At first I thought I would replace the whole fork. A bit of research revealed that lots of trail bikes of the same period came with multi-adjustable versions of the 45mm USD Showa forks that would slot right into my yokes. A bit of hunting soon turned up a beautiful set with new bushes and seals (off a Suzuki RMX 250). The match isn’t perfect because the legs are a bit longer overall and the caliper mounts will need machining to take the bottom damping adjuster. I want to take my time with the machine shop stuff and don’t want to wreck the geometry, so I have put the full swap on hold and instead rebuilt my forks using the Suzuki’s tubes and new bushes and seals (one of mine was completely lunched.

Note: state of fork legs.

Old leg is on the top, of course. Barely a fleck of gold left. Bottom leg could have come of a two-year-old bike. But it it slightly longer.

You can use the fork stanchion as a slide hammer to get your old seals out. But you need one of these to drive the new ones in. Works a treat too.

Necessity is the mother of invention, is she not?

That's better!

The magnetic filler plug’s spiky metallic hairdo pointed to horrors within even before I’d drained the old oil.

At some point a lone roller had escaped from the torrington-type thrust bearing, and soon all the others went scuttling off after it.

A bit of detective work soon revealed what had been the undoing of the thrust bearing.The bearing itself is in three parts – the rollers and two large precision washers, called ‘runners’. In addition, the effective length of the shaft is set by the use of a shim which should be the same inner and outer diameters as the bearing runners to the distribute the loads evenly. In this box that shim was missing and in its place was a washer of dubious origin not wide enough to support the bearing properly. The dodgy washer is on the left; the factory shim on the right.

Where had all those rollers gone? Everywhere. There was swarf in every nook and cranny, and this bearing retainer plate shows the signs of Armageddon; as bits of hardened metal were mashed by the spinning gears the shrapnel must have been sent hurtling round inside the casing.

Amazingly the damage did not extend to the bearing faces of the gears and their respective inner sleeves. All escaped harm except this one.

And as if all those bits of bearing weren’t enough to be getting on with, the speedo drive seemed to have shed it’s locating ball bearing at some point and promptly eaten it. Well, that’s my guess. There was certainly no ball to be found and the drive gears looked like they’d had a good old chomp on something hard.

And finally … the shim at the front of the shift drum was missing altogether. Shimming this drum is the key to optimising the quality of your gearchange. No wonder this one was so clunky.

The plan is to give her a thorough mechanical refresh, new paint and chrome, and a set of stainless guards to complete the Cali vibe.

The massive ‘bars (and half the switchgear!) are from a Cali 3.

BEFORE

AFTER

I used Halfords wheel paint (‘steel’) which isn’t a bad match if you are not being too anal. My priority was to get her presentable and protected, so I can start using her in earnest. I reckon she’ll be in her element in the muddy lanes round here.

This is what passes for an oil filter on these early 850s. The mesh pot lets plenty of muck circulate endlessly, and the damage done is clear to see on the various plain bearings.

There's space for a proper spin-on oil filter where this sits, and that's exactly what we'll be installing when the time comes.

What passes for an air filter on an 850T

All air and no filter.

More evidence of dirty oil and lots of it.

Some deep scoring in the rear main bearing.

A rather tired little end eye.

Terrible scoring originating from the oil hole says it all. Note the big chip out of the bearing too.

All four cam followers.

Crankpin looking better than I expected, but a micrometer tells a different story.

Also revealed: a pukka factory fix for porous crankcases. The owner stopped off at Mandello back in ’76 on his way home from Botswana and the factory finally put an end to the weeping. Aluminium putty roughly applied and a coat of sealant. Effective but not very neat. I think we’ll tidy it up.

Elsewhere …

More than one barrel stud was finger tight ...

... and the camchain had been eating the crankcases.

Great-looking bikes, in my humble opinion.This one has got a carbed version of the two-valve Ducati motor much-loved in 900SS/Monster 900 form.

Needs a bit of love but otherwise sound I think. Obvious stuff: one fork seal is well-blown; previous owner had been running it with a slash-cut exhaust (!); clutch deafeningly noisy (even for a Duke – the rubber gasket is missing from the clutch cover so the basket can just graze the inside); and the upper forks tubes are suffering from severe ally-blight, having lost most of their anodising.

badly corroded fork tubes

Witness marks inside clutch cover

What a missing clutch cover gasket looks like.

Deeper investigations also revealed some knackered exhaust studs, a seized footrest mounting bolt (common on these if you neglect the copaslip), and the upper silencer mounting bolt seized in its captive nut.

Big plus points: belts and shims done just a few hundred miles ago, new tyres and a Givi topbox plate.

Got to do something about that fork corrosion though!

What are these? They are the end of my Lands End Trial, that’s what they are.

At some hard-to-determine time between 3am and 6am on Saturday multiple punctures brought my LET 2012 to a complete halt with just two sections and two tests under my belt, and eleven more to go.

I’d had to replaced my rear tube within a quarter of a mile of Bridgwater Control. The rough stuff was still 30 miles away, and I had done nothing more exciting than accelerate gently away from some traffic lights. With no sign of a nail and so little provocation, I should have realised then that the puncture might point to something seriously amiss inside the rear tyre. But, having wrestled the tyre on and off single-handed using six-inch levers, I just took a deep breath and got back on.

By the first section, Fellons Oak, I was already almost two hours behind schedule. Last time (in 2010) I’d made a complete hash of this section by forgetting the restart. This time it went perfectly, or so it seemed from the saddle.

The new route box worked fine … as long as it wasn’t properly dark. In and out of the street lighting everything seemed to work well, but once in the deep darkness of the woodland around the first special test I realised that I had created just as big a problem as last time, only the opposite. In 2010 I had too little light, now I had far too much. The box was so bright that every time I glanced down it ruined my night vision ahead for what seemed like half a mile. By the time we were up on the moors, shrouded in mist and light rain, I was reduced to riding one-handed, using the other to shield the glare from the LEDs.

At the Barbrook control I was exactly 2 hours and 2 minutes late. The time-keepers gave me 30 minutes to gather my wits before Beggars Roost. By turning the white LEDs upside down, the route box now glowed gently blue while the Laverda’s beautiful tank was bathed in bright white light. A picture probably visible from space. If this didn’t do it I would simply disconnect the white LEDs.

Beggars Roost rises up out of Barbrook. As you wait your turn the slope is so steep that it’s a struggle to stop the bike from slipping backwards even before you move forward to the start line. Obviously what happened next can be explained primarily in terms of the competence of the pilot, but perhaps we can leave that to one side for a moment. I realise now that I had made a couple of rookie errors that were about to make BR very hard indeed and to conspire to rob me of my dignity.

Firstly, fearful of another puncture, I had left too much air in the rear tyre: 11psi instead of 5-ish. Secondly, fearing the effects of long road miles on a low geared 35 year-old two stroke, I had raised the gearing slightly to calm things down at road speeds. Now as I tried to take away I was having to use too many revs in the slippery conditions and was finding nowhere near enough grip with my over-inflated rear – or at least that’s what I thought was happening back there.

Many thanks to the marshals who helped me pick up my bike – twice within the first five yards. But worse was to come. At the top I found the rear flat as a pancake once more. My problem hadn’t been too much air after all, but too little.

After 15 minutes of agonising I walked the bike the mile or so steeply downhill back into Barbrook. My race was run – or so it seemed. I’d already used my spare tube and hadn’t thought to bring a  puncture repair kit as well. Almost immediately I was offered help in the form of some extra tools, a spare pair of hands and a bicycle puncture repair kit (a thousand thanks Phil.) With the bike back on its side and the wheel out we tried repeatedly to stop the leaks, but after an hour and a half had to accept that the tiny patches and old glue would never hold – or might we not yet have found all the holes! All the bikes had now gone and the cars were arriving in numbers. Perhaps they would have a puncture repair kit man enough for the job? A bit of pleading along the tea and buns queue produced patches (many thanks whoever you were) but no glue, so we set to using a fresh tube from another cycle repair kit. Someone suggested putting the tube inside the tyre before inflating it (to give it more of a chance to set) so I did, thus ensuring another 15 minutes of fruitless hard labour when it failed, immediately. At 5am a light but relentless rain set in. I should have done four more sections by now and be filling up at Goosham..

Woe is me.

I am on my knees, again, gazing disconsolately at my Laverda, lying on its side on the grass, it’s rear tyre open to the world and two tubes which will not mend sneering up at me. How am I even going to get home? Then a voice from above: “Need a hand?” The voice belongs to Chris Jenkins, who, along with his brother, competes in long distance trials (though not this one) and so has a fine collection of spare tubes and (oh joy!) proper long tyre levers. As I sipped tea brought by a kindly marshal Chris had the pleasure of installing two tubes in my jinxed rear wheel (yes, the first one got pinched by a lever in the fitting) and as the birds started to wake up I dragged my tyre to the air line at Barbrook filling station for the last time. Half an hour later I was packed up and waving goodbye to Chris, his brother and his mum. Great people all.

The trip home which was mercifully uneventful given what I found inside the carcass when I removed the tyre in the dry and with good light.

Two M8 washers must have come off the rim locks last time the tyre was changed and got left inside. That must have been before I bought the bike as I’d never had cause to remove the tyre until my first puncture at Bridgwater. As long as the tyre was fully inflated for the road the washers were pressed tight enough against the tyre carcass that they could only do their evil work very slowly. But as soon as we were down to off-road pressures the little blighters were free to roam about wreaking havoc.

Old hands will say that I should have checked inside the tyres as part of my routine prep of a new machine. Half an hour with tyre levers in the comfort of the workshop would certainly have saved an ocean of grief by the side of the road in Bridgwater and Barbrook. Needless to say, I have had my rear tyre on and off several times now as ‘practice’, and as part of my prep for the 2013 LET I have just had the front tyre off too for a precautionary look-see. Oh, and I’ve bought a cracking puncture repair kit.

Roll on LET 2013.