http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/ TRC is a UK motorbike forum community, it also provides motorbike blogs, free uk motorbike classifieds, motogp discussions, motorbike reviews, motorbike articles and much more en Thu, 20 Jun 2013 11:12:57 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/customstyles/default/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/ http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/1143-cold-turkey-harder-than-looks.html Sun, 13 Jan 2013 22:14:51 GMT At Christmas, I looked about me and thought "I'm going to give up the bikes"

At the time it seemed rather logical, I have a shed, a huge elderly ST1100, an equally elderly Bandit, a GSXR1100 streetfighter needing finished, most of another slabside and a CB250 all sitting doing nothing. I wouldn't sell the Bandit, I would be keeping the shed and I'm very fond of the old beast anyway, co it could stay, the fighter just needs paint, the ST would go on Gumtree and the assorted parts would too. Easy.

Things started to go wrong just after Xmas, I was looking at a local biker buy and sell group on FB, there was a bloke who had been trying to flog a Firestorm since November, I had watched the price get reduced until it was a couple of hundred quid above what I thought I would get for the ST, if I was lucky, so I sent him a cheeky PM wondering if he would be up for a swap, He rode the ST and liked it, I liked the VTR and a deal was done. I was happy, a tidy VTR would always be easier to shift than a tatty, high mileage ST. At the same time I pulled the Bandit out where it had lain since about may and gave it a go at starting. As usual it started and I began to think how handy it would be to have the Bandit outside the house, just for emergencies, so I insured it and the VTR and the Bandit was presented for MOT, passed with flying colours, so in the space of a few says I had 2 road legal bikes.

So that was ok for a couple of weeks until another mate phones up bemoaning the fact that he was looking a trailie and was skint, did I know anyone who would buy his unfinished GSXR project. I know the bike in question, an 1100L, bored to 1216, fancy cams, K&N's, very quick for an 1100, (north of 150bhp IIRC) harris rearsets, bodywork painted in Rizla colours, a K5 subframe and rear bodywork for fitting and a complete TL1000R front end that he was going to fit. Would I know anyone who would buy it.

"What are you looking for it?"

"Dunno, about £1200 for everything"

"Fuck off, it's in bits"

"I paid £400 for that front end and that engine was two grand!"

"I might well have been, but it's IN BITS"

"I know, but I've seen this XT600"

"How much is the XT"

"£900"

"Give you £800 for everything, including the Ohlins you're hiding from it"

(reluctantly) "Sold!"

So now my plans for giving up have been totally blown to bits, I haven't a pot to piss in and I'm considering if my ancient Bandit could cope with nearly twice the power, it's a funny old world............. ]]> Bigjawa http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/1143-cold-turkey-harder-than-looks.html http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/714-i-hate-technology.html Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:21:07 GMT I suppose I was doing about 90 when I noticed the red light, the road round the Ards penninsula was deserted at that... I suppose I was doing about 90 when I noticed the red light, the road round the Ards penninsula was deserted at that time of the morning, and the SV was thrumming along happily, presumably the local residents were not as happy at the noise, but at that speed, I wouldn't be long in earshot for long, but I was distracted by the glow from beside the rev counter, and as Billy Ocean once said "Red light spells danger!!!"

I quickly dropped my eyes to the LCD panel, praying there would be no oil symbol, my right thumb hovering above the kill switch if there was, fortunately there was a big black FI staring back at me, no imminent engine destruction but the prospect of major hassle nonetheless, I slowed, to find that the bike would happily rev to 6k with a closed throttle, so I pulled in and cut the engine. Checking the throttle, it snapped shut perfectly with a reassuring click, I turned the ignition back on and the light was out, so I set off back home, scanning for any nasty lights from the dash.

Nothing happened, so I decided to head up to Ballymoney, to see a friend, accelerating up the hill section of the M2, the light came on again, I switched on and off and once more it was gone. Clearly something was up, and it appeared it was only happening at high speed, I bridged the dealer mode contacts but nothing was up, clearly I'd have to avoid switching the ignition off, so I ran a pair of wires from the dealer mode port where I could get at them at the roadside, and set off to give the bike some welly. It took 104mph this time and pulled in and eagerly connected the wires.

C28

Bugger! Secondary Throttle Valve Acuator! A quick google showed this to be an expensive problem, and a common one. Only available as part of the throttle body assembly, a quick call to Suzuki and a stiff drink later, I was ready to start hunting ebay! A TB was found and after a few days it arrived, pretty grubby but a good clean later it was ready to fit.

Now I'm pretty good with carb related stuff, usually and the throttle bodies had been off when the renthals had been fitted, to fit the extended cables, so I wasn't going into it blind, but it is a fiddly process!

1. Take off seat infill panels.
2. Take off seat.
3. Unbolt the tank mounts at the front.
4. Prop up tank.
5. Undo airbox clips
6. Disconnect the 2 plugs from airbox
7. Pull off wee black hose.
8. Lift airbox and take off 2 breathers.
9. Hang airbox off the side of the bike.
10. Undo TB to manifold clips,.
11. Lift TB up a bit then disconnect every electrical thing you can find.
12. Undo fuel pipe.
13. Take off throttle cables.

Fitting is, in the classic Haynes phrase, the reverse of dissassembly, and for once it went back together easily! A quick hard run out over the same road that provoked the last red light brought no horrors, so hopefully, it'll be OK for a while. The bike goes on SORN at the end of the month, so we'll see if it gets punted up the road or kept for another year! ]]> Bigjawa http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/714-i-hate-technology.html http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/710-living-island.html Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:31:53 GMT On of the disadvantages of living on the Emerald Isle is that it costs so bloody much to get off it. Sure you can get a... On of the disadvantages of living on the Emerald Isle is that it costs so bloody much to get off it. Sure you can get a cheap Ryanair flight, but by the time you add up all the charges and transport to the airport and the plastic bags you need etc, then by feck it adds up. Plus, giving that odious wee shite O'Leary money would make me feel grubby to say the least.

I'll be honest, I don't like flying, I admire the machine, but I don't like the whole experience, the airport, the feeling like cattle on the way to the abbatoir, and TBH, not many folk walk away from a plane crash.

I prefer to take the boat, now I'm not a stranger too the joys of ferries, but when I'm on a holiday, I find the wee boat trip rather relaxing, or at least I would if it wasn't so bloody dear. It's roughly 45 miles by sea from Belfast to Stranraer, yet I'm charged nearly £200 for the round trip, I worked it out once, it was cheaper to take a ferry from Venice to Piraeus in Greece than it is for 2 hours on the slow boat across to Scotland. Even the fast boat is no better, since they've had to limit the speed of it because of the sheer amount of fuel it drinks. Because of this, Stena had to buy an ancient old french ship, give it a few baubles and stick it on the Belfast - Stranraer route.

I'll be honest, I don't need to be able to enjoy a Latte at 3am on a ship, I just want a seat to crash out in, maybe a TV to watch and a pot to pee in. You're only on the bloody thing for a couple of hours in any case. If the weathers good and it's a night crossing, I'll probably be on deck sleeping on one of the benches. The food is too dear, you can't drink if you're driving, and I don't have a laptop for wi-fi.

Maybe we need no-frills ferries, a deck for the motors and a room like a cafeteria for the clientele, no wifi, no Lattes and no £10 burger and chips. Quality! ]]> Bigjawa http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/710-living-island.html http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/661-time-year-again.html Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:58:54 GMT Spring has sprung, and as usual there's crap weather heralding what is, to me, the start of my riding year. and with that, the inevitable legalities that the government say I need to keep my bike on the road.

Insurance was taken care of from the comfort of my armchair, MOT was pretty much a formality as well for a bike that is more pampered than Paris Hilton which leads me on to the subject of Tax.

In NI, we have a body, called the DVA which is in charge of all the driving licences, all the MOT's and all the road tax, which in theory should work ok, but in practice, is one of those government departments that you expect to see Ricky Gervais or Frank Spencer working in.

Y'see, we can't tax our vehicles online, no siree, you can phone, but only if you have a certain debit card, no credit cards or suchlike, which leaves you with either the choice of the Post Office, or your Local (ha!) Vehicle Licencing Office.

I chose the PO, for reasons I'll get to later, so I queue behing the pension brigade and I get to the counter, where they say I can't tax the bike as I have no SORN certificate, which, acording to the V10 form, I do not need. A heated debate ensues, with the manager refusing to admit he can accept he does not need this certificate, which actually doesn't exist in the way he thinks it does. He also says that he can't accept V10 forms. There's a large sign on the wall which reads "we now accept V10 car tax forms"

ARRRGHHHH!

I ask a few questions of his intellect and parentage and leave, fortunately, the VLO is but a 10 minute walk away.

Entering the VLO is a bit like going to court, you're coming out poorer than when you go in, and you always feel the victim! So you take a ticket, I'm number 198, they're at 155 and settle down to wait.

And wait you will, they work at the speed of a sloth on betablockers, every single document is checked, double checked, every note tested for being a fake, every document checked again, and every so often someone is sent away, angry because of some minor detail. There are 9 booths open, but pretty soon it's down to 7 and the place is packed like a bookies on derby day, kids run amok, squealing whilst the parents bemoan being gasping for a fag and cursing the slowness of the procedure in general.

I know why they have huge perspex screens like in a Glasgow bank, I'm in there 5 minutes and I'm already feeling the urge to throttle somebody, I double check my documents, V10? Check! MOT? Check! Insurance? Check. Everything should be plain sailing. Eventually I get called to a booth operated by "Steven" who looks like an emo version of Harry Potter, complete with stubble that he's been working on for a month, and I notice he has a HUGE mole which has it's own little forest growing out of it, right under his chin. Steven checks the documents, but seems perplexed by the insurance cert, which says SV650S while the tax book says SV650SK3. However when he's told it's the model code for 2003 and the reg numbers match up, he relents and says "that'll be £38.50"

Excuse me? But the sign says £36.30, but in their infinite wisdom, DVA have neglected to tell us folk who don't watch the news that much of any change in duty. They just haven't changed the board (or their website either!)

But anyway, the deed is done, and I can escape into the fresh air, passing the resigned looking folk coming the other way.

Now I have to put the tax in my tax disc holder along with the MOT disc. Can't wait!

Welcome to spring..............:) ]]> Bigjawa http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/661-time-year-again.html http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/655-old-faithful.html Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:33:56 GMT It's August 2005, and I'm standing looking at the BMW R80 that I had lavished much care on, wondering why, it had tried to kill me. Coming back to Stranraer, we were late for the ferry, I was pushing the old BM for all it was worth, turning the A77 into my own private TT circuit, certainly I had never ridden that particular stretch of Scottish tarmac so quickly, probably I had never ridden the BM so quickly, I wanted to get my feet back on Irish soil and nothing was going to stop me.

We checked in with seconds to spare and as I pulled into the holding area I lightly stroked the front brake lever, there was a pinging noise and the lever came back to the bar, coupled with a total lack of retardation, closer inspection revealed fluid soaking the front tyre and my mate pulled up holding a piece of metal pipe, the piece that a few minutes before had linked the 2 brembo calipers that were stopping me from burying a quarter ton of BMW into the scenery. As far as I was concerned, it was the last straw, I had poured enough money into that thing that the staff at Motorworks knew my voice and credit car details off by heart. I needed a new bike, any bike, just rid if that damned BMW.

I knew it would be hard to sell, it was a real bitsa, the frame was R80RT, the engine R100R and the rest of it came from a bike that a poor German tourist had stolen from him on a trip to the emerald isle, I'd rescued the carcass and the rest was history. No BMW aficionado would go near it with a 10 foot pole and selling it privately would be a real PITA. For Sale: Homicidal Motorcycle would tend to deter even the most desperate of customers.

I was offered a swap for a Bandit 750, an ex courier bike that had certainly seen better days, the deal was done and it was delivered to my lock up.



"Holy Christ!" That was my first thought on inspecting the machine, every single panel was scraped, the clocks smashed, the exhaust was held together with 14 jubilee clips and worst of all the oil light was on permanently, the BM was bad, but this was 10 times worse, what the fuck had I done?

Amazingly, it rode straight as a die, the back shock was dead, and it wouldn't rev beyond 5000 rpm, so I proceeded to give it a service. The air filter was literally an inch deep in muck and crap and once changed the top end of the rev range could be explored, revealing the clutch was slipping, much debate about what clutch actually fitted the 750 revealed it was a 600 one, but by this stage we decided to get stuck in seriously. Bits were sourced from friends, e-bay and even a JCB, and it was soon looking like this.



For 3 years that bike was my daily hack, and weekend toy, it was revved to the redline, hurled round corners, and became aquainted with roads all over the UK, amazingly the engine was untouched bar an oil and filter change, it certainly never sounded much worse than any other Bandit I heard and once the pink wire was cut and earthed it would run right up to the redline in 6th. The original owner point blank refused to believe it was the same bike, such was the change, and by late 2007 it had the added benefit of a fairing, meaning it looked rather like a bog standard 600. Inly the bolt on pillion pegs and the 4-pots on the forks would give the game away. It even had the de-facto loud can installed and sounded rather good.



Unfortunately, in early 2008 I was seduced by an SRAD, and the Bandit was banished to the back of the lock up, where it sat, untouched for the guts of two years. A VTR follwed the SRAD and a SV650 followed that, until I dragged the Bandit from it's resting place on saturday past.

It started after a bit of churning, and ran rough as usual for about the first 30 seconds, blowing loads of steam, crap and parboiled spiders out of the pipe. A quick once over while it warmed up and it was into first with an almighty clunk and we were off.

Fortunately for me, my lock up is in the arsehole of nowhere, so little things like MOT could be dispensed with for a quick test ride. It felt wooly compared to the SV but I did a quick furtive diversion to the petrol station for 5 quids worth of unleaded. This improved things greatly and old faithful was soon being her usual self. The speedo cable was dead, the clutch cable is clinging to life and the wiring for the front brake light has fallen apart. All 3 will be sorted, the headlight aligned and it should pass the MOT. The odd thing was, although it hadn't turned a wheel in 2 years, it felt like I had never been off the thing, now the SV is at the back of the garage and the Bandit is getting all the attention.

It's the one bike I'll never sell. ]]> Bigjawa http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/655-old-faithful.html http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/651-age-has-some-benefits.html Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:22:24 GMT This week, I found myself halfway to my threescore and ten years, a fact that, if I am brutally honest, fills me with a... This week, I found myself halfway to my threescore and ten years, a fact that, if I am brutally honest, fills me with a sense of great annoyance, not because it's pretty apparent I'm not going to be a person of any major importance, but because I'm now looked upon as being old enough to know better.

20 years ago, on my 15th birthday, I was given a Commodore Amiga, a pair of trainers and I was looking forward to the day when I could ride legally on the road and didn't have to go to school. The world was a simpler place, I would probably end up driving a lorry for a living, be married to a girl called Debbie have 2 kids and drive an Opel Manta.

Sadly, I ended up driving the lorry amongst other crap jobs, I married and divorced a girl called Laura, had 3 kids and went thorugh more cars than Mad Max 2, although I did have the Opel Manta for a while!;D;D;D

Now that I'm officially old enough to know better, I can look back that my first years insurance for my 50cc was £192, then when I got my 125 at 17, the insurance industry went into a spasm about NI insurance and it went up to, and I'm not exaggerating, £1092!

I proceeded to tell them to fook off, got my car test, buggered off to England with my girlfriends cousin, then came back a year later to bluff my way into a courier job with the 125 which I had trailed out of the garage.

That meant my insurance was £9 a week, and although that was near £500 a year, that was for any bike. I even had my Exup as a "courier" bike because the boss was all right about these things, and the odd bottle of vodka tended to mellow his attitude somewhat. I took out another policy in 1996 for an old 250 MZ that I rode round half of Europe, and I had 3 years NCB untill late 1999 when some muppet stole my Jawa from outside my front door. Considering it had no barrels or head on it, and had blown it's crank bearings to bits, I don't really know why they did it. Anyway, the insurance paid out roughly 10 times what it was worth but I was down to 1 years NCB which I conveiniently forgot about.

Come 2003 and I was once more devoid of NCB as it had lapsed, but since I was back on 2 wheels I started slowly with my BMW R100, which was about £300, a year later I went to my GSXR1100 which was £400, back to the BM, then to a Bandit, which meant the insurance was hovering to just above the £100 mark.

True nirvana was achieved when I found myself astride a VTR1000, insurance, for what you could call a 1000cc sportsbike was sub £100, incredible when you thing that a 125 was once over a grand.

Anyway, I'm now looking at a policy that will get my GSXR1100, the Bandit and my SV all on the same policy for £115, all 3 sitting fully legal, to take out as the notion takes me!

So it seems, that although I'm slower, not as fit, softer and altogether deteriorated, the insurance people seem to like me, even if no one else does! ;D;D;D;D ]]> Bigjawa http://www.therevcounter.co.uk/blogs/bigjawa/651-age-has-some-benefits.html