sleeper shocks....

Thanks Paul for sharing your experience and beautiful photos. I'm going in to this knowing that the brakes may be insufficient with regards to the motor and chassis and should ride accordingly.. I'm building the bike because I love the look of the drum brake 3c's and I get as much pleasure from the esthetics of a bike than the overall performance.
I'm fortunate to own a dealership and of the brands I sell there are no shortage of proper superbikes.. RSV4 and RC8 being two of them.. I'm hoping that I can be sensible enough to save really "pushing it" for those and ride the Lav appropriately.. If not, hope I'm as lucky as you were when I go blowing through a stop sign or someone pulls out of a driveway..
BTW, I read and 8 page article last night on the introduction of the original 3C and they felt the drums (the inferior laverda drum) were comparable to the discs on the japanese bikes out at the time.. Guess I'll find out.
thanks again,
Don
 
Paul's experiences with the Ceriani brake just highlight why the disc brakes were welcomed when they arrived.
A good 4LS drum is great - but they varied greatly. Some good some very bad - no apparent rhyme or reason why.
Discs on the other hand were consistent as between one set and another - initially not as good as the best 4LS but unbelievably consistent by the standards of what we'd been used to. Colemans brought I believe 6 sets of Ceriani front and rear hubs into NZ in one shipment for a batch of Suzuki's they were building (see Keith Turner's 500 champ runner up) and I heard that one of the 6 fronts was never any good despite re engineering by very competent people.
The lift lining made me laugh...the best lining I ever used was for brake blocks on a personnel trolley in a tunnelling project.
I believe it was a Raybestos - one of the guys who was doing the maintenance was a bike racer and suggested I try this lining. Grabbed terrifyingly when cold but if you warmed it up it worked very well. I actually had a brake on my Mach 3 Kawa right through a half hour race...
 
Fcuk me thats a nice set up shame to take it off, mind you if you haul those things on you will probably bend the frame  :D What diameter forks are you going for ? No tail piece I hope. Do you have a back wheel yet? What car Do you race ?
                                        Kev
 
Ha ha! I suppose that bike was someone elses dream once.
I still think you're wasting your time. It'll never actually be a drum brake 3C but that's just my mindset. I dont really like replicas of anything. I see the replica works racer that Gavin Spencer made and it looks great but it's worthless in my eyes even though it's up for ?25000. I'm sure many will disagree ha ha!
Richard Slater reckons there are far more drummers now than the factory ever built.
Come to mention it the donor bike is growing on me, a few of Bobas bits and pieces and it would look pretty good.  :D
 
I do like Gavins bike but 25k is a lot of money and it is a replica .Shit I shouldn't have polished the Brettoni I've lost his DNA now  :D  I wonder what colour this bike was with gold wheels and a green frame I recon red with a white stripe .
                                    Kev
 
Don't worry Pat, I've got a plan for all the bits that are coming off...
I have a 81 Jota that someone lowered the subframe on ( along with some other nasty mods)  that I bought 20 years ago to essentially have a complete parts stash for "my" 81 Jota. That frame is looking like a great place to build a race bike/special from as It's already been hacked. But that's the next project.
As for a "replica" I don't see it as that I'm just changing a few bits on a 3CL that I like the looks of better... still a 3CL just "personalized". I think of a replica as an attempt to duplicate something you could never find or afford.
but as you said, to each his own..
Don
 
The raybestos lining as i recall was a deep red colour. Used on a passenger trolley in a tunnelling project as i said. If Porterfield have heard of this lining or can get it still I'd love to have some...It grabbed like buggery when cold but still worked well when the drum was almost glowing...

I like the green monster - that's a mighty front end. Braced arm too I see.
 
troutbishop said:
Fcuk me thats a nice set up shame to take it off, mind you if you haul those things on you will probably bend the frame  :D What diameter forks are you going for ? No tail piece I hope. Do you have a back wheel yet? What car Do you race ?
                                        Kev
Click to expand...

We race a nissan nx2000 in a crap car series for cars that aren't supposed to cost more than $500 and we run them on proper road courses for up to 24 hours straight... yes there's a lot of cheating going on...
as for the current project bike i'm using an original 3C rear wheel and brake. For forks i'm going to use the Ceriani 38's and machine off the caliper mounts and have maxton carts installed. I'll be running no tail piece an original 3C seat with the little bump (not the solo seat) and i've got a stock braced swing arm with a top loop that should be sufficiently hidden by the chain guard and pipes (which of course will be Jota pipes). Still undecided about regular bars or jota bars.. but i'm going to use ND gauges and the 200mm headlight... going to run one of the new Li batteries that will allow me to build a larger airbox while still running the original front air box and boots.. at least that's the plan for now..
 
GregT said:
The raybestos lining as i recall was a deep red colour. Used on a passenger trolley in a tunnelling project as i said. If Porterfield have heard of this lining or can get it still I'd love to have some...It grabbed like buggery when cold but still worked well when the drum was almost glowing...

I like the green monster - that's a mighty front end. Braced arm too I see.
Click to expand...
Check this one out Greg.. this will go on the race bike..
IMG_0039.jpg

BTW, it was on sale for $150 when i got it in 1994.. yikes!
 
Not a Laverda seat but a modified Honda item. I sorted out the bike it used to belong to last summer, a perfectly nice old 3cl.......



    Keith.
 
Thanks keith,trout
i bought this one 170685062707 . yes, i'm single hand-idly driving laverda parts prices up, but i wanted an original and price for some of the repop's is higher... at least i'm saving on bulk shipping :D :D
 
"a perfectly nice old 3cl"
Not any more! Bit of a waste of your efforts too Keith. However those parts have made a lot of people happy including many familiar names from this forum including myself.  
 
Shouldn't really give a fuck, after all I was paid a fair amount for the work and the machene left here running to my satisfaction... trouble is I do.  >:(



    Keith.
 
Yep I had a few bits too,as they say every little helps. Its a funny old world someone has bought the frame and cases and will start all over again.
Keith Do you remember the 3C Simon owned before this one ? It was an early oil cooler one with 3cl wheels fitted.
 
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