My Ramblings

Once the fork legs were at the bike shop, I decided that I could clean the front wheel and front end. At least it would be a clean incomplete bike. I also put four new LED indicators on. The rear indicators had been broken off by our dogs running round while the bike was sitting, and the indicators that I had were LED whilst the original's were filament bulbs, so I put new indicators on the back and changed the front indicators for the new LED ones. Once all four indicators were on. I put the key in the ignition and tried the left hand side. Ohhhh, not sure if that's right, but all four indicators are now flashing. I tried the right side indicators with the same effect. I looked for a hazard warning lights switch. Nope this bike doesn't have hazards. which means something has gone wrong with the wiring. I guessed that the alarm wiring (which used to flash the indicators) needs looking at. By now there are only two pairs of wires left that I'm not sure of the pur

With the the forks out, I can finally try to dismantle them and replace the seals and stanchions. So easy enough, just loosen the bottom bolt, then undo the top and take everything out. How hard can it be ? well, that's a question I really should learn never, ever to ask myself. I found an allen key that fit the fork bottom bolt. Then I clamped the fork on my workbench (using two pieces of wood so that the clamp didn't damage the fork leg). Okay, here goes. Allen key in bolt, breaker bar attached to allen key, and pull. of course, by now, you know what happened. Nothing, nada. Well that isn't strictly true. the entire workbench was moving as I tried to get this bolt undone, so something was happening. Just not what I wanted. I didn't try for too long as I didn't want to damage anything. This was a job for the professionals. I'll take the forks (and new stanchions and seals) to my regular bike shop, and get them to do the work.

So now to move the bike so that I can lift the front end. I cant leave it on my bench as it has been lowered and I cant get my small lift under it. So I'll have to get it off the bike bench, put it on paddock stands and then put the lift under it. My wife helped me get if off the bench, as you really can't hold a motorbike up and loosen a wheel clamp at the same time. Once it was on the floor, I put the rear paddock stand under it and tried the small lift to see if it would now fit. Yes. no need for the front paddock stand then. okay, now that the lift fits, I need to work out where on the engine it can lift. so I position it just under the exhaust downpipes and grab some blocks of wood so that the lift doesn't press on the exhausts, and the front end comes off the floor. so now it's just a case of taking the front wheel and mudguard off, and dropping the forks out. First thing to do is loosen the top of the fork while it is being held in by the front yokes. N

Well, I had a look at the front brake pads on my Varadero the other week. so I loosened up all the nuts while it was on the bike (to get better leverage on things like the pad retaining pins), wiggled the caliper to push the caliper pistons back into the caliper body and took the calipers off the bike. The pads have plenty of friction material left, so I decided not to change them yet. I did get an old toothbrush and some brake cleaner, push the pistons out a bit and clean off some of the crud that had built up. so the pistons and caliper body were a bit cleaner. I then put it all back together. While the friction material on the pads was fine, I did notice that the back of the pads had a really bad build up of muck on the back of them, but I had a good look and it didn't look like it would affect braking at all, so I just put them back into the calipers. Of course, next day, on my way to work, I'm pootling along the motorway and all of a sudden the brakes start to drag.

So, on to the last front brake caliper. It needs a wash to get rid of some bicarbonate of soda from where I tried blasting it. Easy enough, just let it soak in a tub of water and wash it over thoroughly. then leave it for a day to dry. Once it had dried, I started to put the oil seals in. one of the piston oil seals went in easily enough with a bit of fiddling, but the other just didnt want to go. eventually, I tool the seal out and had a good look at the channel that it sits in, and realised that I hadn't cleaned it out enough. there was still some old road salt in there. I used an old chopstick to scrape the crap out of the channel. I use a bit of wood as it shouldn't be so tough as to scratch the surface, but should be strong enough to scrape the dirt out. once I had scrapped the dirt out, I gave it a good wash in brake cleaner, and then tried the oil seal again. This time it went in with just a little bit of fiddling. the dust seals went in easily and then I used br

This is a little story about when I passed my motorcycle test. Just thought I'd post it here for people to peruse. I wrote this just after I bought my first bike, so when it says "the present" it actually means 2004. Hello to you all. Well, I've done it. I passed my direct access on 7th April 2004, and I had a tale to tell straight away I did a three day course at Bristol Motorcycle Training Centre and my test was on the morning of day 4 at 10:44 (why do they put such precise times?) Anyway, the instructor took us out (me and the lady who had her test after me at 11:40). We ambled around practicing roundabouts, u-turns and emergency stops. Then the instructor says (on the one-way intercom) "well, it's 10:40, we've got some time before your test, shall we go for a coffee?" Hmmmm I thought, and coasted over to where he was just getting back on his bike. "Isn't my test at 10:44?" I said. His reply isn't suitable to put dow

New Shiny Things :) The caliper pistons, seals and stanchions have arrived. Now it's getting a bit scary. I have to actually put things back together! I'm confident that I can rebuild the brake calipers, but the fork stanchions are a much scarier job. I'll have to somehow lift the front of the bike so that I can take the forks out. Of course, my friend had the bike lowered for herself, which means that I can't easily get my bike lift under it. So, I'll have to use paddock stands to raise the front and back of the bike and then see if there is enough room to get the lift under it so that I can then remove the front paddock stand so that the fork legs are free. in the meantime, I can rebuild the brake calipers. So I unpacked the rear brake piston, got some red rubber grease and smeared a very thin film of it over the surface of the piston. Yes, I know that you really don't want grease anywhere near your brakes, but I knew that it would be scrapped off the

So, I've ordered new caliper pistons and new fork stanchions. I had a look at the forks and they are really bad. way too bad to even consider trying to clean up with wet and dry. I've tried to capture some of the pitting in these photos: the seals are in a really bad way too, so I need a complete set of seals, new oil and the new stanchions. of course I'm not sure I will actually change the stanchions myself or get a mobile mechanic to do it, but once I've got the bits, I can decide. while I'm waiting for the bits to arrive, I decided to get the front end ready and do some more cleaning (as it will need quite a bit before I'm happy with it). taking the front fairing off would have been fairly easy if not for one of the nuts at the bottom (there are two). these two nuts are screwed onto threaded rod that seems to be welded onto a little carrier between the forks. one of the nuts came off fine, but the other nut started spinning without actuall