Hywel

My bike is a '98 CB600F Yesterday I decided to do some servicing... Oil, filters and rear wheel removal / re-fitting with a new tyre went smoothly so thought I'd do the spark plugs too. My Haynes made the tank removal sound so easy "Take the fixing bold out from the back of the tank, lift it up slightly to expose the tap which should be set to 'off', detach hoses from tap and take off the tank" Got as far as lifting up the tank, but the hoses just would not come off. My hands are pretty big so I was doing the best I could with my finger tips until I accidentally lifted the tank up more than I should have, scraping the hose along the top of the carb and "pop", the bottom of the tap nozzle punched through the hose wall. So two questions here; Is there a trick to taking off the hoses? (I pushed the fastener clip down the hose past the nozzle so that wasn't the reason it was difficult) and Is it easy to replace a broken fuel hose or have I just created a huge problem for myself? Need to get this sorted, driving a car in rush hour sucks.

Do they make a 16" front? Sooo cheap! How many miles do you get out of a rear? I've enjoyed my BT-016s, amazing grip levels but I've nearly chomped through a rear in no time at all, and at £140 odd quid for just a rear it's not really sustainable to continue getting them with the mileage I'm doing right now… saying that, if I can't find a decent cheap set of tyres with the 16" front I might just take the plunge again to get the full use out of the 016 front that's already there.

Paraffin / de-greaser and a bit of a scrub to clean it up, give it a hose down to get rid of all the loose crap then dry the chain with a rag before putting lube on. Most chain lubes have a slightly 'sticky' quality so wintery weather and water splashing about wont remove it straight away. It's a good idea to apply lube to a clean, dry chain though.

What happens when 77GT needs to do a carb balance or a brake calliper re-build? The forum's gonna crash!!

Absolutely. I too went from a ybr, but onto an ER-5 and as you say it felt like going from a tiny old little 1L city car to a big chunky stable car with a 2.5L engine... going onto a hornet then was a similar step up again though. No plans to go to 1000 for me yet due to running costs, don't know why I'd want more acceleration than the 600 on roads to be honest anyway.

I'm pretty sure you'll need to re-do your CBT if it expires before you pass both mod and 2.

I actually kind of enjoy it. If I have waterproof trousers on over my draggin jeans the whole "being outside in the rain" thing doesn't bother me one bit. I find it a bit more of a challenge and forces me to think about smooth riding which in my opinion makes me a better rider in the dry... also, never had any grip related problems in the wet that wouldn't have struck in good conditions.

I sometimes find it hard to get my bike started in the morning and I always found it tempting to crack open the throttle as soon as it catches but it seems like that actually drowns it and the bike cuts out again with some ugly gurgling wheezing noises. I found the best thing to do is put it on half choke and press the starter without touching the throttle (as long as your bike is mechanically ok it will eventually start if you leave it a little while before attempts), then leave it a good 30 seconds before going for the throttle to let the oil get round the engine, and for the temp to creep up slightly. I ride a CB600F by the way so not a million miles away from yours.

Thanks for the replies! I managed to sort it on my day off yesterday and It was a bit of everything suggested to be honest. I'm totally new to fiddling around with electrics etc as I've always taken the car straight to a garage when the odd rare problem has arisen and this is the first time I've tried to solve an actual bike problem of any kind by myself. As I said I'd fitted a standard lamp but I'd gotten the earth connections wrong for the indicators… as soon as I'd had my "ahhhhhhhh, green wires are earth" revelation it all fell into place and the circuit seemed to work as it should. I can be pretty thick sometimes. After eliminating a few possibilities for the short I tracked it down to the rear offside indicator bulb, which got replaced and now all is well. Bit of a patch-up job but when I get another day off I might get a soldering iron in there and set up a tidier loom with proper connectors etc. So nice to finally have a tidy looking front with all my wires stuffed inside the lamp, sorting this out has somewhat put me off getting a new bike as I had my first ride on it in about 2 months this morning after riding my dads Transalp and it felt tiny, extremely chuckable and brutally quick by comparison, big grin all the way to work.

My car is on it's last arse so when my bike is in working order I spare the car for when I absolutely need to carry lots of things with me or give someone a lift. I don't let rain put me off but I'll make a decision whether or not to use the bike when there's ice around.

I know I posted about this before, but it's now more specific than "durrrr, my wiring is broke"... I'd acquired a short in my wiring system after some heavy rain so I figured it was the dodgy front end wiring job done to accommodate the twin headlights fitted by a previous owner. I'd been meaning to put a standard lamp back on anyway so I tidied up the wiring a bit, fitted the lamp only to discover the fuses were blowing because of something happening in the back. When I disconnect the rear right indicator, the front right ticks double quick as expected, but the tail light also flashes with it (the left indicators flash completely as they should). If I reconnect the right indicator it shorts out and another fuse is toast. I'm guessing the tail light is somehow picking up the indicator circuit but all my connections seem to be right. Anyone?

Don't worry, it isn't really a test where you have to answer questions to pass, the instructor just wants to see that you have half decent control over the bike and a basic understanding of junctions / roundabouts / key road signs etc so you're not putting yourself in harms way. Relax and enjoy it!!

I've heard big capacity singles with straight through pipes sounding amazing, modern 125s though? Not so sure, I'd probably roll my eyes if I saw a little commuter 125 with some kind of race slip on fitted. Get medium sized parallel twin and fit a nice pipe, I've heard ER-5s / CB500s making a proper thumpy racket. They're cheap to run and work well as commuters too.

Yeah I thought as much, on my next day off I'll give it all a good going over and waterproof it properly. Thanks

I got caught in a massive downpour day before yesterday and arrived home with all of my electrical stuff working fine. Took the bike home from my girlfriends house yesterday and noticed that my tacho was dead, along with my indicators, tail lights and neutral light. The headlight was working so naturally I suspected a blown fuse which seemed to be the case. When I replaced the broken one everything worked for about 10 seconds before the same fuse blew again. Looking at the relay and electrical stuff under the seat it looks like they got caught up in the rain and road grime a few days before because they're all dusty and dirty (been meaning so seal up a couple of gaps at the back of the undertray) so I'm thinking something might be shorting? What's the best thing to do?

Does the battery have a history of being a bit temperamental?

I always always under the impression that the leg out was to stop close overtakes. Although i suppose it may help "pull" the bike in to the corner or something? Considering they do anything and everything possible to reduce drag normally, it may have more of an effect than you think..... ever taken your hand off the handle bars at 100mph? Really does drag a bit! I suppose so yeah, if I ever bump into Rossi I'll ask him

The back end wriggles about like that because they're breaking so hard approaching a bend and so much weight is transferred to the front that the back tyre barely has any traction, as soon as they ease off the breaks and get back on the power in the bend though the back sticks again... at least that's how I've made sense of the wiggly back wheels, maybe some of the track vets on here could shed more light. The leg-out thing? I think it's just Rossis habit, and people assume there's some hi-tech reason for it so they're all trying it too, I can't imagine a scrawny little leg is going act as an "air brake".

Yey!!! Plopped a new battery in just before leaving for work and the bike burst into life on the first dab on the starter button, light intesity is solid and the indicators all flash at a consistent rate, whatever the revs. Thanks for your help everyone! Now I just want to source a standard Hornet headlamp plus wiring and mounting brackets, these twin lamps aren't the best and have been wired up with household wiring which is all a bit dangly between the forks.

Dim problem! Just did a 45 minute journey in the baking sun, mostly quite fast roads and the latter part town speeds so I could've cooked an egg on any part of the bike. Left it running and took the side panel off with voltmeter in-hand. Similar results really, except when I really give it the beans on the throttle it goes up a little higher than it does when cold, but still doesn't go past 13.9v at 8 - 10krpm. Does that mean I'm fairly safe to rule out the reg/rect as a fault?

Well, It's the one that was in the bike when I bought it in December, and it had been sat in the dealer without anyone touching it for months... when the bloke tried to start it for me it took some doing, and when the bike is cold the turnover starts slowing down after the the 3rd or 4th try if it doesn't spark before then and generally it feels pretty weak unless it's warm and I've just been riding hard for a while, in which case it starts fine. What about the madness with my lights though? Would a weak / old battery do that? I'm guessing it's worth buying one to try it at least.

Just gave this a go. My Voltmeter read 12.4v across the battery when the bike was off, switched the bike on and at tickover it was reading between 12.3v and 12.5v, so around the same. I picked up the revs to about 3000rpm and saw an increase in voltage to around 13.2 - 13.4v, when I pushed the revs higher; up to around 7 - 8krpm it dropped back down a little to 12.8 - 13v but saw no major fluctuations, so revving the bike hard didn't push the voltage up much. Does this mean the reg/rec should be ok? Can the erratic indicators at higher revs, and inconsistent head/tail-light intensity be caused by an old battery due for replacement? I flipping hope so

This story is very familiar to me. After a repeating fork seal problem every 50 - 100 miles I took my bike to a different garage and it turned out that the guy I took it to previously had been taking shortcuts with bits of rag found floating in filthy grainy oil etc and there was a little sctratch in the stantion where he'd been playing rough whilst splitting the fork (evidence was a mashed up leg under the dust seal... hammer abuse). My new garage just rubbed the scratch down with some emery cloth, cleaned everything properly and replaceD all the bits and pieces with new oil for £45. I've done about 2000 miles since and there hasn't been a problem. Pee Gee motorcycles is the place that sorted out the awful bodged job incase you're anywhere near South Wales.

But when someone come off a bike they get hurt and are very unlikely to hurt others. The opposite is true for cars. Would you rather a nutter on a bike goes wide on a corner and plows into you or a nutter in a car? For the biker to get hurt is his choice and personal risk. For the car driver he is choosing to risk other people a lot more than him self. Not sure I agree there, a 200 - 300kg bike going at 80 - 90 mph will go through a car door/window like butter... would make an awful mess of a pedestrian too.

Also... ding-ding-ding-ding!!!! Spot on.