Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Glad it worked for you!

And it's surprising how many cars and bikes are assembled in a slapdash way. When I was on the company car hamster wheel, every new car I got needed a careful going over to tighten things properly, or re-route hoses so they weren't fretting on another component, etc.

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Back to adjusting the gears on my mtb this afternoon. I think it's time for a parts replacement and refurb. The chain and complete gear set are as old as the bike - 23 years old, and have seen better days. I think a front fork and rear shock replacement are due as well.

About 6 years ago I did a rebuild of my half suspended bike (both of them are vintage Halfords Apollo bikes). The half suspended one got new forks, sprockets front and back, front and rear mech, bottom bracket, pedals and crank arms, and brakes. It had always ridden quite nicely, especially for a budget Halfords, but after the refurb it was absolutely lovely to ride. The gears in particular were just faultless. The whole lot cost me just £135 in parts - money well spent!

So I want to do the same to the fully suspended one, but with the addition of a new air shock on the rear in an effort to keep the back wheel on the ground a bit better on rough going.

I know some people can be a bit snooty about these Halfords bikes, but I have to say that they've had a pretty hard life and nothing has broken, failed, or fallen off in nearly a quarter century.

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Agree 100%, my lad's old Apollo has been taken by my daughter as an urban bike for riding around Manchester.

They're the AK47 of the cycle world: not light, not modern, but you can abuse them mercilessly and they'll just keep on working

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Removing old landline phones today. Feels rather odd.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

I’ve fixed the Optimate to the garage ceiling so I don’t trip over the trailing wire two or three times a day.

Only took 10 minutes but now feeling unreasonably pleased with myself. [emoji3]


https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...e57e9be9ed.jpg


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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Do yourself a favour and secure the wire near the unit as per the picture below using a tie-wrap otherwise the wire will flex and wear and then short. It's a design flaw in this type of unit,

https://i.imgur.com/zNZgau1.jpg

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

That’s a good shout. It’s hanging at 90° and doesn’t look great.


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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Fitted a cheap tyre pressure monitor to the TA. It has a rechargeable battery so no need to wire it into the bike. Seems to work ok.
https://i.postimg.cc/BngkhqPq/IMG-20...747866-HDR.jpg

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Nice. I love me ,"Farkles " :D

Might get one :)

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

That looks useful John. Got a link?

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126228290...mis&media=COPY

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

My wife bought me a subscription to Bike magazine for Christmas. I got a free set of Oxford heated grips which I was on two minds to fit. I'd rather fit OEM grips but the price difference is huge. Anyhow I've just found that the Oxford grips would foul the tank on full right lock. The Grips are now on eBay.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Just fitted a set of heated grips to the Transalp. I went for the OEM version as it integrates better with the bike and is a simple plug and play installation. Fitting was a faff though due to crampt access and fiddly connectors.
They look well made, slim and get very hot. I've not had heated grips before so a bit of a luxury.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

I've always argued myself out of heated grips / gloves because while I do ride in winter, I don't feel I ride often enough to merit the cost of them ... but if I did have them, I'd probably use them from September through to May ;):D

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Certainly no worry about energy consumption as better off having the heat in your hands than in our reg/rectifiers!

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

@glang A couple of years after I got my SV650 AL7 in 2016 I fitted an electrex world RR851 'series' regulator ( I had fitted LED headlight bulb and obviously they take a lot less power than the stock filament bulb )- it ran over 30 degrees C cooler than the stock Suzuki mosfet unit ( 70deg C vs 38deg C measure on a 30deg C ambient day ) and the voltage is a lot more stable across rev range ( I wired in a digital voltmeter attached to handlebars ). There was a slight difference with plugs, but they supply a fused 'direct to battery' loom as standard with the series RR which is much better than using the bike loom anyway. For the other plug ( 3 yellow wires to stator ) the plug would mate but not lock into place, so a single cable tie keeps it together, and has done for years. Electrex promised to update the connectors in future, and would have modified mine but I was happy to keep it. You need about 10mm longer allen bolts because heatsink is slightly thicker in area of mounting lugs. The beauty of the 'series' unit is it only allows the power that is needed through, so instead of fully loading the stator coil all the time and wasting a lot of power as heat, it allows the coils to loaf along most of the time, which should hopefully prevent the normal motorbike problem of 'fried stator coils and burnt out connectors '...

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

:thumright:

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

I've always thought they were unnecessary as I'm a fair weather rider these days. What changed my mind was a post by a southern Californian rider who used them. He said it allowed him to ride in the winter with summer gloves. The other issue is that the wide high bars of the TA means that my hands get colder than they did on the VFR.
So hopefully I'll be able to ride in Spring and Autumn without resorting to the oven gloves. [emoji16]

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

The 'water absorbing ethanol contaminated fuel' we get these days had been in SV since October, and although I use petrol stability preservative ( StaBil ) I thought a good idea to get my Sealey vacuum sucker out ( used for doing oil changes on our cars via the dipstick hole, also used to get fork fluid out on bikes regularly and cleanly without taking forks off, just get the bike on ABBA stand ). I poked the tube down into lowest point of SV tank and sucked about a litre out each side hopefully any water would sink to the lowest point in tank. Will use drained fuel in lawnmower. Will never know if sucking fuel out did any good, but it only took 10 minutes anyway.

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Better to be safe than sorry as they say.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Just wondering how this is faring John, after a month and a bit on the Honda.

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

The bike hasn't moved since I installed it so not had a chance to see how it performs on the road. It seems to keep it's charge okay helped by turning it off when I've not been doing other jobs on the bike. Tyre pressures are still the same but it's picked up the varying temperatures over the last few weeks.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Prepping the bike for a new riding season. Front and rear brakes removed to treat with anti corrosion measures. Red grease around the pistons to protect them. Bolts and pad retention pins covered with copper slip to stop them seizing. I cleaned the rear chain with paraffin before I garaged the bike and I should have then oiled it then but forgot, so it's now got some minor surface rust. So cleaned it again and oiled.

Next job was being mugged DVLA for road tax....£111.... What a joke.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

I pay my Road Tax monthly. I don't feel so much then :)

I've changed to using dielectric grease as an anti-seize on bolts as recommended by Boat builders and Aircraft mechs . Anywhere where there's vibrations Blue-Thread lock which contrary to common belief actually protects bolts and thread from seizing.

I never use anything like paraffin on chains unless on a rag as I don't want the possibility of the pre-packed grease to be removed. I use GT85 on a rag and then spray the chains and sprockets. I got a good 18,000 miles on my last kit and I reckon I could have got another 10,000 but decided to treat the old gal to a new kit with one of those rubber dampened front sprockets. Haven't really noticed any difference from stock but it was about the same price anyway :)

I spray all my control/gear/clutch lever joints with GT85 every couple of months as routine and use it to re-waterproof my Gloves/Boots and Jacket as well ( only do it outside as although I like the smell it is very pervasive until it evaporates ) :O

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Good point about the paraffin. It's the first time I've used it on a motorcycle as the chain was covered in grit and grime due to the sticky nature of the grease on the chain put there by Honda. I won't be using chain lube as I've got a chain oiler fitted, as I had done on my previous three bikes. My VFR had done 20k miles on the last chain I fitted, similar on my two SV's.

I might have some Tamiya dielectric grease in the garage. It's used to lubricate the mechanical speed controller without restricting electricity.

As for road tax, I pay for a year but SORN the bike on October 31st and get a refund. I then tax again on March 1st.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

First test ride today. It worked fine and it's was interesting to note how the pressures vary as the tyres heat up. It shows the temp too. The downside is that the display isn't bright enough to cope with bright daylight. It looks like it has light sensor in the top of the frame but it doesn't seem to do much when you cover it, maybe it's faulty? For the price I can't complain though.

Update , I've just discovered that pushing the power button cycles through different brightness levels

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Making some ethanol free petrol for the new two stroke. I’m fortunate to have a wife who just laughs and shakes her head. Her parting shot was “Don’t set yourself on fire. Again” [emoji23]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...51ae3ea9f0.jpg


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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

I think we'd all rather you didn't Tam! But if you do.....



We want pictures! :smt046

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

I took Hugh's gearshift off today to move it up a notch, as I was struggling to get my new boots under the lever to upshift. Bit disappointed to find it was as high as it can go without fouling on the engine case... Ah well, I'll get used to it.

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

The only thing you can do is lower the footpeg... Or crank the lever out a bit

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

I went out again this morning and found if I move my foot back a bit first it all works fine. Just need to change my muscle memory, that's all.

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

My boiler packed up on Easter Monday. It's well past it's best and needs replacing which I'll arrange this year. Meantime I knew the problem was the flue fan, it's been noisy for a while but in this case I think the motor winding had broken down as it works fine when cold. I've now replaced the whole fan assembly (simple job) and I can't believe how much quieter it is.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

Our Vaillant condensing boiler was installed in 1996, has stainless steel heat exchanger and is still going strong. It is on its third fan but only because flue was installed wrong.. They fitted it with flue pipe sloping back towards boiler, which meant condensed flue gasses ran back down flue pipe and dripped onto top of heat exchanger casing and filled the chamber where the fan was with acidic steam. Basically the first couple of fans lasted about 4 years each because the unsealed ball bearings rusted away, once I had spotted the wrong flue slope and sloped it away from boiler the 3rd fan still going strong.

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

FYI I fitted a cheap heated Tap unit in my Kitchen. It's saved me loads on water and heating for washing up,

Heated Tap eBay


You do need a 30 amp cooker Electric point to take the current use and used on the cold water tap supply. There are more expensive and stylish ones if required.

HTH :)

Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

That looks very neat.

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Re: What have you tinkered with today?
 

As it's my own Ex-Council house I fitted it myself. Just used a small flexi-hose ( Important) from the copper pipe to the tap,

Flexible tap hoses Screwfix

You just get the diameters to match your pipes usually 15mm for most. I used to use my old Wall gas heater but worked out the pilot light was on all the time ( probably wasting around £50+ a year) and it lost a lot of water getting to the tap so it also reduced my Water-bill. It takes a little to get used to as it's about the same pressure as an electric shower but I'd never go back now. They are so cheap even if it lasted less than the 3 years I've had it I'd just buy another :)

PS

I used a bit of RTV gasket sealer at both ends just to make sure there were no leaks. Well I am a ,"Biker/Shady Tree Mechanic" :D