Footrests

  The footrests on all Morinis are positioned strangely, they are a long way forward in relation to the seat and bars, this is especially so on the Sports which equipped with clip-ons already fold you in half add the height and position of the footrests and a life long devotion to yoga or physiotherapy is required. To solve this problem on the Sports most people fit rear-sets so when I decided to alter my footrests this was one idea I looked at, but they resulting position with std bars was not one I wanted to live with. So I decided to cut the forward part of the footrests down and reweld the foot peg back on some 2-3 inches further back. The picture shows what I mean, but of course this then led to problems with the gear change and brake pedals, unless I had size 15 feet I couldn't operate either with any degree of control.

Gear Linkage

 After altering the footrests I needed a system to enable me to change gear and I decided that it would have to use a rear set linkage system to allow me set the length of the lever and also its location and still retain the 1 down-5 up selection (some systems were just the lever is altered involve reversing this set-up) which I like. I again went to my local breakers, they know me well now, and had a root around some of there more geriatric models and found a linkage and lever complete from a Kawasaki KH 250. This was ideal as the lever only required shortening a little, and the linkage consisted of a rod threaded at both ends with clevises fitted at either end. Even better was that the threaded rod had a right hand thread one end and a left handed one at the other, so that by just slackening the lock nuts the rod could be turned in either direction to lengthen or shorten the linkage, allowing the height of the tip of the pedal to be set to the ideal position. With a gear lever from a Morini rear-set picked up with some bits from an advert (you know the ones, were 90% of the stuff is crap but you just have to have it anyway) and hole bored through it I was able to connect the linkage to it. After I welded a mounting to the right footrest I could pass a bolt through the footrest and the gear change levers mounting and everything fitted. So after re-assembly with a couple of nylon bushes (made by my friend/brother in law Bruce) the whole assembly was greased, fitted and adjusted. After some adjustments to get everything where I wanted it, the system worked well.
 The whole system was a success and worked well for about 6-7 years. But at the start of the summer this year I noticed I was starting to miss gears and on examination realised that quite a fair amount of play had developed in the linkages. I decided to strip the system and found most of the play was due to the pins in the clevises having badly worn, well they were second hand when fitted. So I decided to see if I could improve things. I settled on replacing the clevises with rod-ends (often known as rose joints, although this is actually the name of one of the main manufacturers — a bit like Hoover), which are screw fittings with a drilled ball joint at the end. So the hole in the gear change was filled with weld then re-drilled to take up the wear from the pins and the lever mounting was cut from the footrest and a better mounting turned up by Bruce that I then welded back on. The two rod ends again one left and one right hand threaded were mounted on the linkage then bolted to the lever and the gear change and the whole lot attached to the footrest and then refitted to bike. Again after adjustment the system worked much better, it was a lot more positive in changing (no more missed gears) and a great deal smoother. It was amazing how easy it had been to miss the wear in the previous set-up as you just get used to something.