Fozzie

You weren't in Bali were you? I fancy riding a bike out there next year (in the dry season). And after tips of what it's like. Would be hiring a Honda CBX150. Adventure type bike, only 17BHP, but enough for me to ferry myself and the mrs around.

Was back to it this weekend. As the weather was lovely, I rode to my dads workshop in Anglesey on the bike. I got to it first thing in the morning, but I had to go back 2-3 steps from where I wanted to. Firstly, I was paranoid I hadn't put the balancer shaft in fully lined up, and I was paranoid I'd put too much sealant near the crank (you're meant to leave 1cm a side)... So I took the crank apart again. Twice. As when I put it back the first time, I noticed one of the transmission shafts hadn't seated in its dowel and pulled it apart, scraped off the gasket and started again. I'm getting adept at it at least. I then lapped the valves one more time with the fine compound, as I got my eye in last time and was able to turn around a single valve in about 5-7 minutes. So with only 8 to do, I got them all sorted in an hour. Making sure each spun smoothly in its seat. Loaded up, and good to go. I won't bore with the crank/valves again. I gave it a good clean down in a parts washer. I bought this for my dad as a birthday present... He wanted one for a while, but didn't have a project to justify getting one. As I did, I offered to buy it if I could use it on my projects. I found a dowel in the wrong spot. I'd noticed it the first time I stripped the bike, it was actually a dowel for the valve cover, not the valve caps. I replaced it with a fresh dowel I had spare. Getting it out was a *bugger* I got the head on, torqued down, and all oil pipes reassembled. Oiled everything to help reduce the dry start wear. Engine back in the bike, and ready to go. For a test fire. It was turned over by hand, then on a drill to spin the engine at 100-200rpm, then on the starter motor until the oil pressure light went out indicating good pressure. It was a nerve racking moment. As anything wrong and the engine would grenade itself quite quickly. The head was polished smooth with 600 grit and washed down as much as possible to keep grit out of the engine, but it had marks that suggested a bad previous ownership (it was a learner bike). But the crank case could leak, or the main oil seals. The head gasket could blow immediately. And instead, it fired into life, and for the first time in this project, idled well (even with the airbox off) with the distinct Kawasaki twin "chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a" exhaust note. No leaks I can see yet. The engine now sounds very tight, there's none of the old rattling, backfires through the carb etc. When the airbox was on, it struggled to get over 4000rpm and the exhausts were noticeably hot. The headers were nearly glowing. The delkevic exhaust is more free flowing, and the bikes are setup lean from factory. I suspect wear and tear, along with that exhaust now necessitates the needle raising 2 notches to richen the mixture and help the transition onto main jet. I'm going to get some new diaphragms, and ultra sonic clean it all one more time, then tweak the needle height until I get a smooth rev through the range. It's possibly a weekend of graft away from being rideable....

A funny nob of the day to finish up the Friday. I had an argument with an elec engineer, who I even called to warn to drop the issue, and follow a suggested course. They called to say one of my generators had a breaker panel that was too small for the incoming cables. This turned out only to be the earth cables, they had 3, I'd only allowed a connection for 2. It's only a small unit, less than 1MW district heating system that provides a dozen blocks of flats with heat/power from one gas fired source. It will be hydrogen fired one day. Without even checking, I reply that their calcs must be off to want to put that much copper cable on there. The engineer gets quite snippy and demanding. So I lay out the fag packet calcs. Showing he's based his in error on the max breaker fault rating, whereas he should have used the much smaller max generator fault current rating, as that's the most that will ever flow through that breaker. It lead to a difference of 650mm vs 100mm squared cable. He doesn't budge, so I offer to simulate it on *the* industrial standard software. He agrees, so at this point I call him and warn that it will simulate all cable sizes, and his mains cables in particular also looked massively over. I get the "I've been doing this 30 years" spiel. I offer to say we agreed a way forward on the phone, and to install just 2 of the 3 cables he's got. Still he refuses, and wants the project manager in receipt of the e-mail. He seems certain it will use the calc as written in his regs book, rather than actually simulating the earth currents and sizing the conductor accordingly, the report from this software is what gets most sites signed off. I ran it. His 650mm calculation was a little off... So was mine at 100mm, which was meant to be the "worst case". It was 21.5mm. And with his mains cables, he's put roughly £100,000 too much cable in. As requested, his project manager was CC'd into the e-mail...

By comparison, anything over 16 C is summer for me! Makes it ironic that my favourite holiday locations are the southern states of America.

Good afternoon! This sunny weather has broken the average for the year. Before a couple of weeks ago when it suddenly brightened up, I was saying how cold and wet it has been for the first half of this year. Was out on the bike with the girlfriend on Sunday, took her for a potter around while it was still early. The weather has really affected the work from home staff. You notice a lot of meetings don't happen, or are short, and lots of staff are hard to reach for chunks of the day. You wonder what percentage are in their garden soaking up some sun/beer, but then again I'm here jabbering away on a forum so who am I to complain?

We have a government that set a target of 300,000 new homes built per year to keep up with demand, then barely managed 30,000. Then with record immigration this last year, despite a target of bringing it down, we've seen housing become scarce. And with the taxes you're hit with if you want to downsize, there's no incentive for older folk to find a smaller place and pocket the difference, as they end up with a huge tax bill they'd rather leave to kids/family. And who wouldn't, as when you die, any inheritance you leave is also taxed to death. But with housing, it saw a balloon effect in some areas. Near me for example, a house sold for £158k in 2002, and £182k in 2012. But end of 2022 went up for £400k. It's mad to me that in one block of 10 years it went up £24k, and the next £218k. And there's dozens like it. In the last few months they've dipped about 5%, but even by the end of next year it will likely not be more than 15%, which will still leave them highly inflated. You'd think the media would be making more noise. High housing prices really don't help anyone but banks who make profits on the mortgages, and a government who uses the housing markets size to use as collateral against its borrowing. But instead as you say, it's right wing complaints about those with 95% mortgages slipping into negative equity, and left wing complaints about them being un-affordable.

Morning! Hearing news that house prices are falling at their fastest rate in 14 years. They do try to make it sound scary, but for those who bought 5 or more years ago, it could drop through the floor and you'd still be in profit. And no one outside the big cities will meaningfully be affected. But for people like me stuck in flats with small mortgages, it's a welcome sign. Might be able to afford a place with a garage that doesn't require a generator backed battery system that I've built in.

Another weekend back in Wales to attack the ER5. I only really had to service the top end, but dubious about this engine I went deeper. I didn't trust the old cam chain on there as the previous owner installed the tensioner at full extension. And who knows how long it ran like that. With the cases split I had the transmission out and cleaned with solvents. I then cracked the nuts on the pistons con-rods and lifted the crank up and slid the old chain off. New chain on. There was about 5-6mm difference in length, not horrendous, but I wonder how new the old chain was. Once done, cleaned, and torqued back up. I put the cases back together after a clean/new gasket, and cleaned up the sump. I used a brass wire brush to clean the old gasket off. I used sealant remover to get the really stuck on gunk off. Pesky oil pipes kept trying to fall out, so was quite a mission getting the cases back together. Lining up the gear selectors as well in what looked like neutral. I then spent a good couple of hours carefully block sanding and cleaning the head gasket surfaces. I used lots of fresh rags soaked in new oil to catch any detritus. And used compressed air and a lot of lint free clothes. When back together, the engine will be spun on the starter motor to get oil pressure back up, and then the oil/filter changed. And then again after a 10-15 minute run. Taking as many precautions as I can. Trick is to use 180-240 grit to start. Then 400. Finish on 600. Even pressure, and work equal amounts in both directions to create a super fine cross-hatch. Head gaskets seal based on the smoothness of the mating surfaces. You can get away with rougher for iron heads. Ally demands a smooth finish. There are scales you can find from machine shops based on head gasket material and the sealing surface material. I perched myself on a small stool, and whipped the valves out one by one and lapped them to get a better sealing surface. I went quite hard on cyl 2, which was having backfire issues. Getting there, I'll be repeating this on the next visit. As I'll have a parts washer so can be more liberal with the grinding putty knowing I can effectively clean it off. I then set about 5-6 hours of cleaning with a rotary tool, and brass wire brushes. Several cans of brake cleaner to clean down all surfaces. And began building up the lower end of the engine. Fresh gaskets all round and clutch cover back on. And that's where I left it. Doused in WD40 to prevent corrosion. Next visit I'm gunning to get it together and started. Will be taking a day off to get the top ends valves lapped in again. And clean. And after a lot of checking, put in and span over by hand, then by starter motor, and finally with a live ignition.

It's general themes, rather than specifics. Mostly it's extrapolated from the experiences of those who attempted suicide but either failed or couldn't go through with it, and later speak of how they felt. Sometimes notes left behind are shared by others. I also have my own experience where my plan was built around making it difficult to be found due to how I felt about the situation driving it. You get everything in between, but after a while of sitting in on the groups (I act as moderater) you begin to hear common themes. It's grim stuff, but also reassuring that we have these similarities in many cases, as it at least suggests there could be a harmonised approach in dealing with a lot of it.

There are groups to put it morbidly, that it appeals to. Those who feel isolated, or that they have no purpose can often idealise suicide due to the kindness and affection they see aimed towards peers who killed themselves. They are suffering, and want to be noticed or have some recognition and kindness, but have no idea how to go about it, and they often obsess over negative labels, like being called an attention seeker. It affects teen boys a lot as their concept of death is better than kids, but in a brain charged with new emotions and impulsive feelings. It is possible for suicide to trigger others into doing the same, but I'd point out they were suffering big time before this, all that happened was they found what they think is a way forward. Method often indicates the aim. Jumping in front of a train vs making something fatal look like an accident or vanishing betray very different mentalities. The more dramatic methods like leaping in front of a train tend to want to highlight how much they suffered, whereas the more discreet methods where someone wants to not be found, or look like an accident, tend to be deeply ashamed of how they feel.

I'm involved with a couple of groups, and it's a growing problem. Suicide on the whole is increasing, but male suicide is already at 3 to 1 against women, and looking set to carry on going up. The common themes are often: Isolation, and low social skills so they struggle making friends. And they fall into a rabbit hole online, which just degrades their mental health to the point of developing a condition of some sort. Which then further alienates them from society, and makes it really hard to bring them back. This most affects the younger men, teenagers etc. Custody issues. Men feeling like they are used for cash cows to fund kids after a split with a partner. But aren't able to see them. This affects about a third of guys I know personally in some way, and it's also driving other men into being terrified of getting into relationships, as they feel their only value is in what they can financially provide. Mediation reforms are coming in to try and soothe this, as it then limits vengeful tactics in getting the court on side to alienate fathers, but it remains to be seen. Cyber bullying is pretty intense. Falling out with people, or having a breakup can trigger the more image conscious, insecure, or just straight up vengeful into going heavy on the reputation destruction, usually to online friends who are less likely to happen across any facts to the contrary. The stories often appear convincing, even having witnesses, and young men tend to be the recipient, although I've seen it go both ways. I find this topic quite interesting as it compares bike deaths with suicide. I once actively planned to end things, and it involved my motorbike, a long straight, a corner I had no intention of slowing for and hitting at full speed, and disappearing into woods hoping not to be found. I now wonder, which stat that would have fallen under?

Good afternoon, As my Kawasaki project is in Wales and I'm waiting for parts to roll in (including a parts washer). I've been trying to snipe projects on ebay. Only something small like a 125/250 to occupy my evenings with when I have a spare hour or two. And always in the last second the bids go crazy. I thought I was stupid bidding £400 on a CBR125 that had smashed/cracked panels front to back and was a cat N write off. It was at £240 when I made the bid. I entered my bid with 10 seconds on the clock, then it scrambled up to £600. Now looking at one or two 250s.

I think I've taken this junction a few times, there's one like it in Manchester as well. I get the impression someone painted a line where one didn't need painting.

Saw something on Youtube a while back on these, they are Q plate aren't they? Can't remember why, but it was a regulatory loophole type reason. Possibly even emissions related as even with injection I can't see that meeting the criteria. They're burning oil after all.

Thought it was about time to do an update. In short, I've been really busy. I also took on a couple of unexpected, quick tidy up and sell projects in the form of a 2000 Ninja 600 and a 2000 GSXR SRAD 600. I sold the Ninja a few weeks back, and then the SRAD was bought by my old man who quite fancies it. In the meantime, the ER5 has been worked on. But it has been irritatingly slow. It revs to 5000rpm, hits a horrible mis-firing phase, then carries on. It sounds bang to rights carbs, but they've been rebuilt, deep cleaned, and reset to stock multiple times now. I swapped out the coils as failing under load is a common precursor issue, and it didn't help. Then I waited for a CDI unit as these are known for blowing if the reg/rec ever fries, and when a good priced one appeared on ebay it arrived, but made no difference. It was when we took the airbox off to check the operation of the carbs that we noticed something, the engine has a nasty backfire on cylinder 2. A large bang straight out through the carb body. That sounds like a timing issue, or a valve that is bent/not sealing. It's a while back now, but when I first got the bike, I dropped the engine and found it nearly seized solid as the cam chain tensioner had been installed at full extension. And the engine was out of time by about 10 teeth. When I took the tensioner out and turned over the engine, it felt like nothing was hitting, so I assumed I'd been lucky. So on Saturday in my dads workshop in Wales, I dropped the engine out and went investigating. Engine was timed right, one headache out of the way. When the issues are finally resolved, I'm cleaning up the gasket surfaces throughout the bike as this thing is crusty. Head off, only took 2 hours to get to this point. They are like Lego to pull apart. Removing the collets to extract the springs and drop the valves. They all looked fine until I got to cylinder 2's inlet side... Even with a good clean, this inlet valve still has carbon deposits on its top face. Loads of loose carbon flaked off when I got it out, and the inlet... I think I found the problem, the other inlets had small signs of carbon build up, but on this one there are heavy deposits. The valve isn't sealing and combustion gases are getting back up the line and likely disrupting the fuelling. Or that's my theory at least. I also found one valve spring installed the wrong way up, it was the inner spring. So that all but confirmed someone has been as deep as this before, and not been thorough. My plan going on now is first of all, buy a parts washer and clean all of this up including the gasket residue. Use a block sander and a medium (for ally) grit to smooth the surface and show any low spots. It's a cheap engine, so I'm trying to do it all by hand. The bit I didn't photo was I actually split the cases before I packed it in for the day. It took an hour once the bolts were all out for it to come free. During which my dad was tapping with a rubber mallet and a small piece of the casting came off. It only holds one part of the sprocket cover, so I should be able to reattach it with some fab time and thin ally plate. But below is the underside of the engine with the sump off. I've basically decided that as the cam chain tensioner was badly installed, it has likely damaged the existing cam chain, which is 52,000 miles old. So I've bought a new chain to sling on. In the meantime, I'm ordering a bunch of new bolts and hardware that's relatively cheap. Get this bike put back together better than it came apart. I'm going to try and grind in the valves with coarse and then fine grit paste, and see how good a seal I can get. Once it looks good, clean it all up, re-install the engine, refreshed with a new timing chain and oil/assembly oil used throughout, and then give it a go. If parts arrive, I'll be doing it in the next few weeks. ...Sorry for the essay, I like to be descriptive...

I've been feeding my lady with false times, she actually told me to do it, but then forgot she gave me that instruction so I got away with it for ages. She'll ask what time she has to be ready for and depending on the occasion I'll say a time 10-30 minutes earlier than she actually needs to be. If it's a family meet up, just the 10, but if it's a big do or something with her friends, nearer 30. As she'll be putting in more effort and run later. Got away with it for ages before she clocked. Was tougher to spot as the variable times just made it look like I was getting the time wrong. She remembered telling me to use this tactic, but not before getting a slap when I fessed up

There's a crucial question... How do you take your steak? Anything higher than medium will be treated as heresy

Good evening. Works busy, got a trip over to Anglesey this weekend to see family, which will be nice. On the bike as well. Girlfriend is stressed as she's over worked, and got some drama in her friend group, which I then put my foot in it over. We went to a wedding last year and it hasn't lasted the year. Apparently the fella was working in America for weeks on end, got cracking on with someone who was not his wife, and not his wife got upset when he broke things off and told his actual wife. I haven't been much help as on the third time she's said "I knew something like this would happen, they had a bumpy relationship in the past" and I curiously replied with "If you were so sure, why did neither you or any friends approach her about it before she married him?". Apparently this wasn't the moment for a reasoned discussion, and "you don't get how these things work". Which is fair enough. It's why I mostly stick to bikes

For the guy on the bike yeah, but at the start of the video there's a guy on the other side of the rock (presumably he rode around the rock and made it). And at the end of the video you see him tumbling down the hill after his mate, and his helmet goes flying. Maybe he jumped down after his friend out of panic? Not that there was anything he could actually do to stop what was happening! But suppose that's a good mate, reminds me of being at school when you did something daft as a friend told you to and the teacher asked "would you jump off a cliff if he told you too?".

In that first one (posted on Monday), I'm still trying to understand how the guy on the other side also went down? You see him sliding, and his helmet cartwheeling down the hillside. ... Hope they had a good recovery package... Would have been an interesting phone call.

I'm with EE, have a Iphone 13 pro with unlimited everything, and a travel pass which lets me use all my allowances free of charge in Europe and places like America. I pay £60 a month for it, and no upfront costs, but I had to play a bit of a game with EE. Firstly, I get a 20% corporate discount from a scheme that I've not had access to for several years. Each time I bluff with "I had this discount, should I get a new code?" and they always say "no need, we'll run it through". Last time, the guy got pushy and tried to make me go for an Iphone 13 pro max. I just wanted the pro. In the end I agreed, but I called back almost immediately to ask to cancel and told them I didn't appreciate being pushed. They kept me by giving me the pro, reducing cost, and then threw in the travel pass. Don't feel bad about haggling with them and out playing them, they are perfectly happy pushing £120 a month contracts onto people who don't know better. Let them know they should have offered you the O2 deal at the time, and would need better to be convinced to leave. May as well give it a go if you're prepared to leave anyway!

Something I've been surprised by is how many people have said this is high up their list, or even a dream destination when I've mentioned it. I've always seen the majority of "holiday talk" effectively been a brag on how far someone traveled to find a beach that is 95% the same as any other in my books

I'm hoping it settles down as I'm in Anglesey in a couple of weeks for a family gathering, and the house is on a hill overlooking the Menai strait. The two land masses of the island and mainland act like a venturi and the wind can feel pretty mad. But it sounds insane at night. And I have a girlfriend who sleeps straight through these things, but wakes up the whallop me for breathing (not snoring) too loudly so I'm currently praying for good conditions not just so I can take the bike, but for my sanity

Good afternoon I'm back to work today, I've just spent 2 weeks doing a tour of Japan with the mrs. It was a long pair of flights to get back, 11.5 and 7.5 hours back to back. We did a fair bit, starting in Tokyo we did a day of exploring the city, using the subway system to get everywhere. Seeing the Skytree, the huge shopping areas with the massive screens advertising all sorts of weird stuff, and then spent a couple of days at their two Disney parks. Then we went to Kyoto and spent 5 days there, exploring both the cities and doing day trips. I really liked this city as it was the cultural capital of Japan and the side streets were something I loved getting lost in, as well as eating in the ramen places where google translate was the only way I could communicate what I wanted. We saw the famous vermilion torii gates at the Inari shrine, 4km of them up a hillside. We went to Hiroshima for a day trip by bullet train, and it was a very unsettling day, but important to see. You don't even remotely get told the real story in school or on western TV, you sort of end up hating the state of the world as it is now. We then went over to Nara and the ancient forests/shrines as well as deer that literally bow to you when you approach with food. We then made our way to lake Kawaguchi where Mount Fuji is, and that was one heck of a thing to see in the flesh. We climbed a local shrine that was several stair cases that took 15 minutes of steady marching to get to the top. After a couple of days, we headed back to Tokyo, but this time on the other side of the city so we could see some of the bigger parks and the imperial castle. The last day was due to have a lot of rain after 2 weeks of sunshine, so I scored some cheap tickets back to Disney to see out our last full day. My main take away is, have a data sim for your phone and you pretty much can manage everything easily. But most of the time I was able to work stuff out quite quickly, and it wasn't the scary experience as often made out on TV. The language is hard, but there's usually numbers/times shown on boards so you can work out train/platforms easy enough. I'm suffering a lot of jetlag, and a lot of reverse culture shock coming back. I didn't realise how far behind we are in some ways

Cuba actually is a socialist state though, I just want a better regulated capitalist structure with our energy that doesn’t let a continuation of corporate knobs who lobby to erode rules and constantly drive up costs for profits sake. If I was socialist, I’d be seizing control of companies and distributing the wealth generated between its workers. Which is why I get baffled by some folk online, the young ones are desperate to call you fascist and the old ones prefer commie Taking your point on us paying for the highest rate of generation rather than the average. Shell have been shifting their interests in recent years. They get large tax cuts for their oil production as theres encouragement to boost production closer to home from the North Sea oil fields. There were whispers in the industry a couple of years back that they were using the tax savings to more aggressively buy up renewables like wind power rather than invest more in the North Sea fields. They are keen to get a car recharging network built as well. They ended up renewable assets that made a fortune over the crisis. When threatened with a windfall tax, it was reduced as they threatened to reduce investment in the UK. Namely these recharge stations and new renewable assets. And it just rubs me up the wrong way, money they should have given in tax wasn’t used to invest in the oil fields that the government had said the cut was for. They instead buy more assets with it, and when they make an eye watering return, throw toys out of the pram when they get asked to pay a one off wind fall tax on it. And corporations having power over the government is something that worries me, as I want to vote for leaders, not puppets bound to corporate needs.