Changed the rear part of the front mudguard on the 1260, as the fender extender used to flex at speed, and rub on the front of the bike. Was a fiddly job, until my wife got home and held the torch up!
A job I’ve been putting off for ages ……. Now my little red baby is sorned it’s time to get stuck in to some maintenance work Clean the bottom radiator.. what a job! Didn’t take too long to get the bike broken down and the radiator out, ……typical Ducati though, had to take the battery tray off to get to the last screw so I could remove the radiator fan ducting Just as I thought, the radiator was pretty dirty as it was sat behind the Evotech rad guard.. Front of radiator.. Back of radiator.. Next two shots I’m trying to illustrate that there was a central band down the radiator about 5” wide that was just completely clogged with road crap… You could see daylight either side of a central band about 5” wide that was just clogged with road debris, bit of a design flaw this imo when the only cooling fan on the bike is on the bottom radiator that gets clogged with sh1te , so that just prevents the fan drawing any decent air through, should have been like Honda’s Firestorm and had side mounted radiators. Time to get stuck in with the cleaning products…. Thought I’d give this a try, it’s for cleaning air conditioning condensers, the foaming action is supposed to loosen the crap… It did remove a fair bit of rubbish, but the central band was still clogged, I couldn’t pass a small zip ty through the element, it was still full of rubbish at the front.. So I resorted to a few other things, WD40 bike cleaner all over the back of the rad and left it to stand for a while, then flushed with about 6 kettles of boiling water…. Also let it soak in Auto Glym tar remover, ..though I’d give that a go as the stuff in the front of the radiator was kind of a mixture of mud, dust, tar etc and it was pretty well set… The cocktail of chemicals and kettles of boiling water was beginning to work, but I needed something to push the last stubborn bits that were stuck in the elements, I’d tried stiff brush bristles and even a small zip ty , but it wasn’t having much success, so I knocked this up… A modified junior hacksaw blade, ground it down nice and thin so it slid between the elements easily, rounded all the corners off it so it was nice and smooth, and it had the added benefit of truing them up nicely,…now I know someone is gonna take the horrors at this, but no need, it worked really well and damaged nothing .. No way any foam cleaner would have dislodged these rock hard stubborn bullets! It was a long tedious job, but it’s looking really good now, only got the top 5 rows left to clean and the garden water hose flows easily through the central section now where it was totally blocked before should be a lot more efficient. After all my hard efforts this afternoon I was ready for my weekly can of Guinness .. See, ..told you I was gonna drink them @evoarrow Laters people, enjoy your bonfires
Rode mine for the first time in ages. Popped over to see my brother who’d just nipped out to do some shopping on his Harley. That’s a strange bike. How do they ride them with their feet almost at the front wheel?
Don’t most people just buy them to polish, then ride 5 miles to the local biker cafe/ pub/ bar, looking angry in the process, then ride home again?
I’ve not ridden mine for the past couple of weeks as I’ve either been busy or the weather has been rubbish, so all I’ve done is look at them. I’m busy today, but hopefully I’ll get out for a couple of hours tomorrow
Well I’ve started up both bikes then updated the firmware for my Packtalk comms unit and charged it, and also charged my airbag vest. All in readiness for a jaunt out tomorrow
Pretty easy tbh, I find my really comfortable with forward controls a little like driving a car in a funny kind of way.
Fitted a re-wound stator to my VFR 400R, just need to re-fit the fairings. Might do an oil change though whilst there off.
Fitted a Philips RacingVision GT200 H4 headlight bulb as it promises to be a bit brighter than my original one on the 888 and seems a bit brighter, but not amazingly different. Ready for Goodwood Breakfast Club tomorrow. Before After
Over this end too. Lashing it down before… So, spent most of the day fitting a nice pair of Brembo M50s, 1299 abs lines and a set of Sbs brake pads.
Fitted a full system and new levers to my mates Monkey bike, then went for a rip around. We reckon we may just be into double bhp figures now. Just. Then popped into my local dealer and took a V4 Multi out for a bit, which felt gigantic in comparison.
How can a company make a bike with a 1700cc engine that produces about 3hp? It’s not a bad looking thing but I told him he should’ve spent the £16k on a Diavel! He bought a sport(?) Glide instead
