The amazing yellow peril...

[Craig380]

That's a lovely thing to do for your mate

What do the flywheels weigh, out of curiosity, and how much weight has been taken off them?

[millemille]

At the moment we've got about 400 grams of metal removed from the sprag housing (pic below shows before and after machining)...



...and a hundred grams or so from the flywheel itself...



We're just making sure the balance is ok. As far as we've been able to determine we can balance to a greater accuracy, +/- 1gram, than Suzuki chose to as standard. The reduction in engine vibration over the last few thousand miles would support this but we're going to do another flywheel to check before we start selling the balanced flywheels.

The sprag housings are absolutley spot on and we can sell those now, looking at about £75 on an exchange basis for a curvy sprag housing.

[maviczap]

Looks like a winter upgrade for my curvy then

Great write up, good times, & impressive luggage capacity🙈

[millemille]

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=219144

[millemille]

A few thousand more miles and the peril is a bit tired and emotional.

Rear tyre, an Avon Storm 2, is completely flat across centre (too many motorway miles). It lasted about 7,000 miles which is towards the top end of what Avon expect, but that's been less than 7 months riding. So another one of the same has been supplied by Black Circles and I shall bribe a mate with a tyre machine for the use of said machine over the weekend.

Front discs are below the service limit and braking is noticably poor. A 2nd hand set of Braking Wave discs - a favourite of mine - have picked up from ebay for a bargain £75 and there's a set of SBS pads to go in as well. I'll give the calipers and sliders a clean and lube at the same time and treat it to some new fluid. Not looking forward , if the discs are the originals, to undoing the disc bolts. I see a future which features breaker bars, gas torches, hammers, punches and drills....

There is an 'orrible graunching noise/feeling when pulling away from a stand or low speed. Had a look and this morning and have found the following, in no particular order; cush driver rubbers are U/S, the clutch hub nut was finger tight (the clutch hub could be wobbled on the output shaft and as soon as the tab washer was knocked back the nut span off) and the clutch hub friction face is very badly worn and scored.

If that's the original clutch hub that's in there, having covered >85,000 miles then that's not too bad. I'm amazed at how little wear - notches and grooves - there are on the clutch basket fingers and hub splines. If they were on a Ducati they'd be all notched and grooved and fit for the scrap bin at a quarter of the mileage...

Robinsons Foundry have supplied the cush driver rubbers and hub nut tab washer and my spares stash has come up with a clutch hub and nut.

Nothing else was found amiss so I'm hoping it's a combination of those 3 things.

I start a new job in the next few weeks which involves a fair bit of work related travel as I've got staff spread over the Wesex, South Eastern and Anglia railway regions now. I get a compnay car, or allowance, but there's no car on offer that rings my bell and I'd say was worth the tax liability. So I'm contemplating taking the allowance - about £300 a month after tax - and using the yellow peril out of a perverse sense of pride to see just how many miles it will do before it dies.

Engine wise it feels as strong as it has ever done. I've lost a couple of stone in weight recently and that seems to have really helped - it feels quite happy on the motorway cruising at 100mph and because I'm able to tuck in more comfortably the fuel ecconomy is a little better at these speeds. Suspension is as iffy as ever - I may treat it to a decent rear shock as the Hagon on there is in reality a budget shock - but can be lived with and there's something satisfying about riding around the outside of full on sports bike riders on a cheap, elderly bike with full luggage whilst wearing textile gearand bouncing and wallowing all over the place.....

[Craig380]

I don't want to go all middle-aged motoring forum here but it might be worth checking to see if the VW Golf GTE or Audi A3 plug-in hybrids can be got through your company car scheme.

The plug-in versions are stupidly cheap on benefit-in-kind tax (about £110 per month) and don't need plugging in at all unless you get really keen on seeing how far you can go on electric power only (the hybrid drivetrain is completely self-charging too). Also you won't be paying for any other running costs apart from petrol for your own usage.

They're also hot-hatch fast.

[millemille]

There's a couple of hybrids, a Toyota and a Lexus, in the list of potential cars I could have and I did express a desire for the Toyota (a Yaris 1.5 CVT auto job) on the basis that it's small - so I get a hundred quid or so back every month because I'm having a smaller car than I'm entitled to - and emissions wise it only produces angel's tears....and if I were to have an emergency jerry can, or two, in the boot I could transfer the contents to another vehicle, say a motorbike, every week to prevent the petrol going off....

The problem is that it is not 100% certain I can get a specific model and more likely to be whatever car is available from the same group - and the others are singularly boring diesel estate cars.

Kill me now....

[Toooldtodie]

Originally Posted by millemille

There's a couple of hybrids, a Toyota and a Lexus, in the list of potential cars I could have and I did express a desire for the Toyota (a Yaris 1.5 CVT auto job) on the basis that it's small - so I get a hundred quid or so back every month because I'm having a smaller car than I'm entitled to - and emissions wise it only produces angel's tears....and if I were to have an emergency jerry can, or two, in the boot I could transfer the contents to another vehicle, say a motorbike, every week to prevent the petrol going off....

The problem is that it is not 100% certain I can get a specific model and more likely to be whatever car is available from the same group - and the others are singularly boring diesel estate cars.

Kill me now....

Mmm. I occasionally take the car to work to remind myself that even riding in the rain and a howling gale is preferable to the sensation of repeatedly tasering my testicles I feel when commuting in the car.

Monday: 1hr 10mins to do 20 miles in to work. 1hr 25 mins to get home again. By car. Glad I did it because not only did it take me that long I also used about 4 days worth of petrol in that 1 day for the same commute on my SV. Go figure!

[millemille]

Originally Posted by Toooldtodie

Mmm. I occasionally take the car to work to remind myself that even riding in the rain and a howling gale is preferable to the sensation of repeatedly tasering my testicles I feel when commuting in the car.

Monday: 1hr 10mins to do 20 miles in to work. 1hr 25 mins to get home again. By car. Glad I did it because not only did it take me that long I also used about 4 days worth of petrol in that 1 day for the same commute on my SV. Go figure!

I hear you brother.....