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

chrisk said:
Mr Muir, I think it needs another run, just to be sure.
Interested in a run with another trophy winning twin on Sunday?
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ay Chris, I just checked the scope of work in my Redax Laverda contract and 'swanning around the countryside' on trophy winning twins does not appear to be listed.  ???
 
markQLD said:
Today, I test rode the 'Best in Show' SF1 for Redax Laverda.
Perfect weather, no traffic and was a pleasure to clock up 100 miles on this magnificent Laverda motor-bicycle.
There is going to be one happy customer.  (thumbup)

Thirsty work, but somebody has to do it eh,

Yep, living the dream  8)
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Good on you Mark.
Were you carrying spare side covers?

pete
 
Headed for the Hills ...

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And came back quick  :D...

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I have a gear pad on the top of my right boot that's been catching on the not so round end of my alloy knurled rear set gear lever. The boot is Gortex and has a fair bit of Neatsfoot Oil soaked in, I don't want or even cannot get this stitch repaired, compromised the waterproofing so I am attempting to glue this flap down with Araldite. Not too hopeful. We will see. I put the gear tip in a portable drill and rounded it off more with a file. Hope this works, it's annoying when this snags and slows a gear change. Good boots are so expensive these days.
 
Vince said:
I don't want or even cannot get this stitch repaired, compromised the waterproofing so I am attempting to glue this flap down with Araldite. Not too hopeful. We will see.
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Being a stingy bastard, I tend to keep boots well past their use-by date, which means repairing them when they start falling apart. Some jobs like macihine stitching I farm out to shoe repair shops, but I do my own cobbling work whenever I can. I've learned a few things that work, and some that don't.

Something that doesn't work well on boots is Araldite. It might be OK for wooden clogs, but not leather. It sets too hard and will eventually delaminate as the boot leather flexes.

I'd suggest a more flexible glue, a contact adhesive like Selleys Kwik Grip or something similar.  You can buy glue specifically for shoe repairs (like "Shoe Glue" or "Boot Fix Glue") but they seem to be stupidly expensive for a tiny little tube and are probably no better than a general purpose contact adhesive.
 
I had the Araldite, so we will see. The major issue is the Neetsford Oil, my bet is nothing will stick no matter what I use.
 
Best law ever, fining dog owners who don't clean up after there dog. I worked in Glebe once and counted the dog shit from the job to the lunch place. It was everywhere in that suburb before the law came in.
 
Vince said:
I had the Araldite, so we will see. The major issue is the Neetsford Oil, my bet is nothing will stick no matter what I use.
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The neatsfoot oil could be part of your problem. I gave up using it on boots way back in my bushwalking days when I found it was doing more harm than good to my walking boots.

The reason I discovered it was no good was that I did a lot of bushwalking with a mate who bought the same cheap shitty boots as me (we couldn't afford fancy new-fangled bushwalking boots when we were poor students). We called them Banana Boots because they were made in Queensland. Anyway, his were lasting twice as long as mine. When I asked him what leather treatment he was using he said "nothing". He'd just rinse the mud off his boots and leave them to dry. I'd do the same, but then give them a good soaking with neatsfoot oil. It was that bloody neatsfoot crap that was making my boots fall apart.

I found out years later that neatsfoot oil is an oxidising agent that softens leather by breaking down the natural fibres that give leather its strength. It can also damage some stitching (especially synthetic fibres) and dissolve some glues.  Buggered if I know why it's still so popular in the saddle and horse tack industry.

When I started using Dubbin or Sno Seal. My boots lasted heaps longer

 
Have also heard that Dubbin isn't the best for leather treatment as it will rot the stitching. I believe it's petro chemical base.
I use a bees wax product called renapur, makes my leathers really soft. Gave a tub to my sister for the worn leather upholstery in her Volvo years ago and it made ther seats look like new again.
I wouldn't use epoxy on leather Vince, as Cam said, a contact would be a better solution.
If the lever is wearing out your boots, change them for the flatish plastic ones supplied on the later jotas. They were fitted to my 1200 rearsets when I brought it and they haven't even left marks on my boots in 170000 kays.
 
Ebay Vince, $30 free post. 200 ml will last you for the rest of your life. Been using it since the beginning of the century, gave half a tub to my sister and I still have more than half of the replacement tub. Do all my leathers and boots. About to do all my leather couches with it. Swear by it!!. Brought the first tub at a Sydney bike show, they were treating boots for free, was so impressed I brought a tub.
 
^^ same here.
Bought a tub of Renapur at least 20 years ago - used it just this morning on my Altberg boots (which I bought 15 years ago!) - great stuff - does what it says on the tin (tub) :D
 
for water proofing leather I use Duckswax, it enhances the look of the leather as well as polishing/waterproofing/softening it, not one single drop of water gets through my riding boots (high leg lace up combat boots, leather lined, leather laces) even after (say) three hours of rain, and your feet stay warm. also very good on leather riding gear, but most trousers have big patches of elastic or ribbing which obviously the Duckswax does not work on, I have two pairs of leather trouser, one set is an off the peg type made by Richa and annoyingly don't zip to my textile riding jacket of the same brand (differing zips??? what all that about?) and a bespoke pair which are 100% leather  and hence much better water proofed, only let down by me not wanting them too waxy or too shiny, and I need to be ten kilo's lighter than now in order to wear them dammit.
CLEM
 
Today I spen a few hours riding the SFC1000, bringing a few tools to take the biek partially apart and inspect spark plugs, which have had a tendency to be soothy.
So, new spark plug caps and no Castrol Valvemaster and on the the motorway. After some driving I just turned it off, went to the roadside and inspected the spark plugs, which were oaky. A Little Black and Brown on the electrodes. Seemed clean enough. So not a problem with the #118 mail jeg I suppose.
The reassemble the bike and off to the back roads, where you use a lot more the idleing, low register, acceleration, deceleratio and so on. Soothy plugs.
The non-presence of Castrol Valvemaster+ is not the cause.
Tomorrow depending on dry roads, I'll have a go with pilot jets going from standard #65, to a set of #62,5.

By the way, it takes only 4 minutes and 10 seconds (and a further 1 minute and 20 for the fairing if need be) to calmly and in good order, find the tools in a backpack and undo the 10 bolts, the tank rubberband, the seat and tank, wires and fuel hoses, plus the tank breather, to inspect the spark plugs. Not bad I think, and it's dead easy. Try that on a Honda cbr1000rr fireblade.

Does someone have experience on changing the pilot jets on a sfc1000?

Gotta' love your Laverda ;)
Jacques
 
Remind me what the problem is with sooty plugs?
I wonder if in your quest for sootless plugs you will damage the correct running of the engine.
Sooty plugs is a by-product these days of unleaded fuel.
As you saw (I think) from your experiment, hard running means less sooty plugs and slow running means sooty plugs.
That is the way it is these days.
 
You may be right, we'll see if slower running, like in town etc, just means sooty plugs.

As it is now, It starts very easy, idles very soon after, pulls strongly from low down and all the way up to 8200 and pulls strongly in all gears. So performance-wise I have nothing to wish to alter or change or miss.

I don't see why I should damage an engine in trying to find out if I can make it run a bit cleaner in the lower register (idleing, slower speed up and Down etc). I am not trying to melt some pistons  :-X

Installing a set of keihins or Mikunis may prevent to a large extent this sooting of spark plugs as I have seen it on some other SFC1000, but I want to keep the DellOrto's. I don't think mine are worn in the barrels and otherwise. Internals are renewed, gaskets etc. are renewed around every 3'rd year. Bike's done 43.753 km in total as of yesterday.

Anyway, I'll try to see if small changes can produce something. Maybe #62,5 pilot jets are just a too big step down?

Soothy spark plugs are preventing the igniting of a fuel mix to the extend where it's not burning and the engine wil make a small glitch, if one can say so, eventually leading to an engine stop, where it's running on two cylinders.

I tried that. And there was a long way home on the back of a tow car in the middle of the night, on the way back from the anual Laverda meeting. And it costed the same as a set of DellOrto's.

If possible, I'd like to keep the standard values, jetting etc. That was really expensive I'll report back what I find.

Kind regards,
Jacques
 
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