What have you tinkered with today?

[DarrenSV650S]

I'll give that a try. Thanks

[Heorot]

Cooking foil and Coca Cola. Not the diet type. Works well on stainless steel. The acid in the coke is the catalyst.

[admin]

Harpic power max works a treat

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[Craig380]

Originally Posted by admin

Harpic power max works a treat

+10. It's only a quid from Tesco / Sainsbury. Apply it with an old paintbrush, I've used both a brush and a sponge and the brush is WAY more effective. Agitate it a little with the brush, leave for 10 minutes then rinse with water.

Gets all the crud off and leaves a 'brushed stainless' finish which you can then polish with Autosol to make it shiny.

[SV650rules]

Originally Posted by shiftin_gear98

My rear brake hadn't seen any movement of the pedal for about 5 months! The front brake and engine brake count as a vehicle having two brakes. Maybe.

I tend to use rear brake to signal I am slowing down, just tap the pedal to alert following vehicles because as you say the engine is doing most of the braking.

[R1ffR4ff]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

I tend to use rear brake to signal I am slowing down, just tap the pedal to alert following vehicles because as you say the engine is doing most of the braking.

I do the same with the rear brake or flick my Front lever 3 times.

Also for keeping linkages from seizing/corroding and keeping them slick and I'm lazy.I use GT85 lube around all my linkages/levers etc.

Best price when on offer Wilkos,

https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/gt85-oil...00ml/p/0337625

£3.00

I also use it to re-waterproof my gloves/boots etc(Do outside the house).Stops the stitching rotting as well

I also use my rear brake to stabilize slow speed maneuvering in traffic.

[SV650rules]

The Range also do GT85 at a good price pretty much all the time as well as Redex every so often..

https://www.therange.co.uk/search?q=...&page=1&lpp=24

The range also used to sell Wynns clear lube PTFE chain spray at a great price but have not seen it in our local one for a good 12 months or more

[graham04]

Used Harpic on my Triumph Dolomite stainless tail pipe yesterday. Worked brilliantly, could have managed with the finish, but used some solvo and now have a very shiny exhaust. 2 quid in Asda well spent.

I adjusted the brake light switch on my K6 yesterday - an easy enough job that took 5 minutes, but while I was at it I noticed that a layer of crud had accumulated behind the footrest hangers, so I thought I'd take them off and have a good spring clean behind. An easy job I hear you say, and it was until I came to the two allen bolts that attach the master cylinder. The bolt heads seem to be made of brie - and it looked like someone had tried to remove them previously - anyway, the internal hexagons both rounded off... an hour trying to chisel the bolts out bore no fruit, so I ended up drilling the heads off both bolts, which got the assembly apart.

I now had the problem of removing two short steel studs from the aluminium body of the master cylinder - but at least I could get it in the vice on the workbench. One had quite a long stub, so I managed to weld a nut to the top and eventually (after a bit of fire and water and a lot of penetrating oil) it screwed out, but boy was it tight! The other one is still soaking in penetrating oil, I'll try cutting a notch in the top of the stud so I can use a screwdriver on it.

Every time I think I have this bike beaten it fights back!

Alan

[SV650rules]

Originally Posted by Othen

The bolt heads seem to be made of brie - and it looked like someone had tried to remove them previously - anyway, the internal hexagons both rounded off... an hour trying to chisel the bolts out bore no fruit, so I ended up drilling the heads off both bolts, which got the assembly apart.

I learned the hard way many years ago never to skimp on tool quality - not only are the cheap allen keys made of mild steel and round off easily but they are very often not accurate on their size, and have rounded instead of fairly sharp corners anyway - so they will not fit very well. Same with spanners, and I also try to get full hex sockets as well to give max grip on the bolt head, but if the bolt is gonna shear off anyway because its made of cheese metal the full hex won't help - but at least it stops corners of bolt head rounding off...

Good tools will last a lifetime anyway with a moderate amount of care ( eg. not using a ratchet as a hammer ) and save much more than their purchase price.. win-win