17" rims on 3CL/JOta

Mingh

Hero member
Did anyone try? Does it affect handling a lot? Does anyone know if there are stainless steel front fenders available?
I was offered a spoke wheel set. Not planning to take it to the track. I currently don't often have ground clearance issues on the open roads

cheers!
 
Yes I tried and several others have too (not necessarily on this Forum)

I think Max Collogne runs 17" on his SFC rep.

I've run 18/18, 18r/17f and 17/17 on my triple road and track.
I've observed the following, choice of tyres gives handling improvement only by going from  best of 18" to best of 17". Some improvement with turn in, also noticed with 18/17 as you might expect with the front tipped in.

You may have issues with a 160 rear fouling the swinging arm. There is no categoric quick answer, it is entirely dependant on the make, aspect ratio, rim width, wheel diameter..
Chain issues, as above.

You will probably have issues with getting it on and off the centre stand.
You might have issues with the side stand especially if you run the original design. You probably wont have issues with the side stand developed by Jim Bushman me , it'll just lean over more. LESS.edit thanks Cam

Gearing will be affected you may want 38 or 39 teeth to standardise it.

Depending on your riding style, you probably will touch down the full alternator cover on the road, especially with the earlier shorter forks.

It might look a bit odd, if its a standard style bike, certainly the front mudguard wont look right and if you change it, its might look odd with a lot of fork leg exposed and a small wheel.  Forks dropped in the yokes or and extended front steering stem, offsets that issue.

Arse end may look funny with a big mudguard.  

Big difference with inertia, the bike was much easier to flick with smaller overall diameter , which is more than 1" when you've adapted to a smaller aspect ratio too !!


I changed back last year between 17" to 18" and back again and yes there was a definate improvement but it was better on 18" than I remembered. That was switching between Pirelli supercorsa Pro and in 18" BT016 rear and Avon Storm front !
 
Dellortoman said:
Robjota said:
You probably wont have issues with the side stand developed by Jim Bushman me , it'll just lean over more.

Um ...    I think it'll lean over less with smaller wheels. May need to shorten the sidestand.

Ah Cam, glad to know you're on board, I stand corrected  :-[
 
Mingh said:
Did anyone try? Does it affect handling a lot? Does anyone know if there are stainless steel front fenders available?
I was offered a spoke wheel set. Not planning to take it to the track. I currently don't often have ground clearance issues on the open roads

cheers!
Are these Laverda wheels with smaller rims put on or are these from another bike and can they be easily converted to fit the Lav?
 
If you search this topic, you will find several threads covering wheel changes, many done on here. I've used mostly Suzuki Wheels and some Hinkley Triumph.

What's your motivation for running 17" wheels. whether it's easy or not, depends on your limitations and experience. There are people that will do this kind of work for you, depends on which country you're in.

Rob
 
Alwayse loved the look of spoked wheels much more than cast wheels. My bike is a 78 3CL/Jota and i'm trying to make a Best Of between Jota and 3C: meaning 3C looks (spoked wheels, 3C seat) but 3CL frame, brakes, rearsets, jota engine spec...
I was offered a spoked set that apparently was built for a triple but never used. It's got Grimeca hubs but 17" rims. Before diving in, i was wondering how this may affect the riding. Trying to make up my mind wether i should bite or wait for a next opportunity with 18" rims.
 
My humble opinion is that on a relatively standard looking 3C//Jota its going to look minging, viewed from the side.  

If the wheels are a "steal" (not  steel)  ???  you could change the rims to 18" (that's probably the cheaper part of the whole job) and then you've got a great array of tyres dependant on your rim sizes and the right look !

Thats just my opinion and  my taste is questionable, (with Laverdas ) !
 
Here's one I snapped in Holland a while back.
 

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Mingh, this is thebest I can do.
Non-standard swingarm too.
 

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Mingh, an other one from Holland. These are cast Kawa ZXR400 wheels.
All the issues Rob mentioned are true, you must lift the front and back to keep a reasonable ground clearance.
And lift the back some more for some quicker steering.
The swingarm is homemade and 10mm wider at the wheel center and some more near the tire.
To keep everything a bit inline use a narrow chain with a small offset on the front sprocket, I used and 630 sprocket and cut it down on a lathe to a 520, all the small bits will help.
The tires used are 120/70-17 and 160/60-17, mostly track use.
I'm planning to covert back to 18" Suz. wheels, no more track use any more.
The 17" wheels look small for the bike but make a better ride.
 

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Jota,

Dat is een erg mooie fiets! sjiek. Woon je in belgie of nederland?

The wheels look indeed small, but the gap between rear tyre and fender is still much smaller than e.g. a Ducati GT1000 sport classic. Hard to compare a real old bike with a retro ripoff, but it frames the general idea.

I reckon i'll just give it a try. If it doesn't work out, i gamble on it i can sell them off again without too much of a loss.
 
Hi Jota,

Isn't that pushing your luck a bit, fitting wheels from a lightweight to a behemoth like the Lav triple?  While top speeds may be in the same ball park, bike weight and especially weight transfer under braking certainly isn't!

When working out the Gixxer conversion, I considered comparitive weights, 215kg for my triple, 200kg for the 750GSXR.  But the Gixxer was quite a bit quicker, so that evened things up for me.  Then, along came the 1100GSXR with an all-up weight of some 210kg and faster still (the 1100 front wheel is considerably beefier than the 750 item).  Sort of confirmed my calculations would be sort of correct and the wheels would be perfectly safe for Laverda duty... almost 15 years on and still no issues.

Imho, 17" wheels spoil the proportions of these bikes.  Just looks "wrong", even though it can be made to work decently.

piet
 
Hi Mingh,
Ik woon in Nederland, maar hij gaat weer terug naar een meer originele look, als ik de tijd heb.

Piet,
I was looking for wheels with straight spokes and yes a bit of a gamble with the wheels.
But it turned out ok certainly with the more heavy use on the track.
Used them for 6 years also, but not to much on the road appox. 10.000 km.

Danny
 
I'd do it the other way round, Henry.

Triumph did it like that for several years, I found it worked quite well.

piet
 
yes, but it looks ugly and i like nice aesthetics and some symmetry (which is another reason why i don't like bm trubble yews)
the yam 900 TDM has this arrangement - 18" front, 17" rear! not a bad handler by all accounts i've heard.
the rear is a 160

 
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