What have you done with your bike today?

[duck-strom]

I have to confess to being a complete tart fair weather rider so it doesn't usually get that dirty. ACF50 is a marvelous invention to stop your bike dissolving over winter 

Great cleanup job 2112.  I'm thinking you found some of the cleaner roads in my home area! I rode home through 40plus mph winds on Thursday night and this was the state of mine. Never rode in such horrible wind and rain.
Maybe we crossed paths yesterday left Carter Bar about 10am for a ride round by Hexham, Stanhope and Alston.
Back out today scraping off the muck !

[2112]

We got to the Carter Bar at about 11:00 ish, would have been sooner but my mates 900 Tracer decided it didn't want to start and needed a jump off the car... Stanhope is a great run with some lovely quiet roads to explore & we often stop off at the Station Cafe in Alston which is worth a visit.

[Asmith61]

@Rusty great pictures Definitely cow horns handle bars 

[Fat Rat]

I picked up the T7 on Friday and finished putting the 600 miles on yesterday. I can't get it in for a Service until Friday because work is getting in the way 

I am going to do a little review of the T7 so far and some things I have had to change straight away.

Today's project was to wash the thing after three and a half hours of riding in torrential rain yesterday and then to fit the HP Corse high exhaust.

I also got rid of the hideous factory tank stickers and added a Yamaha Tank pad.

[kwackboy]

Urm ... you're triggering my OCD .   

[Fat Rat]

It's close enough 

[2112]

Today I managed to score an absolute bargain and picked up a Corbin dual seat for the tigger. I spotted it on the Tiger1200 forum and it was only down the road in Stockton-upon-Tees, so a 50 mile trip in the car as it was pissing down raining quite heavily. Incredibly, it came off a 2020 Alpine Edition so it had some white piping installed and the feller was only selling it as his recent knee operation had not gone well and any long distance touring was now out of the question. I was on the Corbin website and it would cost over £800 for a new one delivered to the door, so £250 for a nearly new, hardly used one was a no--brainer. Happy.

[Brockett]

Today - A few hours in the garage installing the mainstand on the V7. When I say a few hours I mean I started at 1230 and finished at 1945.
I could explain what was involved but it's tedious and none of us will ever get that time back.
I could put up a photo but you all know what a bike on a stand looks like.
And I am just seriously shagged out with the effort.

[kwackboy]

 

Covered my BMW with some dust sheets because I'm bored of cleaning wood dust off it ..

[Brockett]

I removed the cheese bolts off the Givi engine bars and after checking both sides  I saw that I had put the supplied spacers on the outside instead of on the inside of the right hand side. In fact they just acted as big washers and didn't step the engine bar bracket off the frame fixing.  Can't explain that one. But it's all done now with new bolts. The Givi bolts are button head alans but due to being button heads they are too shallow and the driven socket has rounded off before reaching the reqiored 50Nm. Fortunately the socket was not worn on the "undo" edges and they came off OK. The replacements are twice the depth.  However, I have a set of Moto Guzzi chromed engine bars for the V7Special and they are lighter and feel less substantial than the Giv Bars.

[2112]

Tonight I popped a bottle of Putolene fuel stabiliser into the tigger. That's it for me now until the weather picks up...

[Upt North]

Honda Pro Fuel Stabiliser for me and E5.
Role on Spring, but wait..........BLUMMIN BUGGER it's snowing.
Upt'North.

[endintears]

Bitten the bullet and started the 18000 mile [30K] service.
It's the valve clearances plug change etc interval for the KTM so the full Monty.
Hit a little snag though, just about to measure the gaps and  noticed the manual cites that the tolerances quoted are correct at 20c.
Anybody know the correction factor to apply to allow for the fact that my garage is currently about 17 degrees below that...
Of course too tight to heat the garage hot enough for long enough to bring the bike up to temp (when tha's got nowt tha knows ).

[Rusty Nuts]

Sorry, but the coefficient of volumetric expansion for the relevant metals escapes me at the moment. Remiss of me. TLPower will know. Or he'll say leave it till April. Not like you'd be doing many miles at the moment, is it?

[cooltshirt]

Move the whole thing into the living room. What reasonable partner could have a problem with that?

The killer argument here is that in the living room you won't have issues with your hands warming up the new shims to a different temperature to the rest of the engine.

[endintears]

Think positive @Rusty
Warming up next week, might even be chance for some breakfast testing before the new year.
@coolshirt
Quite, what reasonable partner would?
Anyway back in the sub zero garage...

[TLPower]

Easy solution Endintears, buy this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154761636260?var=454854221112&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid , heat up the valves through the plug holes with a hot air gun, light a fire under the engine and leave until it and the valves reach 20 degrees. I would recommend plugging any petrol pipes and taking the fuel tank inside your mansion.

Keep a fire extinguisher handy.

[cooltshirt]

Never let it be said that this forum doesn't explore all possibilities ...... 

[Rixington43]

I mean you could just fire the engine up, let it run for a few minutes, let it cool for a couple of hours, oh hang on, it's already in bits

Maybe just do it on Monday, 14 degrees up this part of the world apparently and 6 degrees won't make enough difference, even on exotic European engineering ;)

[Brockett]

@ coolshirt - "explode all possibilities" more like.