Santa came...Santa Came!

Seems that Santa was having trouble with the Reindeer losing traction on steep roofs, and not being able to turn in tight spaces. Jumping over the chimneys was getting to be difficult for the ageing reindeer as well, so Santa figured he would modernize his rig!

Given the presents under the tree this year, I guess it must have worked!



Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

PS. Yes....I rode for about an hour today (Boxing Day)! Bit slippery with the front tire on the tight turns, but great fun nonetheless!

PPS. Hmmmm.....not a bit of purple to be seen. Maybe I need to change my handle to Crimson Beast instead? :ride:

Santa was spreading the theme to me, too. I scored some red anodized S3 bits for my 315!:banana:

762SPR said:

Nice....Santa didn't bring me any bike bits, nor the unicycle I was interested in. But that doesn't matter, since I usually just buy what I want anyway....got a list going for the GasGas:

- Raptor pegs
- Carbon Fibre pipe guard
- New fluid/seals in the forks
- 10 tooth front sprocket
- S3 flywheel (already sitting on the workbench)
- New front skin

Looks like the flywheel spacer will not clear the shifter. I wonder if the shifter got bent in a bit.

Any idea if I can bend it out with the application of a bit of heat? Otherwise, I'll need to get a new shifter as well.

Usually you can bend aluminum a little without too much threat of cracking. It depends on the alloy.

You could try annealing it but I've never tried it on a cast part so I have no idea if it will work or not...

You can usually bend Al - once or twice. You can cold work it with one big shot or Anneal it and bend it while hot. Its really best to have a spare shifter around before attempting this. I always replace the soft OEM allen bolt on the shifter with a good strong one that wont bugger as easy. (these are a PITA when they roundoff or break)

When you put your S3 FWW on, dont just bolt it on like the directions show. You need to make sure its perfectly concentric to the FW with a dial indicator. You can get them to within a few thousandths easy enough. There is way too much slop in the mounting hardware to rely on that alone as some riders have understood. Get it right and you will have a much smoother running bike. I clamp the dial indicator to the front frame downtube as a reference. Or you can balance it - but this requires alot more work and not usually done.

laser17 said:

The only way to not break it !

RayIn said:

Dont-cha know it! :thumbsup:

laser17 said:

I hear you on having a spare handy.....that would guarantee that you don't break the original one. :p

laser17 said:

How do you adjust the FWW fitment? Just tap it till it's concentric then tighten down the nuts?

Thanks for the advice....got the whole winter to work on all the offroad bikes, now that winter seems to have arrived (8" of white stuff overnight).

laser17:

How do you adjust the FWW fitment? Just tap it till it's concentric then tighten down the nuts?

Yes - I would snug them up when your pretty close and then gently tap with a rubber mallet to position-then torque them up. Try and get it to better than 0.003" if you can. When I just slapped my 1st one on (in the field) and tried it - I noticed the engine was rough and measured it - it was 0.015" out worst case. I got it "aligned" fairly quickly down to 0.002"-0.003" and the bike felt much better. Ideally you could balance the two assemblies together off the bike. But this works pretty good and is alot easier.

laser17 said:

Thanks for the confirmation that this is the way to do it. I wouldn't have known to measure the FWW for concentricity. When I get to working on the GasGas, I'll definitely use your recommended approach.

Makes sense that if the FWW is off-centre, it would cause more vibration.