belfastguzzi

You know it well. It's the Kerryman's. ........................ I reckon it's a good buy. Plenty of new parts, including complete engine and replacement clutch. Sure what could go wrong?

Celebrating 3 birthdays today, which come close together. They range from grandson's first birthday to oldest son's 30th. It should make me feel old. But I'll not remember it for more than 2 minutes, so everything's ok. Hey, why are those people arriving at the house? Is something happening today?

Foto, what format / size did you compress your movie to? I did the longer version of mine as a 10 minute MPEG-4. It's 118MB. As the quality is low to start with, the upload on Youtube is not good. Your movie has the range of playback settings. I can't save mine a HD quality movie, as it isn't HD, so I I have compressed mine again, a bit shorter at 8 minutes and this time saved it as a Quicktime movie at Best quality. Of course this resulted in a very big file. It's 2.1GB and the upload to Youtube says it's going to be a 344 minutes upload. I'll probably not continue with that. What's yours and what size was the file? Looks like I need to go back to a MPEG-4 version?

I've never come across this. Someone's personal custom build perhaps, rather than a factory variant?

Very sad

It is a good video. I've just had a quick look through past pages as I had posted that before and there were some other nice videos posted around the time, as I remember, that would be worth looking at. I don't see it, I'll maybe do a search later, but I did come across this post that has other videos. Is it time to collect some of the good ones together again in one post? > http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=16551 I see that he is selling it, or has by now sold it. Prices for Mk l & Mk ll Le Mans, as well as special custom builds, are going through the roof. Here there is a Mk1 (not completely original) for sale at £9,000+ and a Mk ll for £7,500+. In England some are asking the same prices. What is it for the customs... some at £13,000... some £20,000...

GuzziM & Tom: This is interesting: http://motocrossactionmag.com/Main/News/SHOOTOUT-CRF450-VERSUS-CR500-6558.aspx You already know this > “But, and this is a big but, if you have the skill to pull the trigger, the CR500 would actually gobble the CRF450 up in deep loam, rough straights and steep hills. The big two-stroke was a rocketship when it had a rocket man at the controls.”

Miniature bike workshops Click and scroll down.

Is it the fault of American legislation that the 2 stroke MXs have disappeared? And what America does, the rest of the world has to follow. I do still have mine. No batteries required for it to operate if you're stuck. A very different era! Baldini, build quality is one of the reasons that I like Pentax, as well as physical size) and the modern one is still robust - except you can't get away from dependence on all the micro electronics/computer. I'm interested in the idea of the newish Pentax K-01 as a 'simpler' form of mirrorless DSLR with much of the same picture quality as the serious K5 and also cheaper. However, just looking on the web, it's not really quite right and the design probably isn't quite right either. For some reason, video doesn't seem so good on it. Maybe that's deliberate to have some artificial differentiation from the K5? It's designed by 'A Designer' and there's a nice idea (not quite) there.

Ha haa, better & better Foto. Excellent idea and execution. As far as cameras are concerned, I'd love to get a good DSLR. For SLRs I stuck with Pentax (yes, my camera history parallels my motorbike history) and then got their first DSLR, the impossibly named *ist. It was not great then and it's primitive now. I'm tempted by the current K5 and when a new model comes out, I expect the K5's price will drop further. I wonder has anyone on here using Pentax? Should I stick or jump ship?

Hi Stefano thanks for adding your comment. I think that he likes this type of course: it is like the sort that he started on – and I guess he chose the bike because it suits the course. There are not many natural courses like this left here, mostly they are artificially created now. I'm not an expert, I know little about this racing – but it was a great day and having the (fierce) older bike there, battling the modern 450s added special interest There was a '91 250 also. The Ulster Grand Prix (the 'fastest road race in the world') was on yesterday too. In some ways this scramble was better spectator value, I reckon. Now, time to get back to the video editing while watching the Olympics closing ceremony. David

It was great to see Gordon Crockard taking his 1991 CR500 (No.7) out front in every race at the Bell's Hill Scramble yesterday. This is just the start of / first stab at a movie that I'll have to finish later some time. The video and audio was captured on a compact camera that I brought only intending to take a few stills. At the races, I thought that the nature of the event really needed the video, rather than photos. To be continued – the rest will actually have the motorbike action

Fantastic. You wouldn't need to go out of your tent all day. The things you could do with that stuff!

...it's there in Monkey's photo. Spare underwear?

Dave, if you are thinking of a 2011/12 bike then I'd be confident that it will be good. As for asking a dealer what they do and whether they follow procedure, or even PDIs, I think that any such verbal assurance is useless, unless that dealer is a close relative or you know and trust them very well. I've been told those things and it just wasn't true, or procedures were only partially done. Pete, mine ate its tappets to disaster at less than 2,500 miles. They must have been shedding metal from day one. The parts must have been bad, though I can also believe that set-up was bad too and that, for example, the valve / tappet gaps could have been out. I subsequently found them to be badly out when I checked following later dealer work. As a matter of interest, when you get bikes in with the sacred screw messed up, do you have a procedure to get it back to ballpark, or what do you do, if anything? Though I understand that it can never be completely right again, I'm definitely happy that I got mine much better after doing all the work with the Axone and a balancer. I do not understand why Guzzi don't cap it so that it can't be fiddled with. Yellow paint just isn't adequate.

So far none of you mentioned the prime necessity, the you-know-what. ping/snap

JB, I just remembered when replying in another thread that the 'new' spring is made with a wider coil diameter to work on the incorrect pawl arm without binding. Therefore, in theory, the pawl arm should not matter – just fit a new spring. In practise, you will probably feel safer with the new 'big' spring and a pawl arm with the original 'small' spring boss. Whatever you do, make sure you look carefully at how the parts work together and measure the diameters.

Stu, the 'new' springs were made with wider diameter spring coils, presumably so that they would work with the variety of sizes that the MG pawl arm comes in! Therefore you should be ok to just fit the spring. The best thing would be to measure the parts when you do the job, to be sure that they do work freely together. If you do find that you have the oversized part and that you do need or want to get the original 'proper' spec (because the spring looks tight when fitted on it and operated) then you can either file down the part that you have, when you are doing the job, or put together the bits that you have, order a new pawl arm and then fit it later.

Yes, that was what I did in the temporary repair period, before getting new parts. I filed down the oversized boss and I bent a new hook on the broken spring. This was fitted and worked fine, but I put new parts in when they arrived at a later stage. The pictures should be in the FAQ topic.

Some Italian Detective you are! I deduce from the original postings that the original spring broke in 2011, having survived for 13k Km. I declare, by the postmark, that it was August-September 2011, or thereabouts. It was replaced at a dealers, while the owner was not looking. Subsequently, after the passage of another 13k, there has been a second ping-tinkle. The owner surmises that the spring has again expired or been assassinated. On that basis he has ordered a full investigation (on here) and replacement parts (from there) – but he will not disassemble and look until the new parts arrive. Due to the fiendish ways of the Italianos, said parts may not arrive until... September! So, what do you make of those deductions?

Naively Miraculously

Baldi, I can send you a great catalogue. It has jigsaws of all the Town Halls of Britain and all sorts of lovely pipes and slippers to drool over. The offers on Horlicks are irresistible. Uh oh it's nearly 3pm: bedtime!

Have measured the diameter of the post on the pawl arm you have now? KB Baldi, that's what I was asking but he doesn't have the measurements. JB, if you are not sure which bit to measure, you can see in the photos, but post back here when you have the new parts and are doing the work. MZ, I sort of thought that as well: might as well just put a new arm in anyway. On the other hand, if it is the correct pawl arm, I can't see that it should need replaced in the normal life of the bike. Also, if somehow there is variation in the size of later arm dimensions (such as 2004) then you might get another bad one and fit it. Best thing is to know what is in the box and if it's good, then let it be – but keep changing the danged spring! ?

By 2004, I should think the bike would have the correct pawl arm? Sorry I can't remember the various details now. Did you measure the size of the boss on the arm when you changed the spring before? Unfortunately the springs do seem to just keep breaking and there is no guarantee that a changed spring will last for any particular time. Mine did not survive for anything like the miles that yours did.

Hopefully