest RL in Australia Greg?
I am not sure what the weight difference is between a steel colar and an alloy one, but overall, negligable.

Anyway a photo of what is heading your way Greg.

Chippy

Chippy, Thankyou for the Collars! There is not much of a weight saving, every time I put on weight, the bike has to take one for the Team!
In the last lot of RL parts I bought, there was a butchered tank with a lot of mig welding, 1 run of weld would have fixed it, if only they removed the paint.
I decided to separate the top and bottom after grinding the excess weld off.
This proved a little difficult due to the excess stale fuel.
Then off to my mate Jim to beat out the dints.
Final inspection before going back to Jim for Paint!

Nice repair work Greg and good to see another tank resurrection in progress. There has been quite a bit of tank repair dialog on the OZVMX forums recently too including some quite bizarre techniques for dent removal discussed, including freezing water in the tank. Apart from the craziness aspect, the ice method would never work at our place because the freezer is always chokka-block full
That rubbery-looking stuff that was in the bottom of the RL tank looks like the same stuff that had come loose inside Darcy's TY80 tank and took ages to get it all out using a hooked piece of wire. Why it was in there I don't know because the tank didn't leak after I took the rubber stuff out.

Hello everyone,
Greg Harding I can now see what you are doing. What you are actually doing is putting on weight to create extra "ballast" over the rear wheel for traction! I think a few of us ageing Trials riders have the same theory!

Nice work too by the way on that RL tank. Is this the tank for that "Greg Harding Special"? Some more progress photos would be good. What colour scheme are you going for?

Also thanks again for lacing up my new KT rear wheel. I have put new bearings in and just need to swap sprocket over and tyre and tube.

Chippy

Hi Everyone,
Well now that I have 500 posts, I am wondering what I can build

chippy wrote:Hello everyone,

Moving on to the Twin Shock Masters for this year at Conondale. As we all know this year "theme" is the RL250. Now I know Greg is doing up some special RL and as I don't have one, he is lending me an RL for the event, even though I haven't seen it, so I am not sure what I am in for. It must be some special RL or are you trying to build the lightest RL in Australia Greg?
Chippy

chippy wrote:Hello everyone,
Greg Harding I can now see what you are doing. What you are actually doing is putting on weight to create extra "ballast" over the rear wheel for traction! I think a few of us ageing Trials riders have the same theory!

Nice work too by the way on that RL tank. Is this the tank for that "Greg Harding Special"? Some more progress photos would be good. What colour scheme are you going for?

Chippy

Chippy, keeping things from you is like trying to hide in one of David's Goliath Photos!

Yes I have been working on a RL 250 for Conondale (code name Lefty)! After the ASS Whooping you gave me last year in the Challenge! We have decided that you need a handicap and here is what WE are thinking, I bought this bike off a one armed Man!
You can read more here:
Smile when you click on this!

Better start practising soon with the new setup Chippy so you are ready for Conondale

Greg Harding wrote:.....Well now that I have 500 posts, I am wondering what I can build ......

500 posts would be a couple of kilometers of fence.

I'm currently rebuilding a RL250 motor and will be posting what I think are things of interest as it goes along. If anyone has done one of these and has any hints please add them. So far I have noticed a few things different to other 1970s Japanese trials motors.
This is a photo showing a puller (or maybe a pusher) set up to push the crankcase halves apart. There is a piece of 6mm steel plate in there because the threaded puller holes in the crankcase half are not 120 degrees apart, so the "universal" puller part wouldn't fit. All three holes are on a 100mm PCD.

When I first checked the RL250 motor out, I noticed it had a badly failed magneto side main bearing. The RL motor is very similar to the Suzuki TS250 trailbike and TM250 MX bike motors of the same era, but while they have those amazing Suzuki CCI oil injection system, the RL250 does not and runs on premix. The CCI system supplies oil to the magneto side main bearing (and the big end bearing), and to the induction tract. Most other two stroke oil injection systems only go to the inlet tract. This had me wondering if the cause of the failed RL main bearing was possibly due to shortcomings in how Suzuki had adapted the RL250 motor to running on premix. As part of this I looked at what Yamaha and Kawasaki did in their trials motors to lubricate that bearing. In the photos you will see the ventilation holes in the three different motors. The idea of these holes is to provide a path for fuel mist to travel through the hole and through the bearing, with the intention of keeping it a bit cooler and more lubricated than otherwise. Some other bike motors of the 1970s (Bultaco for one) don't have those ventilation holes, and tend to suffer from main bearing failures much sooner than the motors with the bearing ventilation.
Anyway here are photos of TY250, KT250 and RL250 bottom ends to compare what the ventilation holes look like
Notice that the RL motor only has a ventilation hole on the magneto side. The RL250 main bearing on the clutch side is lubricated by gearbox oil, like a modern two stroke, with the seal located on the crankcase side of the bearing