Bank Holiday fun in Cumbria & Northumbria

This weekend was a planned run with one of the lads I met from Cumbria TRF, Mark who lives near Brampton. We met up at Hartside cafe after a couple of lovely bacon rolls we were off.

Mark rides a KTM 250 EXCF 2003, Lucy was on her 250 EXCF 2007, so it was the orange team with me on the DR. First lane was the rutted lane that runs alongside the road just past Hartside, this is ace, plenty of mud, water and ruts, good to wake you up first thing on a Saturday morning!

Lucy was feeling nervous and rusty as she hasn't ridden since our Spain trip so 6 weeks ago now, so she pootled down like some grandma. The ride up Tynehead got her sorted though, so she was back in the groove.

Mark had a bit of a mare on this as he hasn't figured out the correct gearing for his bike as yet, and steep rocky hill climbs are in between gears, plus his tyres are almost knackered, but he got up it and also managed to get into the bomb hole after the hut!! yeah.. we got the photo to prove it too!

After this it was all the classics of Coldberry Moor and H Lane, Blanchland Common, Slaley Forest and Juniper. Mark hadn't ridden any of these lanes so it was a great introductory day for him as well as a good ride out for Lucy & I.

The weather held off most of the day with just one rain shower as we got into Hexham, the rest of the day was warm and sunny, loads of wildlife was out too, we saw two male kestrels fighting, lots of young pheasants, buzzards, hares and rabbits, all just adding to he spendour of just being out riding on a trail bike in the UK.

The only down side to the day came as a brush with a car park attendant in Hexham, who displayed all those characteristics that council workers seem to adopt... do they go on a special training course to learn how to comport themselves with that square peg, square box mentality?

Lucy's KTM had broken the stand again whilst out, so she leaned the bike against a rail next to the Wentworth Cafe in the main Hexham carpark, to cut a long story short, comments like; and please assume a nasally voice to say the following and you'll get the idea:
Attendant: ''You can't park that there, it needs to be in the motorcycle bay''.
Me: ''It doesn't have a side stand as it's just broken so it needs to be leant against something''
Attendant '' Get your motorcycle fixed then sir, young children could touch the exhaust and get burnt''
Me: ''Is that not going to happen in a Motorcycle Bay then?''
Attendant ''I'm just doing my job sir''

You get the picture, my patience wore thin and when I suggested he had a bit of a 'jobs worth' attitude he seemed to explode, hurling shouts across the car park about me needing to change my attitude... err pot, kettle, black... ring any bells! So I guess that's my contribution to trail rider/council worker positive relations done for this month!

Hey ho, we had a nice lunch in the cafe, then filled up with fuel and headed back out, the sun was warmer now as the afternoon was upon us, we moved along at a steady pace, having a chat with several walkers and encounters with cows and their young. All the bikes were running well, until Mark's KTM decided to have a water pump issue, which kept us on out toes, looking for water refill opportunities.

We dropped into Limestone Brae, rode up over .the moors and down into Alston to finish another good day out. Even though I've ridden these lanes a load of times now, I really enjoy the variety and changes you see each time. Blanchland Common was the driest I've seen it and the majority of the Northumberland lanes were much drier than the western ones on the whole which isn't the normal!

Mark left us at Alton, so Lucy and I headed back up a couple of lanes and the tarmac road to Hartside Cafe and the van. Ace stuff!

Now it's time to clean off the bikes, get them sorted for the next tday out!

AJP PR4 240cc Enduro 2015

Lee, one of the lads we ride with bought one of these this year, he's done about 600 miles on it so far, both in the UK and in Spain on The Vince.

AJP PR4 2015

The main reason for buying this bike was that Lee wanted something light, cheap and fairly modern. He chose this one from his local dealer: Adi's Motorcycles in Selby. The bike cost £4200 and came with heated grips and the upgraded plastic bash plate.

To be fair, Lee has taken a fair bit of stick over this bike, especially from the KTM boys, with comments like: 
'What you need is a bike designed by 2 blokes in a Portuguese back street garage, ''Antonio & Jorge Pinto'' ''AJP'' using 1980's technology! The design was approved by their 3 sisters, Claire, Rachel & Ann Pinto ''CRAP!!'

However it has to be said that the little AJP is doing pretty good, it has handled everything that has been thrown at it so far, including altitude, rocky rough lanes, deep water and lots of jumps and slides as Lee is an ex motocross racer, so pretty handy on the little thing!

Is it a boat or a bike??

So the bike:

Its a 2015 PR4 bike and weighs in at 100kg dry. Cost new is £3850, then the usual on the road bits to add on.

On the positive side, it has good suspension, pretty modern and upto the job of trail riding. The Marzocchi forks are a bit stiff for me personally but give enough feedback and the Sach's rear shock is pretty stiff, which I'm guessing is how lee likes his setup.

The engine is punchy with power where you need it and also a little lazy when you just want to pootle. It seems to spread the power smoothly across the range, both on & off road. Top speed on the road with the gearing Lee uses is about 50mph.

The riding position is nice, it's not as high as a KTM, but you can add bar risers to it to bring the bars up a bit more. Lee is a little on the height challenged side of things so as the bike isn't as high as a modern trail bike, it's easier t get on/off it, yet when Lucy rode it, her 5'10 frame seems to fit to it well too. £33.00 for the bar risers at Adi's shop.

Posing again...

The wheels are the stock 18 rear and 21 front, like most modern stuff they do the job well and most tyres fit them. They are pretty lightweight but strong too, although not sure what alloy they are made from.

Braking is good, with a 260mm disc up front, you can play with it and feather it as you need on the trails, inspiring confidence.

The airbox is at a good height and doesn't suck air in every time it looks at water, unlike our more orange brethren!

We haven't had to use the lights for real as yet, but I suspect they'll be the same as all the other modern bikes, shite... time will tell!

So far all of the bodywork has held up well, through some pretty rough punishment and a few 'moments' where it's ended up on the ground for some reason.

On the negative side:

You can't get at the tick over adjuster as it's hidden behind the frame, so Lee has drilled a hole in the frame to get to it.

The kickstart must have a been a Friday afternoon  trainee jobbie as it catches on the footpeg and is virtually useless... Lee has took to taking it off and carrying it around  on trips like the Strata day otherwise it's not on the bike.

The gearbox is a bit 'agricultural'. It's notchy and overly stiff, maybe this will smooth out in time but we suspect it's just a part of the low cost of the bike, so Lee is just learning to live with it, with the odd grimace here and there.

Mr AJP Robbins!

Summary

We like this bike, for trail riding it's ace, the price is it's best selling point but actually it does the job fairly well too, there are little things to sort or to upgrade, but there are on all bikes, whether they cost £7k or £4k, so no difference there... It's proving the sceptics wrong and doing what it was bought to do, what more can you ask of a machine? Lucy wants one after riding Lee's bike for half a day in Spain and I'm seriously looking at one so that I can take the DR off the trails and get her rebuilt as she's taking a bashing from all I do with her.

After the Strata weekend, the AJP has been blowing some steam from a breather hose under the engine, so that needs investigation, but we suspect there may well be increased pressure in the engine if water has been sucked in and mixed with the oil when Andy swamped Lee and the bike in one deeper puddle! Time will tell... 

Update: It turns out the oil had emulsified, so a oil change and that was that sorted!

Rhyader: Two wet days in Wales on brilliant byways

This weekend was the planned Wales visit, Mark, Geoff, Lee, Andy & I all met up at the Mid Wales Bunkhouse just outside of Rhyader on Friday night. After a catch up on the gossip and a few beers, we hatched a plan for Saturday that included a north to south of the Strata Florida, yep the infamous swim fest!

Day 1:
Saturday dawned with Mark waking everyone up at 6am, he was soooo excited by the idea of getting out to play, he hadn't slept and was raring to go... the rest of us were a little slower with the waking up process, as was the rest of the bunkhouse inhabitants for the weekend!

Bacon butties, a cuppa and get the bikes out was the next order of the day, a little bit of fettle and get geared up, then it was off to Rhyader to pick up fuel for a couple of the bikes via a couple of lanes near to the bunkhouse before heading up into the hills, via a cafe for some coffee and a snack, it was utterly peeing down after all and we needed a pick up!

Just pulled out of the mud!

Looking cooler!

Maen-Serth is the name of the ridge line that the trail followed, it was lovely, some good technical bits and nice and long, then off to Caban Coch Reservoir and the lanes that run by the side of there, both excellent and totally different, with our first decent river crossing of the day, all through safe & sound!

Maen Serth in the mist

The Strata was next and as we arrived the sun came out, which was a bonus, so a quick snack and it was off into the land of water... the trail runs through some forest and was an old way that monks used to use, I'd like to do a bit more research about it's history at some point, but that's another story... Anyway, so as we came round into the first technical bits, there was about 6 4x4's on the trail, so we pulled onto the embankment to let them pass, lots of banter and cheery waves, then straight into the first big puddle for us.. Mark got stuck here taking the side trail, so out came the camera, Once sorted it was then onto some technical up hill which took us into the forest itself and our first really deep puddle.

The Northern end of the Strata

Water, water everywhere!

Oops...

Lee was there first and also the only one not to drown his bike... the little AJP won the day on this score totally! Two DR350's & 2 KTM's were all drowned and had to have the carbs drained, the airboxes drained and the spark plugs changed... oops, glad the sun was shining!

Bugger, that's deep!

Oops all flooded....

And more water...

We carried on and all the bikes got a right good wash, with river crossing after river crossing passing under our tyres... we approached the deepest one, normally anyway, only to find about 12 4x4's all lined up on the other side, an audience, oh bugger!

Lee & I waded out and found the shallowest part, then Geoff came through first, Lee, Mark & Andy next with me as the last one... phew, everyone through in one piece!

The 4x4's were all over the trail and some of the folk there had a good gossip with us, some of them were a little bit off unfortunately, one guy got a little upset as Andy went past, trying not to hit all the open doors and chairs all over the trail, he had to cross a few ruts to get into some clear space and on one of them he gassed the bike and the back tyre spun up several clods of earth, spraying the guy, he was swearing a fair bit and tried to hit Andy with his stool, but was too late, Mark was next up passing them and stalled the bike, leaving us all in the middle of these guys... all ended fine and another story to tell!

We completed the Strata with only one more proper dunking, I dropped my bike into a deep bit where the front wheel got washed out in the current, so another drain the carb, empty the airbox moment followed along with loads of banter about the AJP and it's gloating owner!

From the end of the Strata, we headed into Llawrtyd Wells, as we were all on reserve by now, a great little cafe and fuel fill up set us up for the return leg back to the Bunkhouse, all very happy bunnies in deed...

Beer, dinner in a pub, lots of good chat followed before our room was filled with the joyous sound of men after a pub visit, snoring, farting, grunting etc!!

Day 2: 
Sunday was wet, that's the best description of the day without swearing! The water levels had risen by between 1 & 2 foot overnight... epic!!

You could see rocks in this the day before!

We had plans to ride Monks Trod, this is a moorland lane than runs from North West of Rhyader to Pontrhydfendigaid, however when we got there, it had a TRO on it. dated August 2015, so it had just gone on... bugger, so we retraced our steps around the road and lake track from the previous day then headed out west as was planned, this didn't work out well either as the second moorland lane was washed out with a landslide and had been closed, the sign said for 18 months to get the work done, but it was dated May 2014 and all that had been done from what we could see was to put up fences and padlocks across the river! Bugger, retrace our steps again!

We needed fuel and food, so ran to Lampeter for both, another great cafe, cheap and big dinners, left us set up for a wet ride to Llandovery to pick up the return leg of the day and some trails through woodland, with plenty of deep water sections of course... some fords and a very pretty easy trail back into Rhyader to finish the day.

Cafe in Lampeter... Never got it's name though

Warm and friendly place...

It has to be pointed out at this point that all of the boys wussed out on doing a ford, as there was a bridge! Good job the old DR was up for it!

Geoff all cross rutted...

more rivers...

even the trails were rivers...

It got through this no probs!

Err not the AJP this time!

Nor Mark's DR!

Back at the bunkhouse, we packed up, had a cuppa and a laugh, then all headed home with plans for the next trip already sorted as we're all heading to Northumberland in October for the Northumbria TRF Camping Weekend

Happy days in the rain...

More Info for Mid Wales Riding;

Blog Posts: 
Strata Florida Day
The Wayfarer

Accommodation Notes:
Mid Wales Bunkhouse - Rhyader - Cheap and cheerful, good kitchen, comfy beds, drive to Rhayder for beer or food, plus two more pubs a couple of miles away. No bike storage, no drying room, but plenty of warm showers and it's warm inside.
Llanerchindda Farm - Llandovery - A little pricey, but much posher, nice rooms, good food on site, bottled beers/wine etc, more like a hotel. Drying room, secure bike store and bike wash area. Upto date maps/info of all the byways and UCR's...
The Level Crossing: Llandovery - Not tried this but sounds nice

Riding Info:

Fuel & Bits:
Rhyader: 2 petrol garages & a good cafe, next to the clock tower.
Spares: ET James & Sons, Rhyader - KTM & Suzuki dealer, nice family, fuel too
Llandovery - plenty of fuel and restaurants etc.
Llandriddodd Wells; Fue.
Tregarron: Fuel but not open on weekends.
Lampeter: Fuel and a great little locals cafe.

KTM 400 2002 - Yep the one with the RFS Engine...

A friend of mine asked me to service their bike for them with a view to maybe selling it on after as they aren't using it, it turns out to be a 2002 KTM 400 EXC four stroke in pretty good condition, apart from the fact it hasn't been started for nearly three years now.

We poured some fresh petrol into the tank, only to find it pouring straight out of the bottom of the float bowl, there is a drain pipe there, so I guessed the carb was blocked up with gelled fuel, cleaning time!

Once I'd got the bike home, it was strip down time and out came the usuals, spark plug, air filter, oil filters, oil, coolant, and all the brake fluids and the clutch fluid. I now learned a few things about these bikes, something I was keen to do as I've heard nothing but good things about this engine and these KTM's.

mmm nice!

Clutch Stuff
The Magura clutch uses hydraulic mineral fluid instead of the usual Dot 4 or 5 brake and clutch fluid, you don't bleed it in the same way as the other bikes either, you force the fluid uphill through a syringe to remove the air, it's a pig to do the other way, as I found out... I also changed the Master Cylinder seals and piston as they didn't seem to good.

I found this behind the Slave Cylinder, so not sure what happens here, but it needs investigation me thinks!

Damaged bearing seal

This was on the KTM forum when I did a bit of a search around for info, I've not come across this before so thought I'd better check up on it before doing anything...

"Standard problem on bike of that era, history;
2000 model had a clutch that spun on a bronze bushing (needed lots of oil) so the routed oil pressure passage into the cavity between the slave and the left side mainshaft bearing so oil would flow thru the main shaft and into the clutch. The oil pressure build up at revs simply pushed the slave cylinder back in so all the fluid in the system flows backwards to the master cylinder, then when you pull the clutch the lever is floppy.
2001 they changed the clutch to a needle bearing which does not need the oil but did they change the oil system, uh not until 2003. Welcome to how KTM deals with problems.
Good news is we have a fix, un-bolt the slave and set it aside, looking in you will see an orange plastic ring, that is the seal of a sealed one side bearing. All we need to do, I use a ice pic, just peal back an edge of that seal, go in with needle nose pliers and rip it out. Now the oil flows into the trans, no pressure build up, clutch works like its supposed to. Done many of 'em"
Not sure how accurate this info is so I'll go and speak to my local dealer and see what they say just to be sure, it is definitely the seal for the bearing, so I thought to do as said above but now have no tension in the clutch lever at all, so I'm guessing it's not right or the seals on the Slave Cylinder have gone as well.

After a lot of chat, I've now pulled out the orange bearing seal and had a pig of a job bleeding the clutch, eventually found it worked best by using the slave cylinder as a pump and kept filling it with a syringe. There is now a lovely working clutch, whoop whoop!

Update: July 2016
The last couple of rides I've been having an intermittant clutch problem, one minute I have one, the next it's gone, then it's back again, today on the ride out it went altogether despite several re bleeds and changing a cracked pastic washer in the master cylinder.

It is fine when I'm doing off road stuff, but within 10 minutes of being on the road finds me with no clutch again... what a pain..

I've ordered another master cylinder service kit, cleaned and replaced the seals in the slave cylinder and all of the connection points, the hydraulic hose has a wear point where it's been rubbed by the cable on the pressure release lever. So if all else fails I'll replace that. Looking on the blogs/forums this seems a normal problem with bikes of this one's age, so I'll keep on playing to see if I can resolve it.

Oil Change
There are two paper oil filters and 2 mesh inline filters, the inline ones have never been removed off this bike at a guess and they do not move at all!

The paper ones have a smaller one, which the oil passes through first, then a larger second one that filters the oil a bit finer before it passes onwards around the system. They are easy to get at and easy to change, including the O rings in the outer casing. Happy days...

The rear brake fluid cylinder is in a very protected place and much better than the newer versions sticking out above the footpeg.

Carb Clean
Both the fuel tank and the Carb were a bit green and again smelled terrible, so lots of cleaning and soaking in fresh petrol followed. The tank got several washes and the internal petrol filter has had a scrub too.

With the carb rebuilt and some seals & O rings changed, now it was time to check all the settings were normal and then run it to see how it goes, it may need a sonic clean etc, we'll see.

Very shiny after a clean!

Float bowl was full of goo!!

Next up was that when I hit the starter, there was nothing, not a squeak out of the bike, so I tried to kick it over, still nowt... mmm, turns out the 'new' battery has no charge and wouldn't charge, so swapped it with another one and hey presto she fired up on the 3rd attempt... so a new battery on order now, next up just gotta set the carb up correctly to get her to tick over nicely and off we go for an MOT.

KTM 400 EXC 2002 Carb Manual 

I'm struggling to get the bike to idle nicely at the moment, she runs great on choke, no worries but as soon as she's warm, I knock the choke off and she dies. I've set the carb up as per the manual so now it's investigation time again.

Update: OK so I've spent a fair bit of time on this carb now, it's had a new float needle in it as I reckon the old one was hard and the tip wasn't pointed anymore, when I reassembled it, it kept peeing out fuel, so I've taken the float bowl off a few times now until I finally sorted the issue, the seal was crimping as it was reloaded and as there is about 5 bits to line up each time you do it, it takes some practice! There was also a massive difference in the gap between where the float sits and the standard spec, gap should be 9mm, it was about 13mm, so adjusted that too... I've also re-routed two of the breather hoses into the airbox so it doesn't drag water into the carb in the winter...

It now runs fine and will run OK once it is fully warmed up, however the tick over still needs a tiny adjustment in the air mixture to get it as good as can be. This turned out to be the idle jet, it was blocked with more gooey old fuel, I've cleaned it twice now, but I'm going to put a new one on it anyway as god know what else there is gummed up inside it. The tick over is a bit better but still not a hundred percent, so keep at it! Part code for the idle jet is: 590.31.607.048 as it's the 48 that is standard on these carbs.

One other rhing that hapened on this is that I cam e to put the bike on reserve to get to a garage after I deliberately ran it low to see how far it would go and found that the petcock had perished inside, so no reserve... err stuck on the roadside in the dark, at least it wasn't raining! A replacement after market one ordered which now works fine and is much cheaper than the KTM version.

A little bit of the RFS Engine History

I found this description of the RFS engine on Thumper Talk forum, thanks to a guy called Dave Hopkins for this knowledge, I don't know him, but it sounds like he knows his stuff from reading this...

RFS was introduced in 2000, based upon the Husaberg which was based on Husky was much lighter than prior 4 strokes, is single overhead cam, kinda racy but not up to supercross level.
2000-2002 it was 400 & 520
2003 250, 450, 525 and both 450 # 525 has SX models that where more hopped up
I believe 2004 the 400 cam back
2006 there was a small production of 560 SMR
2007 was the last year in KTM MC lineup
2008 the 525 was still in quads2009 I believe the only RFS production is for engine sales to other manufacturers, other than that KTM has replaced the RFS with the XC4, still single cam but a bit more modern slightly more racy combo with smaller combustion chamber, shims in place of threaded adjusters, Ti valves and the big improvement ball bearings on the mains. Two items I do not like are a hydraulic chain tensioner and the crankcase oil system. They dropped the ball on us big time

I've not even ridden this bike yet and I like it for some reason, I'm sure it's fab off road as are all KTM's, but what's it like on the road? What's it like to live with? A mate in the Northumbria TRF has one and loves it to bits, so maybe I'll have a play on it once it's all sorted...

Airbox Design
It has the same really stupid airbox design that I really dislike on all the KTM's I've worked on so far, I can't see the point of not having the intake under the saddle and putting a decent filter up there too, it'll make these bikes so much more usable in the UK all year round and other countries too, hey ho... KTM logic I guess...

Summary
I've now ridden this bike on the road and I reckon they are a bit of a beast... not a beginners bike for sure, this one is very lively, it's got much more poke than Lucy's 2007 250 EXC-F as you would expect, once it's warmed up and running, it's nice to just move around and do the technical stuff on, the clutch is a bit fierce at the moment, so maybe it'll soften with a bit of time or maybe I need to bleed it again...

Update: October 2015 - This bike has now done about 6 trail riding days of around 80 - 100 miles each day, the bike is performing much better now it's had a few tanks of fuel through it and I've done another oil change/air filter clean after 20 hours. 
- The stand has done the usual with KTM stands, it doesn't work, so I need to sort a replacement washer for the inside as the copper one in there has broken. 
- The fuelling still runs on a little so a new set of throttle cables may well be the order of the day, as the other option is to replace the carb needle and I dread to think how much one of them will cost... otherwise it's running pretty well, and it is a joy to ride both on the trails and the road!
- I find the rear brake quite tame, sometimes you don't know if its even working, not very confidence inspiring on a steep downhill, but it maybe that I just need to get a bigger footpeg on it so I know I'm pressing it...

Total Costs of the Parts:
The parts for this came from various places including Triple D in Kendal, our local KTM dealer, Wemoto & a KTM dealer in Newcastle that I have forgotten the name of...

Spark Plug: CR8EK £7.49
Float Needle £17.50
Carb Diaphram £20.52
Carb float bowl O ring: £13.74
Carb float bowl needle £17.30
Clutch Master Cylinder kit £28.44
Rear Sprocket: £39.00
Oil Filters, Paper: £12.10
10/40 Synthetic oil: £14.00
Hydraulic Oil: £4.73
Syringe £6.15
Carb Cleaner: £6.50
Chain DID: Not yet bought
Front Sprocket: Not yet bought
Battery: £24.56 MOT £29.00
Fuel Petcock £24.00
Tyres £47.50
Various postage: £8.00
Total so far: £320.53

31 July 2016

Rocky Mountain ATV FILM of top end rebuild