Flywheel is off

Just a quickie to say, that the flywheel is off and replaced with a locally bought second hand one. With all of the force I put in in removing the old one it had tightened the rivets and was no longer use, so I will keep it as a spare.

The "new" fibre reeds are in, and the engine is now closed - I just need to put back the carbs and fill her up with oil and I should be able to start running in.... if it all works!!

Mechanical Update

Well I have stripped off the head, barrels, engine covers, and as I think I mentioned the last time, the rotor (flywheel) was loose, I since have been through the local Yamaha shops drawer full of pullers, but only the two legged puller would do the job - or so I thought, unfortunately it didn't work, the rotor is on so solidly that I was actually damaging the edges of the rotor with the puller as I tightened it up! Still I have sourced another rotor (it needed changing anyway), and I have now bought a pattern tool from RDLCCRAZY in the UK, Norbo is great, always reactive, and cheap!

I quickly tried the tool last evening, however I think I will need to get the scaffold pole out, as even the well fitting tool is challenged. I hope no-one has glued this on or even worse welded on.....

Other updates, I have changed the main jets in the carbs (gone up to 260's), changed also the needles and the float needles and seats, this I hope, will get rid of my problem with the carb overflowing with fuel.

I have also taken a load of photos of my Stan Stephens barrels and head in order to copy his work on the old ones myself - this along with the rebuild will be my winter work. The work seems nice (I'm no expert!), and clean although some of the edges seem very sharp, I might get some emery cloth to the internal ports just to take the edge off them. The head has had 1 mm taken of it (more compression), the inlet ports enlarged by around 40%, and the exhaust raised I think, he has also modified some new power valves to meet the new profile of the exhaust ports. The transfer ports have been "sharpened" and a lot of material has been taken off.

I am also trying to get my head around making a new seat unit, using the one I have used this year as a "plug" (the basis of a mold). I am planning to do this in glass fibre, plus I may look at trying to protect my engine cases with some carbon fibre tape - I have never worked with carbon fibre before so this should be interesting.

I have been looking on E-bay for new (old) front disk calipers to replace the mono piston ones I have, but I may just bleed them, with Racing Brake fluid (Motul RBF) which may improve the performance considerably (or so I have been told!). The rear brake was rubbing and making an annoying noise, so that has been cleaned and bled (with standard fluid).

Speak to you soon, as soon as I get the rotor off!!

Final Postion 2007

Well, the final positions are posted on the proclassic web site, and I finished 12th out of 27 point scorers, in the "unlimited" category. This was helped by my 10 points gained at Croix-en-Ternois - a good weekend for points! I totaled 47 points, with only one race (my first) where I didn't score. I finished second RDLC. Not bad, but I know next year I can do better..... Oliver has bought me "A Twist of the Wrist" for my birthday. This is a book from the top American road race school, so I won't have any excuses next year!!

What is planned for the bike :-
1/. Tuned head and barrels
2/. Renewed carburetor jets, needles, o'rings etc.. (should cure the leaky float needle)
3/. Carbon reed valves
4/. New seat unit - I am going to attempt to make this myself
5/. Engine protectors
6/. Remove battery replace with capacitors
7/. Re paint the trailer and potentially decorate it...

I am sure with that lot to complete I will have a busy autumn/winter!

Clip from Race 4

I created this video clip, showing "my" race 4 where I came back from behind the safety car to my "normal" position.

Some video clips of "incidents" at Croix

Croix-En-Ternois

The weekend was the last in the pro-classic series for 2007. We were invited to participate in the "Chpt France Vitesse Motos Anciennes"! Because of the limited number of races we had the possibility of having two complete grids running. The split was "Unlimited & Post Unlimited" and "Classic", however due to the lack of classics to fill the grid we were also allowed to run in the classics just for the fun.

This is what I did, so I had 2 x free practises, 2 x timed practises, 2 x Unlimited races and 2 x Classic races - 8 sessions in the weekend!

The weekend was great, weather-wise and Libby was really pleased to see we had plenty of room in the pits (and loos!).

My first practise session started badly as I only finished 10 or so laps before the bike cut out! I pushed to the side, and then it started again no problem, going back to the pits did not identify where the breakdown was coming from, but a fresh set of plugs allowed me to participate in the second practise.

First timed practise went fine although I only managed a 1:10.410 - I had managed a 1:09 in the race at the begining of the season and I was really expecting to see 1:09's consistently, but this was only just the case, in the second practise session where I managed a 1:09.138! Enough to get me in the middle of the pack for the classics race and at the back for the unlimited's.

Race 1 (Classic)
I got a reasonable start, and had a relatively lonely race - I ended up roughly in my place at 11th position scratch - this didn't score me any points as of course my category is "unlimited". Best time during the race 1:09.314.....

Race 1 (Unlimited)
Didin't feel like a good race, my favourite opponents were in front, and I could not make much impact on them for a good part of the race. I finished with a best time of 1:08.946 - I really must concentrate on keeping my corner speed, I get the impression that I am braking too early down the long straight! I tried braking with my rear brake, but this did lead to a scary moment as I blocked the back wheel - I was convinced I had a puncture for at least 2-3 bends! Once I got used to using the rear brake, it did really help shorten my braking distances, although not making much (if any) difference on my lap times. I finished 11th of my category so scoring some useful points!

Race 2 (Classic)
A misty start to the day, but the track was completely dry - we were the first race on! I had a good race finishing in 10th position scratch with a best time of 1:08.962. Nothing to add.

Race 2 (Unlimited)
After a 40 minute wait around (after the previous race), we were called to the pre-grid. Unfortunately my bike refused to start! We changed the plugs, and eventually got it started by opening the throttle wide, and pushing, most spare hands were used to push me and whilst the bike started a couple of times it kept stalling almost straight away. We got the bike on a rolling road, and the guy was managing to 2.5K revs in first gear, but the bike refused to start, by this time my race had already done a warmup lap nd if I wanted to join it was now or never!

We were just giving up, when of course "old reliable" burst into song! I screamed it all the way to the pits (10K revs all the way) to keep the bike going. There was no-one on the gate so I took the bike out onto the track and completed a lap, however I had no idea of where in the proceedings we were, I was not sure if we were on the first, second warm up lap or even if the race had started, so I pulled back into the pit lane. The race director told me could start but behind the safety car!

Just to add to the stress the bike stalled!!!!.............. But started first kick!

I started behind the car, and he pulled wide to let me overtake on the second bend I was at least 200 yards behind the nearest rider! I suppose the red mist came down, and I decided that this would not be my final position on the final race of the year! I managed to get past Olivier (69), then Patrick (44), and then past Herve (13) to finish an honourable 12th position in my category, with a best lap time of 1:08.280, my personal best for this circuit! Someone in the pit lane even said I should start behind the car more often, as I was quicker catching up!

Anyway, a great end to a great weekend, and a fantastic season - thanks to all that have followed me electronically or in the flesh (yes my Dad, and brother were over for the weekend!).

I will post a couple of video clips and photos, but my blog will go into winter mode of preparing the bike - I still have some bits to fit!!!

Knee down

And I forgot to mention ---- I got my knee down on the off camber left hander at Ledenon. Just show's it can be done even with my style!! That wasn't the only thing that was touching the floor. My new pipes went down on both sides which really pissed me off. You pay for racing pipes and they have less ground clearance than the original exhausts... I feel there is room for some hammer work!!

Speak to you soon.