57000 miles, a lot of the power disappeared. Smoke on the overrun soon became smoke all the time!
Pistons or valves, or both. Too expensive to dump on the dealer, really did my back in digging the motor out of the frame. Felt heavy enough to be made out of solid lead. Two exhaust valves and their seats were fried!
The camchain was loose enough to make a Honda owner envious! Secondhand Jota spares hard to find but eventually tracked them down via MCN. Some fun and games later, she was back to terrifying the ped's and cagers.
61500 miles, half the gears went AWOL. The box had always been a bit of a boot shredder. The bike was still rideable but it meant massive mistreatment of the clutch, itself likely to explode. At this point I got lucky, a whole rotted and crashed Jota was up for offer in the local rag. He wanted an extravagant 750 notes, ended up breaking it. Complete gearbox internals for fifty quid! I now had the problem of fitting the damn things, gearboxes way beyond my abilities.
A car mechanic friend was out of work and was thus deemed ideal. He kept muttering that they didn't make Ford Escort engines like this! Probably just as well. The reassembled motor had the weirdest gearbox I'd ever come across - needed a really hefty boot to work the lever yet it made so much noise there must've been loads of clearance between the threshing parts. It worked after a fashion, in character with the rest of the machine!
62700 miles, the rear subframe rusted through! Crap Wop metal. It went from the inside out, the first I knew about it when I bounced up and down on the seat one sunny morning. The kind of day perfectly made for motorcycling. Only I was wondering why the seat height had been reduced to twenty inches. Unbelievable! There followed a couple of weeks searching for a replacement frame. I figured if part of it had gone that far then the rest couldn't be far behind. A frame procured, all the parts swapped over - meaning I found out it needed a new wiring harness and battery. The former fell apart in my hands - I was lucky the bike hadn't gone up in flames.
Dead on 65000 miles the bottom end started knocking. Oops, knew I should've changed the oil sooner. It was the mildest of intrusions at low revs and cleared up under the thunderous roar of the rusted through exhaust. Music to my ears, not that there was that much hearing left! Thicker oil was deemed the high-tech answer, which made the clutch even more amusing! Plenty of on-the-road kicks, but I was always aware that it might blow up at any moment! Hand hovered over the clutch and I never gave the motor full welly.
I was quite impressed by the toughness of the motor, it gave another 2700 miles before the main bearings knocked so loudly it was like a mate's newish Urinal thingie. Performance had taken a hit. At this point, the chassis needed new bearings, tyres, brake pads, chain, etc and there were signs of rust breaking out under all the paint. Its mileage and twelve owners had run the poor old thing into the ground. So the Jota was ready for the grave - but there are mad enthusiasts out there, offloaded the monster for 1250 quid! Happy days again, courtesy of a 1200 Bandit.
L.G.W.