May 2016 Birthdays, racebus and buying parts...

 May 2Oth and 21st are big days in the Rooker calendar - Birthdays include Poppy Rooker on the 20th and  Chris "crusty" Rooker and Travis celebrate Birthdays on the 21st - Happy birthday to the Rookers !

Travis had his 9th Birthday celebrated with a few friends and a sleep over -  a new Nerf gun and an evening of nerf war and shooting was the order of the day and many shots were fired here and there during the evenings entertainment.

 Lasgane was the birthday boys choice of favorite dinner

 Then Sunday after a game of rounders and a bout of rugby in the local park we took the gang for a blat around the local Hire kart circuit and all the boys had a lot of fun

 Travis flying down the straight - in race mode !

 Travis and his good pal Otis

 The boys looking on at their friends race

 The race bus - nick named the "PUMPKIN" and back on the road thanks to Peka at Auto plat Enköping the VW syncro DOKA went through the Mot without any marks ! and so we were now in business! The boys were really excited to be going to the track in the bus, we loaded it up, fixed the tools in place and trundled off to the Sunday practice, weather was perfect and both boys ran personal best times, Travis down to a low 53 seconds and Lewis improving and keeping consistent times around 1 min. 

 The doka´s pickup bed has a perfect height to maintain the bikes, treasure chest lockers locate the race gear and peka fitted the straps so they stay shut, He also fitted the inner mud guards which help keep the syncro running gear from getting too muddy - Brakes weer binding a little and a quick clean up after the practice meant that we need to do a brake over haul in the near future, Peka will fix the rust in the sill when we have ordered the sheet metal, Over all its great to have a vehicle that is dedicated to the racing and is ready to go after work, no more stuffing the bike in and out of the boot!

Boys have their own boxes to keep the helmets, gloves, back protectors and boots

 Picture taken by Travis of the fast guys racing

 Bikes secure in the back of the syncro after a good day at the track

Soon its race # 1.....at västerås

Part !

close up of the flywheel

we thought that Travis´s DM minimoto was lacking a bit of power, so it was stripped down, the restriction blanking was checked, then the whole exhaust was cleaned and de-greased, a new clutch housing and clutch fitted along with a new pinion, the brakes adjusted and the whole lot put back together, but once warmed up it still had bogging during the midrange, so it was pulled again, the carb cleaned, the fuel lines replaced and then put back again, still it bogged, then we checked the ignition side of things and a few phone calls to baz in England helped to try to identify the problem and ask some technical questions, Back at the garage we found some metal shavings in the pull start housing and it turned out that the ignition coil had scraped on the fly wheel at some point? so this was adjusted to the correct distance using a credit card as a guide to clearance, but still it bogged.

We took a few trips to rydergren racing, and decided that the coil might be shot, so we brought a new coil and as Travis´s old suit had began to be too small to move in we brought a new gimoto race suit. Back at the garage the new coil was fitted and all hope was set on this, but it still bogged... fitted a new plug, and ignition cap and wire, and still it bogged.... ignition was now pretty much brand new except for the fly wheel, so back to the the carb area...it was removed again, cleaned again, and then checked against the original carb that came with the bike, that had cracked a year ago at the mounting point, and then it was noticed that it had just one hole in the emulsion tube compared to the originals

2 hole set up - after a lot of searching on the internet it seemed that maybe the missing hole was probably the cause of a crappy midrange and so another trip to rydergren and a new carb purchased, this one was the 70 dellorto that has the two hole emulsion tube - back to the garage one night and with the new carb fitted it ran smooth all the way through the rev range - as last we had the bike running like a demon again - so we fitted the 66 tooth sprocket and packed the Pumpkin ready for the track - the next Tuesday we were at the track again and Travis made his quickest lap yet - a 53.007