What did you do to or for or with your Laverda today?

lavgert said:
... that's a mistake!
Ciao, Gert
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Yeah, I was referring to what looks like a typo - surely they meant 2,2-2,4. I know Euro std is a comma where we use a full-stop, but that string just looks wrong.

When i worked for Lonely Planet they printed something like 30,000 copies of the Western Europe guidebook with 'Westen Europe' printed on every spine - embarrassing miss by the proofers that little gem! Rather than shred the lot they just included a humorous little insert about how the most glaringly obvious can escape the eye. Collector's items :cool:
 
piranha-bro2 said:
Yeah, I was referring to what looks like a typo - surely they meant 2,2-2,4. I know Euro std is a comma where we use a full-stop, but that string just looks wrong.

When i worked for Lonely Planet they printed something like 30,000 copies of the Western Europe guidebook with 'Westen Europe' printed on every spine - embarrassing miss by the proofers that little gem! Rather than shred the lot they just included a humorous little insert about how the most glaringly obvious can escape the eye. Collector's items :cool:
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We all make mystics
 

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It Lives! It's over 10 years ago since it last ran, now slowly coming back together after saying:

"I'll just give it a good clean"

So - engine out,
Everything else out
Brace front end of frame
repaint frame and forks
Have Koni shocks, but I think they are for a 180 as they are too short
So off to Maxton for new ones to fit
Slight oil leak from head area so head off & clean up valves etc & re-shim with new valve stem seals & a superior head gasket from Kieth Nairn which won't leak as the previous one was a shocking fit.
Wiring was a bit cruddy & some connectors iffy so cleaned that up & replaced some
New battery
Stickers
Carbs previously cleaned up in Ultrasonic

Previous rubber/mellastic type inlet stubs replaced with Guzzi fit tubes (Eurocarb) and ally stubs bought on ebay years ago and taper bored from 32mm to 36, - it did fit together but because they were overall longer, the top of the carbs were very close to the frame & cables etc which didn't seem ideal with the rubber mounted motor & would probably have hit the bottom of the fuel tank as well.

So I trimmed something off both the stubs and sleeves but still had a job getting them to fit because the 7mm hex bolt heads prevented them from sliding fully over the stubs. I need countersunk 7mm screws which were only available as custom made titanium in uk, however available from China for very reasonable price, arrived a couple of weeks later & very nice quality too. Fitted a treat and everything went together very well putting carbs into the original position.

Primary drive was 'glued together' & plates wouldn't free so clutch out, plates need gently levering apart with a screwdriver, all cleaned up & reassembled with new friction plates (I had some from years ago) & kept the 2 plates with the springs, all friction plates were over 3mm so cleaned them up & put in box for spares. Also had some spare primary chains so changed them too.

All back together last night & started with choke but died when backed off, had a problem with adjustment etc, took them off, couldn't work it out, put it back together & same result again so decided to pack up & get some food.

Was going to take carbs apart & re-check everything but decided to have another go at starting it & same again.

Before giving in and dismantling I thought I'd just see what the vacuum gauges would say, so had them hung up from a rafter above the bike &started connecting them.....bloody hell one of the balance pipes had popped off it was sat in front of the brass stub but only noticeable from above (I must have pulled it off fitting the carbs) - connected the gauges -

Yippee it lives & runs

I notice that there's a bit of oil accumulating from the pipe above the crankcase breather to the air box
(no hose clip fitted? yet)
 

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Blimey, that Norm at Jim Eades Motorcycles sounds like a complete numpty.

I'suspect Stanco in Melbourne weren't much better. Never had anything to do with them myself, but the previous owner of my bike had it converted from 3CL to Jota spec by Stanco. They sourced all the Jota bits from the factory - whole new top end including cylinder head, barrels, high comp pistons, 4C cams, big exhaust collector, etc. They fitted all the parts but used the old A11 camshaft sprockets so the valve timing was way off. They also "tuned" the carbs for the new engine spec, fitting 135 main jets to the dellortos. The bike ended up making less HP than it did as a 3CL and it guzzled fuel like there was no tomorrow. When I bought the bike it was making 50 RWHP on the dyno, and from a full tank it would go onto reserve at 130km. :rolleyes:

After I fixed all the cock-ups it made 80 RWHP and would do more than 260km before going onto reserve. I met the previous owner a couple of years after I bought the bike, and when I told him how much out of tune it was when he had it, he didn't believe me. He said that when it came back from Stanco, it had a definite power surge at 6000 rpm, which he put down to the new Jota cams. I tried to explain to him it wasn't a power surge, but a severe loss of power in the mid-range, so when it did start to breathe a little better at higher revs, it felt like it was coming onto a hot cam. He wasn't convinced. If I'd had the dyno charts with me I would have shown him. I offered him a ride on it but at that stage he had severe arthritis in his hands and couldn't pull the clutch lever (that was actually why he sold the bike). I'm pretty sure he still thinks Stanco did a good job, and I'm just an idiot wanker who doesn't know anything.
 
My take on your story, Cam, is that these days distributors, I bet, get factory training; it shows that even National Distributors didn't know what to use to set up Jota cams, and that this Forum has acquired that factory knowledge and spread it worldwide to owners.
Your story is very similar to the editor of Two Wheels who bought an SFC triple from the factory fly-and-buy scheme. Fly to Italy, pick up the bike, then ride around Europe for a while and then ship it back to Australia. Sadly, when it was in Oz, he would do a big Oz trip; the bike would break down and need shipping back to his house, and he would document THAT in the magazine, including an engine kickback in a poorly charged battery resulting in a broken Sprage and then no spares and the bike being put away. Years later, he got a Sprag, and he had a local shop go carefully right through the bike, setting it up correctly. When he picked it up, his conclusion was they had turned his fire-breathing dragon into a Pussy Cat. He thought it was now GUTLESS. Later he discovered the bike was MUCH stronger; the setup and tuning had just removed all of the flat spots and poor performance. That same bike is still around; sad the bloke died, and his wife put it up for sale, and I forget who bought it. I also forget the name of that now-gone Sydney bike shop that finally sorted it out, but it was in Redfern, I think. Anyway, the whole point is it takes mechanical experience to get the best out of your Laverda, and sadly that experience is now almost gone.
 
Some odd stuff in these tales of woe. Not sure why a Jota conversion would involve fitting a complete head??? And I actually worked for the Laverda concessionaire in Perth, and I'll admit that if we'd fitted 4C Jota cams to a bike we would never have ssumed the factory chose to use different bloody cam sprockets! Why, FFS?

OK, so if you do the job properly, you degree the cams and discover the issue - we did that when building Kwaka motors with Yoshi and Moriwaki kits. But how many bikes out there with alternative cam offerings or cam profile changes in successive models use different bloody cam sprockets???

These anecdotes certainly highlight the myth of 'hot cams = instant free HP' ... just like great big headers and enormous In and Out ports do the same.
 
I would have to agree with that,
Fitting cams with any sprocket as long as it has the same amount of teeth and it lines up how can it effect the timing?
Surely its down to the builder to degree it correctly, nothing to do with the sprocket itself. or am i missing something?
J
 
julian said:
I would have to agree with that,
Fitting cams with any sprocket as long as it has the same amount of teeth and it lines up how can it effect the timing?
Surely its down to the builder to degree it correctly, nothing to do with the sprocket itself. or am i missing something?
J
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True Julian. I just can't get my head around where the Laverda factory dug up this assortment of (different!!) cam sprockets! Do the guys drill them just whack the pre-hardened sprocket on the pedestal drill bed and randomly bore two holes in the things???!!!
 
In hindsight, it all sounds a bit crazy and awkward.

I reckon the 4/C and 7/C cams the factory offered were spin-offs from the racing effort. Surely extra effort would have gone into these, finding the perfect timing for each cam. For this, the cam flanges were possibly slotted. In my limited experience of the works triple racers, they looked very experimental and makeshift. Probably due to their chronical lack of funding, the factory opted to simply copy the cams they had come up with and supply special sprockets eliminating the slots, so Numpty Backyard Bodger wouldn't ruin his engine on the first start up. Most of us hadn't heard of "degreeing the cams" back then... todays' kids would be in much the same position.

piet
 
Axtel cam grind and A11 sprockets worked for me. Luckily as they replaced the A11 cams.
Several years later I degreed the cams.
Ex was 6deg out on the crank so slotted the flange to move 3deg.
The inlet cam I ended up redrilling the sprocket and remarking TDC.
Love that Axtel cam!!
 
julian said:
I would have to agree with that,
Fitting cams with any sprocket as long as it has the same amount of teeth and it lines up how can it effect the timing?
Surely its down to the builder to degree it correctly, nothing to do with the sprocket itself. or am i missing something?
J
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piranha-bro2 said:
True Julian. I just can't get my head around where the Laverda factory dug up this assortment of (different!!) cam sprockets! Do the guys drill them just whack the pre-hardened sprocket on the pedestal drill bed and randomly bore two holes in the things???!!!
Click to expand...

Trust me (would I lie to you guys?). A11 and 4C camshaft sprockets have the bolt holes drilled at different locations in relation to the sprocket teeth and timing marks. So the cams and their respective sprockets have to be replaced as a set. You can't mix them up. Well, you can (as with my bike) because they're near enough for the engine to start and run without crashing valves into pistons, but it won't run well. Don't ask me why they did it that way. If anyone doubts that assertion, check out the factory drawings of the sprockets below.

If memory serves, my bike was around 13° out on the exhaust cam and 4° out on the inlet when I bought it. They're camshaft degrees, so double that at the crank. I dialled the cams in by a combination of slotting the holes in the cam flanges and flipping sprockets over until I found a spot that worked for each cam. I was able to get it pretty damn close to the factory spec for 4C cams. Within the accuracy of a CD-sized degree wheel anyway. It's probably better timed than most bikes come from the factory. All Laverdas could probably do with a bit of fine tuning to the cam timing, even if they have the correct sprockets.

Since I've messed around with the cam timing, the factory timing marks on the the sprockets are no longer relevant. Once I got the cams dialled in, I tried to scribe new marks but the sprocket steel is too hard for the simple steel scriber I had at the time. I didn't wanna get in there with a grinder and make abrasive dust, so I left them un-marked. Whenever I do a shim job now, I put the crank at TDC and make temporary marks on the sprockets with a marker pen before breaking the cam chain. One of these days I might get around to engraving permanent marks on them with a Dremel or something.

180 4-7c Cam shaft sprockets.jpg
180 A11-12.jpg
 
If your bike runs like crap, check that your cams are timed correctly. I spent a year trying to convince an EXPERT that my bike ran way better before his intervention, and it turned out it was one tooth out. And that was not found or fixed till I found someone who actually was an expert after a year of dicking about.
 
Many year’s ago I had a plug ‘blow out’ on one of my RGSs. As I wasn’t sure that was all that happened I took the head off the engine to check it over. It was fine so I stuck it all back together. The only trouble was when I refitted the cam chain I managed to get it one tooth out. Since then I’ve always left jobs like that to someone more mechanically competent. 🤭
 
I know my limits; plenty dont. I knew, well before someone I knew tried to rebuild a Turbo Saab manual gearbox, that it would end in tears. He didnt even bother finding a service manual before pulling it apart—the supreme confidence of an idiot.
 
I learned a long time ago never trust factory lines and marks etc and to work it out yourself and time it right.
Its so easy to adjust it correctly so there are no excuses in my opinion.
Trouble is, no matter how many times people tell us this, we need to discover for ourselves the first time. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
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