Hi All,
Just realised I hadn't posted for some while. The Yam is waiting for me to custom make some cables, I've bought the nipples the gas burner, the solder, it's just really waiting for me to get motivated again. I need to finish fitting the VM34 carbs to the Yam, and also finish the foot rest hanger that I am trying to make out of a plate of ali that was sitting around - not sure it's thick enough really to support my weight, suppose we'll see...
I have orderd a Zeeltronic ignition and power valve controller for the Suzuki, in the hope I can move the hole in my power band around by opening/closing the valves at different times, the programmable ignition should allow me to gain a few horsepower as well, again I will need to test early in the year, in order to get it right.
The snow has arrived, and with Xmas just around the corner, I have other stuff to do, so will start on the bikes again in the new year, still keeping up the Gym, so with a bit of luck, I will keep my weight down, and muscle my upper body - especially the shoulder.
All the best to your families, and have a great Christmas and a happy new year.
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Update....
Well, it's now 4 weeks since my accident and I am no longer wearing a sling, and my physiotherapist says I should now start to muscle up the shoulder. I have pretty much complete mobility although still some pain. I will be left with a bump on the shoulder where the collar bone became disconnected from the shoulder, apparently they won't operate on that unless there is a particular reason, which for the moment I don't have.
Although I haven't been driving (until this last week), I have been working from home, and at the same time helping Pierre-Luc change the engine on his Triumph Thunderbird! We found an engine in Wales, and had it shipped down to Grenoble, and have fitted it. It started up pretty much first time last Saturday! So now I once again have some space to start working on my bikes. The Yam, needs a new right hand footrest, brake lever, plus the fairing needs straightening out. I have received some VM 34 carbs, which will be added this winter, oh and I need to get a new battery, as my expensive LiFo went missing during the accident.
So far the fairing is off, the carbs are off and I am messing with the footrest to see what I can build.
I still need to buy some new leathers, although I will try to get the old ones fixed. They cut through the zips and up the arms and across the chest to get my arm out, so I am not sure a fix will be possible. I am looking at different makes of leathers, and I am zooming in on either Dainese (shop in Grenoble), Furygan which are French, and Gimoto which is Italien, but they do a web based made to measure service which looks good, although expensive. I did try to buy some tax free leathers in Andorra, however they only stock "Spannish market" leathers which do not have a cotton lining which is obligatory in France!
Although I haven't been driving (until this last week), I have been working from home, and at the same time helping Pierre-Luc change the engine on his Triumph Thunderbird! We found an engine in Wales, and had it shipped down to Grenoble, and have fitted it. It started up pretty much first time last Saturday! So now I once again have some space to start working on my bikes. The Yam, needs a new right hand footrest, brake lever, plus the fairing needs straightening out. I have received some VM 34 carbs, which will be added this winter, oh and I need to get a new battery, as my expensive LiFo went missing during the accident.
So far the fairing is off, the carbs are off and I am messing with the footrest to see what I can build.
I still need to buy some new leathers, although I will try to get the old ones fixed. They cut through the zips and up the arms and across the chest to get my arm out, so I am not sure a fix will be possible. I am looking at different makes of leathers, and I am zooming in on either Dainese (shop in Grenoble), Furygan which are French, and Gimoto which is Italien, but they do a web based made to measure service which looks good, although expensive. I did try to buy some tax free leathers in Andorra, however they only stock "Spannish market" leathers which do not have a cotton lining which is obligatory in France!
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Croix-en-ternois Race Report
Hi All,
Got back from an eventful weekend at C-en-T yesterday.
To start off the weekend the Yamaha was still leaking gearbox oil, and this turned out to be the neutral plate which had come slightly loose, whilst I was looking, the power valve pulley cover also needed tightening - this may have been a reason for the flat running at Ledenon...Anyway I was feeling very unprepared as we arrived at the circuit, I hadn't even looked at the plugs on the RG, and I was supposed to be racing in both, the classic and Superbike series, along with the 3 hour endurance on a mates VFR, so not much time could be spent on mechanics!
I managed to test both the 350 and the RG500 on Friday afternoon, and Francois turned up late with the VFR, but we still managed to get a 20 minute session with it, which went OK. My lap times were pretty slow, but he was running some road tyres, so it would be better in the race.
At Friday evening scrutineering, one of the marshalls commented on oil covering the RG500 engine, and he wanted me to take a closer look - I did try and tell him, that I was waiting for the Gammna listers to come up with some ideas, but he wouldn't take that as an excuse.
So Friday evening, I removed the carbs and replaced all the dodgy looking O'rings, then liberally applied gasket silicon around the rubbers to ensure no leaks from the carbs. I checked the plug colour while I had the fairing off, and everything looked good!
The Saturday morning started with running in some pads and tyres for the endurance, and then qualifying for the superbike and classics. The organisation were planning on running the slower qualified Superbikes with the classics, so I needed to get a reasonable time with the RG, in order to be able to qualify in the A final, and then run the 350 in the classics.
Well I managed to get under a 1:03 with the RG running really well, the official time was a 1:03.013, but my Alfano had me at 1:02.88, so I was pretty pleased, although still only good enough for the second to last line on the grid! It just keeps getting quicker!
The 350 I managed to put in a respectable 1:06 which wasn't near my fastest time on the 350, but good enough to qualify on the 3rd row.
The first Superbike race was Saturday afternoon, I managed an OK start and got in front of a few bikes on the first lap, and managed to stay there until being lapped near the end of the race. I didn't manage to improve my time, so I was a little disappointed, I had made a rear sprocket change just before the race which obviously did not have the desired effect!
Before the first classic race Francois put our race tyres on the VFR, and I had a session on them which felt pretty good, much more confidence inspiring than the road tyres.
The last race of the day was the first Classic final, running with the "final B" superbikes. My start was good, not losing out to anybody. On the 3rd bend I managed the inside line past a 1200 Moto Guzzi, and then under the bridge, and then .....nothing.... I woke up in the ambulance stark naked with a pain in my shoulder.
2 versions of my accident, the first was the guzzi and me came into contact and both bikes went down, the second version was that I was too wide and turned into the bend with to much brake. Anyway I can not (still) remember a thing. I spent 5 minutes layed out on the track whilst they cut off my leathers to put back my shoulder which was dislocated, I came round but Libby said I was speaking rubbish for a further 10 minutes.. Where am I? What bike was I on? What happened?... looping around and around...The records broke!!
I spent the Saturday night in the hospital just to make sure I was all there, and they let me go Sunday morning. Francois managed to find a replacement for the endurance and they finished 12th, a respectable end to the weekend.
Thanks to Libby for driving the van all the way home and Hughes, and Francois for helping us load up, and Laure Arnold for driving Libby to the hospital.
I now have to wait for 45 days before I can get the Yamaha back to showroom condition! Still I have plenty of time to do email, and edit the video.
My helmet did it's job and is now dead, and my leathers have also seen better days, good job Xmas is coming!!
Got back from an eventful weekend at C-en-T yesterday.
To start off the weekend the Yamaha was still leaking gearbox oil, and this turned out to be the neutral plate which had come slightly loose, whilst I was looking, the power valve pulley cover also needed tightening - this may have been a reason for the flat running at Ledenon...Anyway I was feeling very unprepared as we arrived at the circuit, I hadn't even looked at the plugs on the RG, and I was supposed to be racing in both, the classic and Superbike series, along with the 3 hour endurance on a mates VFR, so not much time could be spent on mechanics!
I managed to test both the 350 and the RG500 on Friday afternoon, and Francois turned up late with the VFR, but we still managed to get a 20 minute session with it, which went OK. My lap times were pretty slow, but he was running some road tyres, so it would be better in the race.
At Friday evening scrutineering, one of the marshalls commented on oil covering the RG500 engine, and he wanted me to take a closer look - I did try and tell him, that I was waiting for the Gammna listers to come up with some ideas, but he wouldn't take that as an excuse.
So Friday evening, I removed the carbs and replaced all the dodgy looking O'rings, then liberally applied gasket silicon around the rubbers to ensure no leaks from the carbs. I checked the plug colour while I had the fairing off, and everything looked good!
The Saturday morning started with running in some pads and tyres for the endurance, and then qualifying for the superbike and classics. The organisation were planning on running the slower qualified Superbikes with the classics, so I needed to get a reasonable time with the RG, in order to be able to qualify in the A final, and then run the 350 in the classics.
Well I managed to get under a 1:03 with the RG running really well, the official time was a 1:03.013, but my Alfano had me at 1:02.88, so I was pretty pleased, although still only good enough for the second to last line on the grid! It just keeps getting quicker!
The 350 I managed to put in a respectable 1:06 which wasn't near my fastest time on the 350, but good enough to qualify on the 3rd row.
The first Superbike race was Saturday afternoon, I managed an OK start and got in front of a few bikes on the first lap, and managed to stay there until being lapped near the end of the race. I didn't manage to improve my time, so I was a little disappointed, I had made a rear sprocket change just before the race which obviously did not have the desired effect!
Before the first classic race Francois put our race tyres on the VFR, and I had a session on them which felt pretty good, much more confidence inspiring than the road tyres.
The last race of the day was the first Classic final, running with the "final B" superbikes. My start was good, not losing out to anybody. On the 3rd bend I managed the inside line past a 1200 Moto Guzzi, and then under the bridge, and then .....nothing.... I woke up in the ambulance stark naked with a pain in my shoulder.
2 versions of my accident, the first was the guzzi and me came into contact and both bikes went down, the second version was that I was too wide and turned into the bend with to much brake. Anyway I can not (still) remember a thing. I spent 5 minutes layed out on the track whilst they cut off my leathers to put back my shoulder which was dislocated, I came round but Libby said I was speaking rubbish for a further 10 minutes.. Where am I? What bike was I on? What happened?... looping around and around...The records broke!!
I spent the Saturday night in the hospital just to make sure I was all there, and they let me go Sunday morning. Francois managed to find a replacement for the endurance and they finished 12th, a respectable end to the weekend.
Thanks to Libby for driving the van all the way home and Hughes, and Francois for helping us load up, and Laure Arnold for driving Libby to the hospital.
I now have to wait for 45 days before I can get the Yamaha back to showroom condition! Still I have plenty of time to do email, and edit the video.
My helmet did it's job and is now dead, and my leathers have also seen better days, good job Xmas is coming!!
Sunday, 25 September 2011
Yamaha gear shaft removal
So after the oil leak on the Yam I decided that the gear change shaft must be worn sufficiently to cause the leak, and hence needed to be changed.
In order to remove the shaft, you need to remove the clutch basket in order to draw the shaft out from teh right hand side of the bike. In order I drained the gearbox oil, drained the water, removed the clutch engine cover, remove the clutch pressure plate then all the friction plates and steel plates and finally the inner basket and the out basket, tehn you can simply pull on the gear shaft and it comes all the awy through. I tool a couple of photos, but you can't really see the wear on the shaft, however you can certainly feel it, so it definately needs changing. I just need to hope my parts arrive before Thursday, as we will be leaving for Croix-en-Ternois for the last race weekend of the year on the Thursday evening.
In order to remove the shaft, you need to remove the clutch basket in order to draw the shaft out from teh right hand side of the bike. In order I drained the gearbox oil, drained the water, removed the clutch engine cover, remove the clutch pressure plate then all the friction plates and steel plates and finally the inner basket and the out basket, tehn you can simply pull on the gear shaft and it comes all the awy through. I tool a couple of photos, but you can't really see the wear on the shaft, however you can certainly feel it, so it definately needs changing. I just need to hope my parts arrive before Thursday, as we will be leaving for Croix-en-Ternois for the last race weekend of the year on the Thursday evening.
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Ledenon Race Report
Arrived at the circuit at around 11:30 Friday morning with Chris (my brother), and Carly (my daughter) in the van. Managed to get everything setup pretty quickly, but despite that I missed the first practise session of the day, and signing up after lunch meant I also missed one of the afternoon practises, only the ProClassic practise session had places, so I signed up for that.
Wasn't too worried although I would have liked to take the 350 around the circuit, as the last visit here, I had only used the RG 500. I was racing in 2 categories, the VMA Postclassic 350 class, aswell as the ProClassic Superbike class with the RG 500, so it would be a busy weekend.
I had moved the needles on the RG500 to the top slot, thereby weakening the mixture in the midrange, and to be honest I didn't perceive much difference from my previous test at Ledenon a month previous, so in the evening I decided I would try and go the other way and lift the needles to the middle slot (Nr. 3 from the top), in timed practise on the Saturday I was convinced that this had helped my low end power and filled the hole slightly, so we maintained this setting for the first race.
The 350 was running well, although a little flat, I put this down to the very hot temperatures on the Saturday morning ~ 30 degrees C. I probably should have down jetted, but I couldn't be bothered, better a little rich, especially as the engine temperature was already bordering on the red line.
My first race was on the 350 on Saturday afternoon, where after a reasonable start I was soon fighting it out with many other TZ's and RD's running at around the same speeds as I. After qualifying with a 1:47, my race speed came down to a 1:46, which although relatively pleasing, I was still being blown into the weeds down the straight, and up the hills, after analysing the situation we decided to drop the gearing as I was only using 6th gear at the very end of the longest straight, in the hope this would give me more oomph up the hills. My gear lever shaft started leaking again, and after having already changed the oil seal, it would seem that either the shaft is worn, or grooved at was persistently leaking. The droplets of oil were reaching the left hand side of the tyre, and I felt it slip a couple of times during the race, so in between races we got to grips with some gasket cement, and tried to stem the flow. We also decided to drop the gearing to a 15 tooth sprocket at the front to improve acceleration!
On Sunday, I had three races starting and ending with the RG500, with my second VMA PostClassic race in the middle.
The weather on Sunday morning was overcast with a high level of humidity, and because I had initially gone richer with my needles, I thought the bike would run well, however after an honest start I soon discovered that the two position change of the needles was too much, and the bike was not carburating well at all, anyway I managed to stay the race out and managed a lowly 1:46:5 and somewhere near the back.
The 2nd race with the Yamaha 350, I got a good start but was blocked in around the first series of bends, and lost a few spots. I then had a good battle with a couple of Ducatis (not in my category), and eventually passing both, the bike was going well, much better with the lower gearing and I had a good race improving my position over the first race and also getting a best lap time of 1:45:4 so a pretty good race, and I marked a few points as well!
The 2nd race with the RG, was great, the bike was really pulling hard, after 8K rpm and the temperature stayed around 80 degrees C, which although high, was reasonable enough not to worry about it. I got a reasonable start, and managed to build up some good speed. I was fighting with an FZR600, and once I had managed to get past him (finally), I concentrated on running down a VFR, and then a 900SS, which I took in the later stages of the race. I am still outside the points (18th), but managed to get a 1:41:1 which is definately a personal best so well happy. The bike still has a hole below 7.5K but it was very managable with huge gobs of power coming in all the way to 12K. I have seen some people on the RGV250 forum that recommends using the RG400 needles, so maybe I'll try them out. I will also try dropping the gearbox sprocket as like the 350 I was only hitting 6th gear near the end of the straight - a note for next year!
Thanks to Chris and Carly for helping out all weekend, and my buddies for coming to support on the Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Libby did film a little bit of Sunday, so I will post that up as soon as I get home.
Next race will be at Croix-en-Ternois, the first weekend of October!
Nr. 62 on the 500
Nr. 72 on the 350
Wasn't too worried although I would have liked to take the 350 around the circuit, as the last visit here, I had only used the RG 500. I was racing in 2 categories, the VMA Postclassic 350 class, aswell as the ProClassic Superbike class with the RG 500, so it would be a busy weekend.
I had moved the needles on the RG500 to the top slot, thereby weakening the mixture in the midrange, and to be honest I didn't perceive much difference from my previous test at Ledenon a month previous, so in the evening I decided I would try and go the other way and lift the needles to the middle slot (Nr. 3 from the top), in timed practise on the Saturday I was convinced that this had helped my low end power and filled the hole slightly, so we maintained this setting for the first race.
The 350 was running well, although a little flat, I put this down to the very hot temperatures on the Saturday morning ~ 30 degrees C. I probably should have down jetted, but I couldn't be bothered, better a little rich, especially as the engine temperature was already bordering on the red line.
My first race was on the 350 on Saturday afternoon, where after a reasonable start I was soon fighting it out with many other TZ's and RD's running at around the same speeds as I. After qualifying with a 1:47, my race speed came down to a 1:46, which although relatively pleasing, I was still being blown into the weeds down the straight, and up the hills, after analysing the situation we decided to drop the gearing as I was only using 6th gear at the very end of the longest straight, in the hope this would give me more oomph up the hills. My gear lever shaft started leaking again, and after having already changed the oil seal, it would seem that either the shaft is worn, or grooved at was persistently leaking. The droplets of oil were reaching the left hand side of the tyre, and I felt it slip a couple of times during the race, so in between races we got to grips with some gasket cement, and tried to stem the flow. We also decided to drop the gearing to a 15 tooth sprocket at the front to improve acceleration!
On Sunday, I had three races starting and ending with the RG500, with my second VMA PostClassic race in the middle.
The weather on Sunday morning was overcast with a high level of humidity, and because I had initially gone richer with my needles, I thought the bike would run well, however after an honest start I soon discovered that the two position change of the needles was too much, and the bike was not carburating well at all, anyway I managed to stay the race out and managed a lowly 1:46:5 and somewhere near the back.
The 2nd race with the Yamaha 350, I got a good start but was blocked in around the first series of bends, and lost a few spots. I then had a good battle with a couple of Ducatis (not in my category), and eventually passing both, the bike was going well, much better with the lower gearing and I had a good race improving my position over the first race and also getting a best lap time of 1:45:4 so a pretty good race, and I marked a few points as well!
The 2nd race with the RG, was great, the bike was really pulling hard, after 8K rpm and the temperature stayed around 80 degrees C, which although high, was reasonable enough not to worry about it. I got a reasonable start, and managed to build up some good speed. I was fighting with an FZR600, and once I had managed to get past him (finally), I concentrated on running down a VFR, and then a 900SS, which I took in the later stages of the race. I am still outside the points (18th), but managed to get a 1:41:1 which is definately a personal best so well happy. The bike still has a hole below 7.5K but it was very managable with huge gobs of power coming in all the way to 12K. I have seen some people on the RGV250 forum that recommends using the RG400 needles, so maybe I'll try them out. I will also try dropping the gearbox sprocket as like the 350 I was only hitting 6th gear near the end of the straight - a note for next year!
Thanks to Chris and Carly for helping out all weekend, and my buddies for coming to support on the Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Libby did film a little bit of Sunday, so I will post that up as soon as I get home.
Next race will be at Croix-en-Ternois, the first weekend of October!
Nr. 62 on the 500
Nr. 72 on the 350
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