Laverda Jotas are generally tough and long lasting machines. The 1978 example I bought for £850 was on its last legs. It had done 174000 miles! The engine still ran but very roughly. The chassis was still all there and basically original. The front forks sagged on their worn out springs, having lost all their chrome and worn down the unusually harsh ride the factory saw necessary with which to equip their machines. The reason was obvious on the most brief of excursions, the top heavy and overweight triple relied on almost rigid suspension to stop it flopping all over the place. Worn out, even at 60mph the big Wop felt remarkably twitchy even on newish tyres.
The frame and cycle parts had been resprayed a few times but the quality of the steel underneath was the typically suspect Italian stuff, with bubbles of rust bursting through just about everywhere. Its once bright red was tarnished, faded and pock-marked with the brown blight. Similarly, the vast majority of the chrome had fallen off, things like silencers being merely a decayed and disgusting mess - the roar it made was pretty terrific, though.
The electrics only worked intermittently. The one time I'd used the horn the whole of the electrical system had caught alight, threatening to finish off the machine, had not some car driver rushed out and sprayed both the bike and myself with a small fire extinguisher. The lights worked for a few miles then either blew or flickered, the triple put out a fair amount of vibration, even at the moderate revs of which it was then capable.
The wheels were non-standard, spoked jobs with a drum at the back and twin discs out front. The alloy rims were OK but the spokes refused to polish up, the drum needed new shoes and possibly linings whilst the discs were tremendously powerful with about as much feel as a slab of concrete.
With a tendency to lose one or two cylinders and massive brake lag, the Laverda was decidedly suicidal in the wet! I had always wanted a Jota and was willing to put up with a lot of hassle to get my machine back into the pristine shape I remembered when I used to ogle them through the dealer’s window.
Surprisingly, the transmission was OK and there were no rumblings from the bottom half of the engine, so I hoped to get away with new bores, pistons and top end overhaul - it certainly needed some help for top speed was a paltry and very vibratory 85mph.
Because the Lav was my sole bike, I decided to hunt down as many parts as possible before I tore into the machine. I was immensely lucky to pick up a complete top end (pistons, barrels, cylinder head, carbs, gasket set) for £300, off an enthusiast who had bought them new for his own machine but who then had his bike stolen. I couldn’t wait to haul the motor out - I nearly broke my back in the process, it is one heavy piece of alloy.
The strip revealed shagged pistons, ruined camshafts, dead camchain and burnt out valves... it was a testimony to the toughness of the motor that it ran at all The crank was OK, which is typical of Laverdas. I put the rebuilt motor back in, pressed the starter and immediately noticed a difference. It was much smoother and the tacho needle spun round to the red when I whacked open the throttle - the thunderous racket echoed off my garage walls and neighbours doubtless dived for cover expecting a plane to crash through their roofs.
Out on the road it was fantastically fast but handled terribly, wobbling violently as it accelerated like a bat out of hell up the road. It would have been dead easy to run along at the ton had not the bike needed two lanes in which to weave.
Having spent all my dosh fixing up the engine I had nothing left for sorting the chassis. The next two months were more than frantic, they were bloody crazy. I had this delicious, gut churning power available at the merest hint of a twist of the throttle that I could barely resist using... but if I did it unveiled the chassis as a death trap. I fell off three times, the most serious whacking my kneecap on the tarmac and providing me with endless hours of excruciating pain.
Even with the dead beat chassis, I managed 1400 glorious miles in that time. Rumbling along A roads with that exhaust roar reverberating inside my helmet was sheer bliss even if I often came close to dropping a load when the corners suddenly tightened up. Riding in the wet was a disaster, the chassis and electrics just could not cope with it, although we got caught out a few times and had to amble home at moped speeds. Luckily, for the most part it was an exceptionally dry summer, perfect motorcycling weather.
With some money in hand, I stripped the chassis down. All the bearings were pitted, some actually broken up. Even the wheel bearings had an excess of play. They were cheap enough to replace, the forks were beyond renovation - £275 for a new set! The shocks were only £75 a pair. I should have done a respray at that stage but I didn’t have the time nor money. Back on the road, the transformation was amazing - she felt rock steady up to 120mph, then a slight weave came in as she wheezed up to the top whack of 145mph. The wail was as gorgeous as the vibes were deafening!
I rode the bike like that for a year. Patching up the cosmetics as and when necessary (the silencers were more patch than original metal by the time I'd finished). 17600 miles were done in that period, fuel averaged 37mpg, oil consumption 170mpp and tyres lasted about 6000 miles a set. Handling was OK, it was still a top heavy beast to throw around but a predictable one, which is what counts - I neither fell off nor crashed during that period, although I came close once.
Hurtling along with 120mph up in the fast lane of the motorway I became involved in a race with a turbo Escort. I could see the driver hunched over the wheel with a manic smile on his face as he edged up on the inside of me. He was obviously affronted at being overtaken, for once he was level, he swerved the car over towards me. I was fast being squashed between him and the armco, my only escape to get down on the tank and open the throttle all the way... 135mph finally saw him falling back. I stayed at 140mph for a few miles to make sure he could not catch up, keeping a firm grip of the bars which were trying to oscillate on their own.
The final bit of renovation was a complete strip down of the chassis components to bring them up to scratch. A new, original exhaust system had been procured for £185 to add the final touch and a mate was conned into doing a complete rewire to ensure that I would be able to safely ride in the wet and dark.
About £500 disappeared in this quest for perfection but the result looked a million dollars and ran beautifully. It spoiled its copybook by burning out the clutch a few miles later, but after all the other work I'd done this was no great problem. Amazingly, the bike has now clocked up 215050 miles at the time of writing, with no sign of the crankshaft finally giving out, although the transmission has started slipping out of gears and generally being a bugger to operate at lower revs...it's as if the whole machine is urging you to go faster and faster and...
Maintenance has been a bit tedious as valves need 1000 mile checks and the carbs don’t stay in tune for more than 600 miles. Bolts also tend to come undone unless they are checked every time the oil is changed at 750 miles, whilst rear chains don't like neglect at all and at the best of times don't do much more than 3500 miles before their rate of wear becomes so bad that you can’t go more than 50 miles without having them skipping along the tarmac. The latter may just be down to the non-standard rear wheel and perhaps slight misalignment. The joys of old motorcycles!
Parked up next to the latest Japanese tools the Jota inevitably draws a crowd, every inch of its form blends function with beauty in a way which the Japanese don't seem able to achieve. The ear splitting thunder when she is fired up makes the uninitiated grimace with horror but to me its song is sublime.
Charlie Phillips