I started to strip both engines down in January 1999. My original bike came apart fairly easily, although getting the pistons out of the rusted up barrels took a lot of heat and persuasion. When I split the crankcases it was time to examine the gearbox. I had taken it off the road because of a strange gearbox noise back in 1981. Check out the fun I had for the full story. As soon as I spun the gearbox round the source of this noise was clear, the dogs on fifth gear on the mainshaft were semiengaging with fourth gear when the bike was in neutral. After many, many hours of stripping and studying the gearbox I finally discovered why this was. When I had rebuilt it in 1981, I had put the selector fork that moves the fifth gear the wrong way around. It fits in either way but the forks are offset from the pin by about 1mm. This meant that the two gears it moves were slightly too far to the right hence the problem. It just goes to show that you should never rebuild something in a rush I cant now fully remember why I stripped it down in 1981, but at least I have solved one problem, and I cant see any others.

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