Jota questions

[drdezmo]

In preparation to begin restoration on my 1977 Jota I was reading some old road tests.  Cycle Guide 6/77, Cycle World 1978 Buyers Guide and Street Bike 1977.  All 3 appear to have tested the same 1977 Rickey Racer Jota.  Some things I didn't know and thought the forum could confirm or deny.

1. CW and CG say the Jota frame is different from the 3C frame with 2 additional frame members at the rear subframe.

2. CW says the "fork angle angle is steepened to approximately 26.5 degrees."

3. Cycle Guide says "We are told that the Jota is painted white at the factory and that it's silver coat is put on in England."
(If true, this would mean the paint color may not be a Laverda color)

Thanks for your thoughts.

Mike

 

[Richard]

Mike,

  I bought one of Lance's 77 Jotas in the fall of that year.  I believe that the rake and trail were in fact changed by using different triple clamps on those bikes. Some said they felt about to turn in, but mine handled the infield turns like an RD.
  I haven't seen evidence of white paint underneath and  I just dug through my original parts boxes and found that the side panels have silver paint right on the plastic, not even any primer.  The bike used in the magazine shoots had polished front forks, whereas others including mine came painted black. 
  I club raced my Jota until the GSXRs were too fast to hang with, then parked it in favor of a factory Kawasaki ride. 
I did a full blown restoration six years ago and still ride it from time to time. 
  If you haven't already met, you will enjoy Wolfgang's help sorting your parts.  He has always treated me well, even took in some of my overstock spares on trade.

Best wishes.

 

[2622]

OK here's what I think based on more an aging memory than any real hard concrete facts but am sure someone much more wiser and with a better memory will come along and blow it out of the water.

So around circa '78 so late '77 could sit here.. was when the factory was going through the transistion from Ceriani to Marzocchi as that is when Ceriani went out of business so the factory had no choice.
The top yokes changed and as well as the fork length so maybe this is what your magazines were picking up on. So that then meant that the forks were longer and had a bit more rake on them as compared to the Ceriani's and this also made the bikes slightly higher so they needed also to change the stand but that is also for see below... now IMHO Ceriani front sprung bikes are more nimbler and feel more better to ride. ( now I best get ready to be run over here now....  :

The rear end also went from Ceriani up right mounted shocks  to being laid forward with first  Corte De Cosi and eventually Marzocchi so there a a number of bikes right around that time which have both the upright and also the laid forward mounts.. the factory improvised and use the redundant rear mounts for to mount the early version of the grab rail known as the short...

As for the white tanks well the factory used white primer and hence sometimes when those who try to colour match and use the more common grey primer these days wonder why they never quite get it right.
Also who ever said that all Jota's were Silver ???

Hope this helps in the interim before a rivet counter gets into the act and puts a line through all the above ...  8)

Now back to your Jota what number is it then we can better help you id it me thinks  8) and how about a couple of pic's of it now before retoring..

 

[drdezmo]

Hi Richard and Brett,

Thanks for your thoughts!

>Now back to your Jota what number is it then we can better help you id it me thinks  8) and how about a couple of pic's of it now before >restoring.

Attached is a pic of the bike.  It currently resides in a number of packing crates when it was disassembled in 1986 and stored.  I'm in the process of getting it shipped to my home.

When it gets here I'll confirm the motor and frame number.  With the help of this board we can trace it's history and put together a restoration plan. 

Any thoughts on the frame differences mentioned in several of the tests?

Mike

 

[sfcpiet]

Guessing any rake/trail/wheelbase differences can be traced back to the differences in suspension components.  The re-positioned shocks possibly pushed the front end to a differing head angle, the Marzocchi
fork yokes give the bike a very different steering attitude.

Apart from the obvious differences concerning additional stiffening measures, various lugs and brackets and re-positioned shock mounts, I haven't been able to establish any structural differences between earlier and later 180 frames.

piet