For the francophones, an article appeared in MotoMag - a french magazine on the Endurance at Carole.
http://www.motomag.com/Week-end-AME-a-Carole-Endurance.html
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Monday, 26 April 2010
Endurance at Carole
So this weekend, we finished with a cup (!), but it certainly didn't start off that way.
You may remember that I am racing in the Endurance Classic GP organised by ProClassic, which this year has 2 races, one at Carole and the other later on in the year at Croix-en-Ternois. I am racing with Christian Degardin on a Yamaha RD350 YPVS. Last year we were forced to use one bike as my 350 broke down in practise (stator), and we came second, so this year we decided to try and run one bike (the rules stipulate that if you use two seperate bikes you are penalised by 2/3 laps).
Anyway so at Carole we should have used Christian's bike all weekend. Christian runs a different setup to me, he has the original footrest positions, and handle bar, plus he uses different size tyres which are much thinner, this gives the bike a completely different feel, I had significant issues with this last year, so I was determined to have lots of practise to get used to Christian's bike, this was not to be...
First session, and Christian's bike came in covered in oil, and after inspection it appeared that the gearbox breather was blowing off oil, and this led us to check the gearbox oil, which was a lovely paste, formed by the water that was leaking into the gearbox. This could only come from 3 places, either the oil pump oil seal, the crankcase seals, or the small o ring attaching the pipe through the clutch cover.
Anyway we drained the oil, split the clutch cover off, and inspected the o ring (which was fine) and the the water pump seal, which looked to be the issue - good at least it wasn't the crankshaft seals...
Christian sourced an oil seal, and we put it back together and then filled her up with oil, and then water.... and more water.... and more water.... something wrong...
And yes the gearbox was now once again filled with a messy mixture.
During the evening (Friday) we were sleeping outside the circuit so we had to go, so I left Christian sorting it out. BTW, my bike had run well all day, so I had managed to get some reasonable lap times, and had great fun on the 350 again!
Saturday morning, Christian had found the problem, he had sourced a TZ oil seal which had a much bigger central hole, so it had let through the water. He had managed to source the correct sized seal, and all went back together and this time no problems.
He took his bike out for the first timed practise, and was back in after a couple of laps, one of his exhaust pipes had cracked, and he had been sound tested at 111db, we are supposed to be at 102db, so he was ordered to have the bike restested before lunch (12:00).
Christian removed his pipes and they basically came apart in his hands.... but he borrowed some pipes just to get through the test, which brought him down to 108db.... think again....
By this time we thought his bike was never going to get passed, but at lunch time Christian, managed to get some other pipes brought from his home which looked good.
Even with these pipes we had to add some baffling (a couple of bits of coke can added to the end of the pipes - inside of course), and it eventually passed the test.
Unfortunately I had already started my last qualification session on my bike (still running OK), so Christian took his bike out for the last practise, and announced it "ready to race".
Having seen all the problems with his bike, and the relative reliability of my bike, we had some discussion around whether we should go for a 2 bike strategy or not, the advantage being that we could always finish on one bike if the other one broke, but we ended up agreeing to use a single bike confident in the fact that Christian's bike was fixed.
The Race
I was the "orange" arm band, and so took the track for the start, which I managed very well,lost a couple of places directly, but then quickly regained them in the first couple of bends. There were only 15 teams, with about 5-6 teams in the classic category, and the rest in the Superbike category, with all the Gixxers, RC30, VFR's being the favourite bikes. In the classic category there were 4 teams of RD350's and 1 team using a Kawasaki 1000 for the engine.
Having not ridden Christian's bike in practise it took me some while to get up to regular lap times, however I was getting used to it after about 15 minutes, and it started to be fun. As Christian's footrest are that much lower, and I am much heavier than Christian I was dragging everything in the bends, and at one point my toe slider make a break for freedom, however I was having fun, and the bike was running well. I was just starting to get a bit of cramp in my right hip, when the 45 minutes was up, so I pulled off.
The pitstop and re-fueling went without a hitch (we had practised this!!), and Christian went off.... only to come back in after a couple of laps, with a holed piston (right side) - SHIT!
After much umming and ahhhhing, we asked the race director if we could use the second bike, and they said yes but we wouldn't be counted in the results. So we ran back to the trailer and got my bike out (yes it was packed away), and then we had to push it back to the pits in order to get the key for the petrol cap (yes I know it shouldn't be locked....).
Anyway after a break of about 20 minutes (all things considered), Christian took my bike out, for his first ever go on it! Of course it worked like a dream, but he was totally pissed off when he came back in (after 30 minutes) as of course he was having problems getting used to the way my bike was setup, different tyres position etc....
I went out again for my second session, and had great fun playing at eating VFR's and CBR's in the twisties, until they would give up going past me on the straights... Excellent, I even had the back slide out a couple of times which is a first for me.
Although Christian was less than happy he went out and finished the race for the last 30 minutes, and looked like he was having fun.... at least towards the end of his session.
So, it all ended up OK, and we were packing up the stuff, when they announced over the loudspeaker that we had been classed after all, and that we were at the bottom of the podium - 3rd place - excellent!
I think the fact that there were only 3 teams left in our category had something to do with it!
Never mind, we even turned professional this weeekend, as we walked away with a huge cheque in hand - enough to pay for Crhistian's new piston and (a bit) more!
I will post some video later this week. And of course thanks to all who turned up to help us, we had Jean-Luc as the fireman, plus Jean-Mi, as "stand" man, plus others.. Plus of course Libby, who was there to calm our desperation in times of duress!
Speak to you soon as Croix-en-Ternois on the 500 is in two weeks time!
You may remember that I am racing in the Endurance Classic GP organised by ProClassic, which this year has 2 races, one at Carole and the other later on in the year at Croix-en-Ternois. I am racing with Christian Degardin on a Yamaha RD350 YPVS. Last year we were forced to use one bike as my 350 broke down in practise (stator), and we came second, so this year we decided to try and run one bike (the rules stipulate that if you use two seperate bikes you are penalised by 2/3 laps).
Anyway so at Carole we should have used Christian's bike all weekend. Christian runs a different setup to me, he has the original footrest positions, and handle bar, plus he uses different size tyres which are much thinner, this gives the bike a completely different feel, I had significant issues with this last year, so I was determined to have lots of practise to get used to Christian's bike, this was not to be...
First session, and Christian's bike came in covered in oil, and after inspection it appeared that the gearbox breather was blowing off oil, and this led us to check the gearbox oil, which was a lovely paste, formed by the water that was leaking into the gearbox. This could only come from 3 places, either the oil pump oil seal, the crankcase seals, or the small o ring attaching the pipe through the clutch cover.
Anyway we drained the oil, split the clutch cover off, and inspected the o ring (which was fine) and the the water pump seal, which looked to be the issue - good at least it wasn't the crankshaft seals...
Christian sourced an oil seal, and we put it back together and then filled her up with oil, and then water.... and more water.... and more water.... something wrong...
And yes the gearbox was now once again filled with a messy mixture.
During the evening (Friday) we were sleeping outside the circuit so we had to go, so I left Christian sorting it out. BTW, my bike had run well all day, so I had managed to get some reasonable lap times, and had great fun on the 350 again!
Saturday morning, Christian had found the problem, he had sourced a TZ oil seal which had a much bigger central hole, so it had let through the water. He had managed to source the correct sized seal, and all went back together and this time no problems.
He took his bike out for the first timed practise, and was back in after a couple of laps, one of his exhaust pipes had cracked, and he had been sound tested at 111db, we are supposed to be at 102db, so he was ordered to have the bike restested before lunch (12:00).
Christian removed his pipes and they basically came apart in his hands.... but he borrowed some pipes just to get through the test, which brought him down to 108db.... think again....
By this time we thought his bike was never going to get passed, but at lunch time Christian, managed to get some other pipes brought from his home which looked good.
Even with these pipes we had to add some baffling (a couple of bits of coke can added to the end of the pipes - inside of course), and it eventually passed the test.
Unfortunately I had already started my last qualification session on my bike (still running OK), so Christian took his bike out for the last practise, and announced it "ready to race".
Having seen all the problems with his bike, and the relative reliability of my bike, we had some discussion around whether we should go for a 2 bike strategy or not, the advantage being that we could always finish on one bike if the other one broke, but we ended up agreeing to use a single bike confident in the fact that Christian's bike was fixed.
The Race
I was the "orange" arm band, and so took the track for the start, which I managed very well,lost a couple of places directly, but then quickly regained them in the first couple of bends. There were only 15 teams, with about 5-6 teams in the classic category, and the rest in the Superbike category, with all the Gixxers, RC30, VFR's being the favourite bikes. In the classic category there were 4 teams of RD350's and 1 team using a Kawasaki 1000 for the engine.
Having not ridden Christian's bike in practise it took me some while to get up to regular lap times, however I was getting used to it after about 15 minutes, and it started to be fun. As Christian's footrest are that much lower, and I am much heavier than Christian I was dragging everything in the bends, and at one point my toe slider make a break for freedom, however I was having fun, and the bike was running well. I was just starting to get a bit of cramp in my right hip, when the 45 minutes was up, so I pulled off.
The pitstop and re-fueling went without a hitch (we had practised this!!), and Christian went off.... only to come back in after a couple of laps, with a holed piston (right side) - SHIT!
After much umming and ahhhhing, we asked the race director if we could use the second bike, and they said yes but we wouldn't be counted in the results. So we ran back to the trailer and got my bike out (yes it was packed away), and then we had to push it back to the pits in order to get the key for the petrol cap (yes I know it shouldn't be locked....).
Anyway after a break of about 20 minutes (all things considered), Christian took my bike out, for his first ever go on it! Of course it worked like a dream, but he was totally pissed off when he came back in (after 30 minutes) as of course he was having problems getting used to the way my bike was setup, different tyres position etc....
I went out again for my second session, and had great fun playing at eating VFR's and CBR's in the twisties, until they would give up going past me on the straights... Excellent, I even had the back slide out a couple of times which is a first for me.
Although Christian was less than happy he went out and finished the race for the last 30 minutes, and looked like he was having fun.... at least towards the end of his session.
So, it all ended up OK, and we were packing up the stuff, when they announced over the loudspeaker that we had been classed after all, and that we were at the bottom of the podium - 3rd place - excellent!
I think the fact that there were only 3 teams left in our category had something to do with it!
Never mind, we even turned professional this weeekend, as we walked away with a huge cheque in hand - enough to pay for Crhistian's new piston and (a bit) more!
I will post some video later this week. And of course thanks to all who turned up to help us, we had Jean-Luc as the fireman, plus Jean-Mi, as "stand" man, plus others.. Plus of course Libby, who was there to calm our desperation in times of duress!
Speak to you soon as Croix-en-Ternois on the 500 is in two weeks time!
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Technical Update...
So I eventually found two issues :- One plug cap with a higher resistance than normal, so I replaced all plug caps with a 5K ohm NGK plug cap. Secondly I found that I had reassembled a carburetor spacer upside down, this would have caused an air leakage on cylinder nr. 3. I can't say for sure how long it has been like that... but I hope it hasn't damaged the cylinder, as this one will have been running lean, hopefully the overall richness will have protected it to some extent.
So whilst troubleshooting I have collected the following data, which is worthy of note :-
Low Tension coils = 0.6 ohm
High Tension coils = 22K ohms measured cap to cap
Whilst I was taking the carbs apart, I did notice a fair amount of corrosion on the emulsion tubes especially in the carbs 1 & 3, I don't know if this is a result of the bike spending time on it's side stand or what.
So whilst troubleshooting I have collected the following data, which is worthy of note :-
Low Tension coils = 0.6 ohm
High Tension coils = 22K ohms measured cap to cap
Whilst I was taking the carbs apart, I did notice a fair amount of corrosion on the emulsion tubes especially in the carbs 1 & 3, I don't know if this is a result of the bike spending time on it's side stand or what.
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