what have you done to your "bike" today

[kev64]

ragged the tits off of it around wales......

and me.

also found a mountain road from rhyader to Aberystwith, not that fast but supurb fun
made us laugh !!

[MacV2]

Got a couple of replacement keys cut as one get bent while in filler cap when tank bag plonked on it. Thankfully I was able to straighten it enough to operate the ingnition.

Then a few days later went and bought a second bike as VTR needs some dismantling and sprucing up with refurbished subframes, fairing subframe, suspension linkages regreased etc. So another V-twin lite pictured on its first off-road excursion - as its pines for the open verdant fields where folk play ye olde national pastime of Crucket.



PO a bit naive on home mechanicing and relied on dealer for servicing - So need to go through to it with a fine toothcomb to get it up to scratch - finding things like missing bodywork screws, a gear lever that needed straightening and plug-pins missing in the brake calipers. But overall very good nick for a 2001, with 29,000 that had lived in London for past 5 years. A bit of detective work established its provenence prior to eBay http://tinyurl.com/q7w9njq > http://www.xrv.org.uk/forums/sale-wante ... -sale.html. Just getting use to tippy toeing and wondering how riders of AfricaTwins/ KTMs cope - Platform boots??

http://www.xrv.org.uk/forums/sale-wante ... -sale.html

Forget getting both feet on the deck, slide your preferred side butt cheek over the side of the saddle & get that side foot firmly on the ground. Of course if you want your left foot on the deck at traffic lights & give ways ect it means having to leave the bike in first & hold clutch in.
I used to slide off to the right & have me right foot down, it's a bit strange at first but you soon get used to it...
Worked out fine for me when I had a Yam XTZ750 once upon a time.

[Kev L]

Bloody dwarves!!!!!

[popkat]

Facts at my fingertips again:
Here's one I cut up earlier-

So it's the breather. The rubber pipe that attaches to the small pipe underneath has a filter near the tank end to allow air in and not let fuel out, the small pin hole in the picture is where it breathes, if tank is full and sloshed petrol goes in the hole round the trough and out the small pipe all over the floor. Nothing wrong with my tank then... Does that sound right ?.

[Watty]

Bloody dwarves!!!!!

OK lurch

[sirch345]

here we are. 200 miles tonight. Its only done 4000 miles.

I'm surprised you sold your lovely looking Firestorm Paul, I didn't see that coming. I was looking forward to seeing your single seat conversion

I hope you enjoy your new bike, as AMcQ says, it looks nice in the Repsol colours.

I had an interesting day.
I still have the leaking crankcase problem, even though it's been welded three times and then covered over with two part epoxy Liquid Metal.
So today I wanted to pull the engine out in preparation for stripping it and slipping all the internals into a new (to me) set of cases.

But I wanted to know exactly where the leak was so that I could take a view whether it was worth getting it welded up inside and outside and then seeing if it held, because getting low mileage usable cases is difficult. More welding would be option 2, new ones cost more than £2500 so option three is out of the window!

I couldn't see it with the thermo hsg and pipework in place. So I connected up some hoses that just poked up vertically above the filler neck so that water would stay in the engine, and I could see the site of the leak.

It wasn't coming out of the weld, which was below the head to cases interface (gasket line). It might have been coming form the coolant stub pipe, there's on on each head, held on by two 8mm bolts with an o ring. Replaced O-ring, wasn't that.
But the leak appeared to be at the gasket, at the rear of the cylinder.

Firstly I checked to make , sure that I hadn't missed tightening a head bolt, but no; they were all good and tight.

So I drained it again, front head off and got a straight edge on the crankcase surface and head. The head was skimmed when I had the oversize valves put in, and that's nice and flat; it hasn't even run with those heads on.
But the crankcase has distorted from the welding, and is now approx .5mm lower right at the rear of the front cylinder.

So as a quick fix I've knocked up a bit more two part Liquid Metal and lightly fitted the oiled head without a gasket, the liquid metal should set nice and flat but a little proud of the surrounding case surface; I'll flat it off by eye with some wet and dry once it has gone off.

The gasket is reusable, so let's see if I can get it to hold coolant....

Otherwise, engine out, strip to bare cases, have the cases machined until it's flat on the front one, deck the cases so that the rear one's the same height, with reference to the pistons, rebuild and get going.

It's a lot of faffing about, but hey, apart from that I only had a bit of gardening to do.
And the wife did that, in the end, so all good.

Nothing else can be done today (oh, I also painted a nice neat under-the-undertray "invisible" exhaust hanger bracket I made last week as well) so a few beers and watch Monaco F1, I guess.

Thanks for up dating us on the oil leak Tony You're like me in the sense you like to find the root of the problem, well done in finding it

Got a couple of replacement keys cut as one get bent while in filler cap when tank bag plonked on it. Thankfully I was able to straighten it enough to operate the ingnition.

Then a few days later went and bought a second bike as VTR needs some dismantling and sprucing up with refurbished subframes, fairing subframe, suspension linkages regreased etc. So another V-twin lite pictured on its first off-road excursion - as its pines for the open verdant fields where folk play ye olde national pastime of Crucket.



PO a bit naive on home mechanicing and relied on dealer for servicing - So need to go through to it with a fine toothcomb to get it up to scratch - finding things like missing bodywork screws, a gear lever that needed straightening and plug-pins missing in the brake calipers. But overall very good nick for a 2001, with 29,000 that had lived in London for past 5 years. A bit of detective work established its provenence prior to eBay http://tinyurl.com/q7w9njq > http://www.xrv.org.uk/forums/sale-wante ... -sale.html. Just getting use to tippy toeing and wondering how riders of AfricaTwins/ KTMs cope - Platform boots??

http://www.xrv.org.uk/forums/sale-wante ... -sale.html

Wicky, I'm glad to see someone is sticking with the V twin theme It looks a tidy bike.

A good bit of detective work there

Chris.

[8541Hawk]

So it's the breather. The rubber pipe that attaches to the small pipe underneath has a filter near the tank end to allow air in and not let fuel out, the small pin hole in the picture is where it breathes, if tank is full and sloshed petrol goes in the hole round the trough and out the small pipe all over the floor. Nothing wrong with my tank then... Does that sound right ?.

Yes

[agentpineapple]

ragged the tits off of it around wales......

and me.

also found a mountain road from rhyader to Aberystwith, not that fast but supurb fun
made us laugh !!

just got home after a 800 mile weekend, it was fantastic, I feel so much more comfy with the bike, i even managed to start tearing up the edge of the tyres on the twisty roads of wales.....
then coming back thru London I started popping little wheelies away from the lights....
bikes filthy tho and it still has coolant issues, but it didn't miss a beat all weekend, it's like falling in love all over again.....

[AMCQ46]

fitted the clear rear light I have had on the shelf for 3 months and completed the saga of fitting the cheap china copy CBR125 indicators with clear lenses.

first they only had 10W bulbs fitted and they were the small bulb [ normal bayonet] , so I got some orange 21W bulbs, but as they have a bigger glass section they wouldn't fit as the bulb holder was mounted too close to the base of the housing.
So I took them apart and moved the bulb holder into the indicator stem and held them in place with liberal amounts of hot melt glue, then went to fit the new bulbs..... and they wouldn't fit!!!! turn out 21W orange bulbs have the bayonet tabs set asymmetrical, but orange 10W bulbs are normal with the tabs opposite each other.
so I bought some clear 21W bulbs and painted them with orange acrylic paint.

what a fecking palava

[agentpineapple]

mine work ok al, that's very odd, glad you got them sorted, show us a picture of them on the bike mate...

[AMCQ46]

i got the older style ones rather than the new look versions you got Marty, so perhaps yours already had 21W. happy with the results and I still have the std ones to go back on if they start to fail.

will go take some pictures later

[popkat]

What's the fascination with fitting Fried Eggs to the corners of your bikes



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[popkat]

Rode the bike for the first time today, did about 50 miles, scrubbed the M7rr's in a bit, bike felt good and handled well, a little flighty but I need to tighten the steering stem up a bit, drop the front to grease the standard non greased bearings
The shock feels better than when I had it on my last one, I changed the Penske spring for an Ohlins for this bike, It always felt too firm before but oddly the ohlins spring rated 50lb heavier but it is a longer spring (the Penske was quite short).

Very happy with it, could do with another 15hp for the last 2500 revs, it feels stifled, it is was it is though


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[AMCQ46]

What's the fascination with fitting Fried Eggs to the corners of your bikes



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its the same as the Saxo VTR boys do when they fit the go faster rear lights...... they make you faster, more attractive to 16yrold girls and therefore fit with any midlife crisis

[popkat]

What's the fascination with fitting Fried Eggs to the corners of your bikes



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its the same as the Saxo VTR boys do when they fit the go faster rear lights...... they make you faster, more attractive to 16yrold girls and therefore fit with any midlife crisis

Haha
Just makes me hungry when I see them



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