Extreme bike weekend 2016

Since the last meeting just two weeks ago it's been quite busy in the bopchop HQ/cellar. It all began when i went to check the clutch as usual but discovered the clutch 'hat' was really loose, and half the tiny little blots that hold it on were snapped or bent, or very loose, and had made a bit of a mess of the hat as they'd worked their way out.
So i started to take the clutch apart to see what else was going on and found the input shaft had a small amount of play in it, which i reasoned - correctly or not, that was probably why the bolts were loose.

In 6 years of running a slider clutch, and having taken it apart probably 100 times it's never once come loose, snapped a bolt, damaged a thread or anything else. So, the only option was to replace the bearing, necessitating removal of the engine and stripping the bottom end down. Luckily i was able to source a heavy duty bearing kit thanks to Roger Upperton, the heavy duty kit uses a race with 2 extra balls in it, the failed one was a standard Suzuki one.
It also meant it was time to fit the new Warpspeed Racing slider hat that Stu Crane had been kind enough to supply free of charge! Many thanks to Stuart for that, it looks great and was timed perfectly for when we needed it! I decided not to try removing the snapped bolts from the clutch basket, but to mount the basket on the rotary table and just drill and tap a new set of holes, it means the threads will be a lot tighter too and less chance of it working loose again.
It's all back together now and almost ready to go, it may just need some tweaks to get the stall speed right again and that's it.

Only a 2 day event this one - Qualifying on Saturday and another on Sunday morning, then into eliminations on Sunday afternoon. With the championship decided we can relax a little and just go and have fun - which actually is the only objective i ever set anyway!
The really nice folks at eurodragster.com will be covering the event as usual with live reports and galleries etc. the various links can be found here ....
http://www.eurodragstereventcoverage.com/santapod/live/2016extremeperformancebikeweekend/default.asp

I've also added a couple more onboard Gopro videos to youtube, including this - the first eliminations round at the National finals against Bob brooks, where we nearly went out!