Bianco2564

Mot'd the Silverwing today, passed with a minor defect to repair, rear brake fluid was a bit low and an advisory, fluctuation on the rear brake. Bike has done almost 6000 miles in a year and the testers comment was not bad considering its mileage of 65000.

@geofferz 2003 E46. Took a recent trip in it to South Devon. Pic on Dartmouth river front

I bought my M3 with a bank transfer, went to look at it and paid a deposit, went back the following week and paid the balance by transfer when I got there. Turning up to an unknown persons house with a wad ful of cash is risky business. I only use PayPal for buying stuff off ebay, given up selling anything on there, too much hassle.

E10 is 95 octane, that is regular unleaded E5 is still available as super unleaded, 97 or 98 octane depending on which brand you go for. I've just run my silverwing on E10, must admit it didn't seem as smooth but that's what its going to get. Any Honda made since 1993 are E10 friendly. According to Kawasaki your bike isn't suitable for E10 so super unleaded for you. https://www.kawasaki.co.uk/en/news/Greener_E10_fuel_and_what_it_means_for_you?Uid=08F3C1kJXwtfWQ4OC15RXFoJCVBaUF4LDlkKX1AJUVkMWVs

Changed the fork seals on the Silverwing. Did the RH one no problem, drained the oil which was a nasty grey colour, looked like it had been in there for ages. Undid the bottom bolt and cleaned all the insides out. Measured the oil volume at 350cc, checked the manual which said 302cc so refilled to the book. Got to the other side and found some hamfisted oaf had totally rounded of the bottom bolt so couldn't take the damper tube out to pull the seal out, b0llocks.... Was going to admit defeat but had seen reference to people drilling the seal, screwing it some self tappers to prise the seal out. I don't usually like this sort of butchery but I wanted to get it done. It all went well and the seal came out easily and no damage done. Put the whole bike back together, sprayed a load of brackets underneath the fairing with some spray grease. Took the bike for a test run, OMG, the front is so soft compared to previous, it just glides over bumps and potholes. I think a previous owner had over filled the forks and it was basically hydraulicing over large bumps.

Went to a wedding reception tonight, first social event and pint since Nov 2019.

Hello and welcome. Was just writing a reply when MB beat me but echo everything said. Having a bike or car with a choke takes a bit of getting used to to find the best setting for if the engine is hot or cold and what the ambient conditions are like. My carbed R1 in summer needs half choke to start from cold, in winter full choke, either way I can switch if off after 100 yds or it runs like a pig. My 380 choke is similar to your bike I think, its either on or off, no regulation so it starts and revs to 2500rpm until I can hear it start to start chugging because the mixture is too rich, then flick the choke off.

My 2001 R1 is on 41k miles, bought it 5 years ago on 28k , only gets ridden on dry days now. My 2003 Silverwing scooter is on 64k miles, Had this 2.5 years, was on 49k when bought, this is my daily work hack. Other end of the scale is my 1970 Honda SS125 on 8800miles. When I sold my 1993 Exup a while ago, that had covered 74k miles Treat the bike on condition and service history, try not to get hung up on mileage. A well looked after bike will have plenty of life in it. I think there is just some psychological block on mileage on bikes, anything over 30k is considered high, same with cars 100k seems to be the pivot from low to high mileage irrespective of age.

Aslong as the corrosion doesn't extend to where the seals run it would probably be ok and its just superficial. However to me, its a sign of a previous owner that neglects his bike, just think about the rust you cant see. Unless its cheap, I'd walk away.

Nice looking bike, its one I've considered when I can't get on with the R1s riding position anymore. The only thing between 1st and 2nd is neutral which has a warning light? Is the clutch adjusted correctly? The gear change on my R1 is best done without the clutch when going from 2nd to 3rd and up. Using the clutch in higher gears results in jerky changes and false neutrals.

Bizarre advice from a "trained" person whose role is to educate and promote safer riding. Whatever next? Insurance; pah , waste of time thats for suckers. Ride on the left; nah just take the racing line you will be faster. They should stick to the script (if they have one), not just spout personal habits. Who trains the trainers?

I had a bike stolen nearly 30 years ago outside work in broad daylight, vowed not to have anything decent again but that didn't last. I never leave my bikes anywhere but at home,work or the odd bike meet, if it at all looks a bit iffy where I'm going I'll take the car. Do get a little paranoid when we go on holiday, extra security on all the bikes and garage.

Congratulations. We paid ours off 3 years ago, 12 years ahead of schedule, such a big relief to be cleared of it. On the day of final payment I wanted to go in to the building society and symbolically hand it over, we took our very original payment book in from 1985 to show them and one of the ladies serving on the tills recognised her signature on the book from 33 years previous.

Went on a bike run a couple of years ago that started at the airfield, had a good look around the museum ,watched and heard the Lancaster taxi and run the Merlins up to full chat....fantastic.

I knew I needed a bigger bike when I could ride my 600 Diversion around at full throttle without feeling overwhelmed by it. If you can ride the Gladius like this id agree you could cope with a bigger bike, maybe not an FZ1 as that's basically a naked R1 with 150hp against the Gladius 70hp but maybe a 750. You own comments show you don't seem comfortable with the idea of a 1000cc and the last thing you need is to be intimidated by your bike. And as said do you really need a litre bike in London, I'd prefer something smaller and more agile.

Someone on a GSXR this morning in Rugby. They are resurfacing some of the roads round here, not just sprinkling a bit of gravel on the road, but scraping the whole top 6 inches or so, exposing all the drain covers as lumps in the road, potholes and stones everywhere. You have to drive along real slow swerving around all these hazards. Mr Gixxer thought it was a good place to gun his bike almost to the point of picking the front wheel up. And to cap it all,he was only wearing shorts and no gloves. Nuts.....

The first bit is correct, manifold vacuum varies with throttle opening. The second bit is not, at idle there is a strong vacuum as is when cruising on a light throttle. Highest vacuum is on overrun. At full throttle there is no vacuum. If you have ever had a vacuum gauge on a car you would see it go down to zero when you floor it, be somewhere around 18-22in Hg when idling if the engine is healthy. Some genius car manufacturers back in the day used to power the window wipers with manifold vacuum, great until you come to a hill and put your foot down, the wipers stopped. On Hoggs problem, I'd check the vacuum from the engine with a gauge, if all ok it must be the scottoiler unit,got to be a diaphragm of some sort in there, either gummed up or perished. As you say a bit of a faff to set up, I've got one on the R1 and that took a while to find the best setting.

Perhaps she thinks she is some kind of Banksy? Anyone else did what he does its graffiti, Banksy does it and its art.

Had similar on the way to Banbury some years ago. Following in a line of cars they all started swerving out to avoid a section of car exhaust laying in our lane. Stopped the bike and slung said exhaust into the hedge, problem solved.

Saw this on the way home near Rugby. Couldn't tell if it touched the ground to officially be a tornado as it was too far away. Still an amazing sight though, never seen one before.

And when I were a lad I used to ride in the back seat of my Dads Hillman Hunter stood on the transmission tunnel holding onto the front seats. Any kind of crash and I would have gone straight through the screen along with Mum and Dad as no one wore seat belts.

Just done my first 5k parkrun, around 33mins and ran all the way.

@Trooper74, I think I prefered your thoughts on covid than this topic....

As its inline with the main jet its likely to be the air bleed to the main jet emulsion tube.

Is it me or is that some rough soldering with a hole drilled in it? Where on the carb is that?