What have you tinkered with today?

[garynortheast]

Rear tyre change time. Off with the old, worn out, squared off one.....





New one fitted. The fag lighter electric pump from my Zafira does a perfectly good job of inflating the new tyre.



Back on the bike and ready to be scrubbed in.

[daktulos]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

Cleaned the old girl today with my new hand pumped pressure wash.

How well does that work, Gary? I have no electricity (or water) near my garage, so mostly live with a dirty bike. This could be the answer!

[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by daktulos

How well does that work, Gary? I have no electricity (or water) near my garage, so mostly live with a dirty bike. This could be the answer!

It works pretty well. It doesn't have the outright power of an electrically pumped device but it was enough to make a decent job of cleaning the bike. You'll need access to water though as the tank takes 8 litres and I had to fill it 3 times. Definitely worth the £18 I paid for it.

[daktulos]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

It works pretty well. It doesn't have the outright power of an electrically pumped device but it was enough to make a decent job of cleaning the bike. You'll need access to water though as the tank takes 8 litres and I had to fill it 3 times. Definitely worth the £18 I paid for it.

Thanks - there is a tap, but not one I could hook a hose up to, so it's perfect. I've had a look and there are several makes that look identical, so are probably all made in the same place. I'll add it to my Christmas list Thanks.

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by daktulos

I'll add it to my Christmas list Thanks.

You might want to buy it now, world trade is not working too well at the moment. As an example there are 56 ships waiting outside the Port of Los Angeles (a record).

https://www.businessinsider.com/ship...21-8?r=US&IR=T

A lot of the shipping containers are in the "wrong" place and China is short of containers.

[Adam Ef]

Shipping container prices (at least for bicycles we stock) went up from £100 per container to £10,000 last year and bike distibutors put up the price of every bike by £100 to compensate. Quite a few shipping companies also went out of business in the last year or two and the ones that are left have been quite cut throat, even allowing people to outbid others that have containers booked at the last minute, meaning no one really knows if something is likely to reach them at any time until it actually arrives. Nightmare for supply chains. Plus increased costs on non EU made parts etc that is getting taxed all over the place and trying to reliably supply parts to customers for us has become near impossible.


Feels like this should have gone in the gripe thread.

[garynortheast]

A few small prep jobs I did this afternoon, originally intending to have the bike ready for Wednesday's. No ride now though for me, due to knee injury.

Chain tension



Oil level. Checked and topped up the Scottoiler too. One of these days I'll get around to filling and painting over that crack I repaired about 3 years ago!



Tyre pressures.

[garynortheast]

Got the old girl booked in for an MoT on Thursday. The chap I have gone to for all my motorcycle MoTs for around 35 years, has retired, and in fact the garage has gone, demolished for new houses!
There have been a couple of things which have been noted, but not as failures, on almost every MoT for the last few years and which I keep forgetting to do anything about.
One is a tiny amount of lateral play at the top end of the rear brake torque arm. Ten minutes and a new washer fixed that.



The other was a small blow from the exhaust joint under the bike. Again, ten minutes and some exhaust sealer has sorted it. Not the tidiest looking seal, although it looks messier in the picture than it actually is. It can't be seen when the bike is upright anyway, and it has completely sealed it and stopped the small spitting sound from that joint.



I have been using this stuff for the last few months, which I remembered from my days of working in a Lucas/CAV factory back at the turn of the 70s/80s. It works brilliantly at keeping oil and grease off my skin (a must with psoriasis), better actually than the blue gloves, which always tear and let oil through. It just washes of with plain soap and water, and leaves my hands completely clean.

[TamSV]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

I have been using this stuff

I’ll give that a go. Been recommended a couple of times but never tried it before. As you say, the gloves rip and then I just carry on anyway.

My own mild tinkering today was fitting a new number plate. I’d been looking at the bike for a while and had an uneasy feeling but couldn’t work out what was wrong. Checked over all the important stuff and then eventually twigged it was just the numberplate was missing.

I’ve no idea how long it hadn’t been there. It was put on with stickies and the MT09 hanger isn’t very flat so must have just blown off at some point.

I’ve put the new one on with yellow plastic screws.


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[svenrico]

Originally Posted by TamSV

Checked over all the important stuff and then eventually twigged it was just the numberplate was missing.
I’ve no idea how long it hadn’t been there. It was put on with stickies and the MT09 hanger isn’t very flat so must have just blown off at some point.
I’ve put the new one on with yellow plastic screws.
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I thought number plates had to be fixed on with plastic screws anyway !