Motors Motorcycle Mayhem

Yeah, my colleague was doing that particular shuffle with his Triumph the last couple of weeks. He needed a new tyre too!

 

That's ironic - my colleague who's at the TT went out and bought a Yamaha Fazer to take out there because he couldn't get his Triumph Street Triple running in time .

 

I absolutely love my Pan European. It’s so smooth and powerful, it’s absolutely glued to the road when going round bends, and it just puts a big smile on my face every time I get on it, even when it’s hammering down with rain.

But god damn it's giving me some serious headaches right now...

Took it in for service & MOT today. The brake pads need doing so I gave them to go-ahead. Except they need to take the back wheel off to replace the brake pads, and to get the back wheel off means the exhaust cans have to come off.

I already knew the exhaust was rotten:

I even mentioned it this morning when I dropped the bike off. But I didn't know they'd need to take the cans off to do the brake pads... Soon as they started taking the cans off, the rotten fixtures and fittings gave way.

It could be "bodged" back together, but it would fail the MOT so I wouldn't be able to drive it home anyway - the exhaust needs fixing now. The garage wanted £711 for the pipes alone because they only use Honda OEM parts - that doesn't even include labour to fit the new pipes...

One emergency order of a full Delkevic exhaust system later and my wallet is now £529 lighter...



Their website claims they do next working day shipping for orders placed before 1pm; it should get here by Friday, meaning I should have time to belt back down to the garage to drop it off before the garage closes for the weekend... But I ordered about half an hour ago and I still haven't had an email confirmation, so that's not exactly a promising start...

 

PXL_20240624_095929325 by MrLongbeard, on Flickr

Just under 6 hours in the saddle today, that's about my limit I reckon.

 

Did a damn full motorcycle service buying everything from BMW, but can I remove the "Bike needs a service notice from the screen" nope, guessing I'll have to fork out however much it cost for another service to get rid of the damn message.

Like there should be a option, "I've done the service" and reset the timer rather then like it to a specialist.

 

Or just google 'BMW 'insert model here' reset service light' and find a cable or dongle for less than 20 quid that lets you do it yourself.

 

Well it’s finally in a garage, just need to remove all the crap now

 

Probably cheaper ways, but a mate of mine bought one of these for his S1000XR and it does absolutely everything: https://www.hexgs911.com/


£255 so not cheap, but cheaper than paying!

I have the same issue with the Tuono, although Griff the guru who runs a firm called AP Workshops in Tamworth will reset it for £20 apparently.

 

In the end it went to bmw but they said because they know for a fact I bought all the service stuff from them, they’ll just reset the code instead of another service.

thanks for the heads up through I’ll grab one!

 

Just to follow up with mine, as I never actually updated here.

First job (and following my pics with it stripped to bits), fork seals. I got a few quotes from local places, they were either eye-watering, or my local small bike shop (Jenny Tinmouth and her Dad run it) were busy with the TT prep.

Anyway, I worked out that the tools and parts were about the same price as the cheapest quote which couldn't be done for 6-8 weeks! So ordered a big box of bits from KTec, including the proper fork holding tool.





Definitely due for a service anyway!

First fork went OK, second one I had accidentally tipped the rebound adjuster spring into the old oil pot when I was cleaning them out, but missed it. Thankfully noticed before I tried to ride it, but had to strip the fork right down again to correct it. Still, all good practice, and no cost beyond about 50ml of lost fork oil. Ride quality much improved with forks as they should be.

With the boring maintenance stuff done, time for a fun bit.

I was impressed with the quality of the HP Corse exhaust it came with, and fancied something that retained the slightly OEM-look of a rectangular can and a clean link pipe. I like the Akra can but I see loads, most notably one of the guys I ride with occasionally has it on his 16 plate Factory.

So ordered their SP3, thankfully a lot cheaper than list on their website! Even with shittty Brexit import taxes it was a shade over £500, so cheaper than even a 2nd-hand Akra.



Lovely quality, a bit nerve-wracking drilling the rivets out to remove the baffles.







Then tried my best to ride it the rest of summer. Incredible thing, rear tyre is now worn, so that's all it needs in spring on top of an oil service.

 

One of the best times in my life was riding my yamaha rd125 lc until some fluffer in a car run me over.

 

Discovered another party trick that my Pan European can do: the tank can lift up on an hinge and be propped open like car bonnet.

I was facing a day of stripping plastic parts in order to route cables, but doing this made it an absolute doddle





I needed to fit two cameras…





… and then power wiring for this, which serves as dashcam and Car Play/Android Auto screen mirror.





Can also double as a handy rear-view mirror



Was a bit worried that they’d supply a wing nut for the Ram mount, like the review unit in a video I watched, but it actually came with a 5-lobe security bolt, which is handy.

 

So finally got a garage and what happens the damn bike battery gives up probably because the tracker is a complete drain!

New battery from eurocarparts £27 reduced from £97 what a win!

 

Use the savings to buy a battery tender / trickle charger, and keep the bike hooked up when not in use

 

That was the plan but as nothing is ever easy, when investigating why the electrics don’t work in the garage i came across this.


darn it.

 

Should be easy enough to sort though, most likely an earth bonding fault.

Once sorted get a trickle charger on a 7 day timer, you only need a few hours per week. Reason to keep it occasional is stop the battery being boiled if the charger goes wrong