Saturday, February 25, 2012

Another PGM-II and a short ride.

I currently have three PGM-II's in my possession.
One I just bought very recently off TradeMe.co.nz for $60 delivered, including a wiring loom.
The other two PGM's are Paul's, and I have to return them in due course.

I fitted my new PGM and went for a 50km ride.
The bike seemed to run really well, but my 3 gauges are not yet working. Not having an operational tacho makes it a bit difficult to see exactly what is going on.
At least I can be fairly sure that the PGM is working properly.

Some things that became apparent on the ride:
1) The LH Rear View Mirrror mount needs a bit of a bend so that I am not looking at the road near the rear tyre.
2) The gear change lever needs to be adjusted down a bit
4) The suspension is set up too hard in the rear (everything is currently max'ed out) and especially the rebound needs to be a bit faster.
5) Slop in the throttle cable
6) Fitting the steering damper is probably a good idea too.
7) Both clutch and front brake levers need to be angled down a bit. This might not be possible with the front brake as the front brake switch spade connectors are already hitting up against the fork, but,..
8) I would be a lot happier with slightly higher bars, just for better comfort. This will also allow me to angle the front brake and clutch levers down a bit more
9) The speedo unit wobbles around a fair bit. Once I fit the speedo cable, this will probably calm down a bit, but I need to investigate.
10) On the ride I hit reserve tank; both petrol and oil.

Overall, the above factors made it difficult for me to get "dialed in" to the bike, and really enjoy the ride.
The gear changes in particular were a bit rough. Hopefully this can be sorted out by a bit of clutch adjustment and adjustment to the angle of the gear change lever. However, I think it may yet turn out to be a "characteristic" of the dry clutch that I am just going to have to adapt to.

Overall the bike ran well and it is great to be actually riding the bike, rather than working on it.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

New Battery and it goes again.

Today i stuck some aluminium foil tape to the inside of the belly pan fairings to hopefully, at least partially protect the fairings from the heat off the exhausts.

I also fitted a new battery: A YuasaYTX4L-BS at NZ$ 70.00 including GST from Bayride Yamaha.

After adding the acid to the battery I put it in the bike and tried kick starting it.
The bike fired up first kick.

At the moment I am not sure if the bike has an intermittent fault or whether the problem was a poor battery.
Time will tell, but for now it is going. :-)

But just for the record, assuming that the bike is now running reliably, it has been 2 years and 8 months.
It is not road legal yet, but I have parts coming from Japan (sea freight) that should get it road legal in about 6 weeks.