30.9.10

Valve Clearences

Besides vainly watching the top of my head on the teev last night I did actually do something constructive yesterday. The valves have been sounding a little loud lately so I figured I'd check check them.

Everything off and ready for action:



With the flywheel cover off to find TDC I had a chance at how my rust prevention technique of some gear oil after a light sanding worked. Seemingly well:



There was some oil that'd gathered at the bottom of the cover.



With the feeler gauges in. 0.4 inch intake clearance and 0.7 outlet clearance with the new cam.



One more thing I've somehow misplaced, the retaining bolt for the fuel tank. There's also a bit of surface rust in there too. Any ideas on how to patch this up?



I didn't start it out after I'd done it, but I'm curious if it's stopped the valve noises. The inlet clearence was a tiiiiiiny bit lose and the exhaust needed a bit of a tighten. I've got a little bit of a routine downpat for doing valves and the whole thing takes around 20 minutes allowing for my usual faffing about, losing feeler gauges and misplacing spanners.

29.9.10

Shooting Rockets and Neigbours.

I'm going for a new job at the moment that has around 4 stages to go through before you get an offer. I've done the typical group interview, a typing test, had to look things up in a street directory and listen to some fascinating, yet slightly upsetting phone calls.

Anyway, yesterday I went to an Audiologist for some testing. I've got more than a bit of a passing interest in what they do as my sister is profoundly deaf and at one stage of my pathetic career I used to sell PPE. We had a talk about high risk activities that can put your hearing in danger and each time I told him about something he'd ask some very pertinent questions about it.

Q: Are you involved in any shooting or hunting activities?
A: Yep.
Q: What bore?
A: Large - military service rifle.

Anyway, we had a talk about firearms and exposure to firearms discharges and pressure waves and things like that. As it turns out, don't stand behind a Carl-Gustav anti-tank rocket launcher because when it goes off at around 180db it'll suck out your earplugs.

Anyway, going down the list of potential-for-deafness warnings was motorcycling, whereby he asked if I rode with a full face or open face helmet, and if I wore ear protection. He recommended ear plugs for all riding. As many of you guys would have noticed already during long rides a loud exhaust not only sends you deaf but really affect your levels of concentration. He told me about some studies that showed how prolonged exposure to industrial noise, comparable to those when riding, will shorten your attention span and interestingly, your temper.

You learn something new every day. Always ride with ear plugs, never stand near a bloke firing an Carl-Gustav and never expect anything interesting from one of my posts.

Oh, and last night, lookee who was on neighbours!



Nice... er... head eh?

More interestingly:



Well, I was pretty chuffed. Two Harleys being used to frame a Yamaha.

27.9.10

Oops.

During the usual ebay search I came across this interesting SR. It's certainly different but there's something else that caught my eye. You win something very small and very boring if you can guess...




Yep, the tuning fork logo is upside down. That'd really shit you up the wall if you'd done that.

7.9.10

Sprocket Cover

Hello Again!

Just another quick collection of images... most of these have been pulled from the fantastic http://yamahasrxtphotooftheday.blogspot.com/







Some interesting ideas. More to come as I find them.

6.9.10

SR400 vs. SR500 Fuel Tanks

Things have been pretty quiet on the SR front lately, so I've gone digging through my photo collection and found this nice comparison between the 400 and 500 fuel tank. Besides the obvious fuel cap change the 400 (On the right) holds a litre more of fuel.



On the same bikes, this this shows the difference between wheel sizes:

1.9.10

Pissed 'n Broke

God I've become lazy with the site lately!

I came across this the other night at the SR500 club meeting.



Now THAT'S what's technically called "Fucked".

Big time.

It was only noticed when the bike lost compression. But apparently the bike isn't in too bad nick apart from that. I'd have thought a bottom end flush out/fucked oil pump/rooted top end sort of thing might be called for, but there you go.

On another note the Pirelli Sport tyres that I've got on the SR are going well, now they're wearing in and I'm not falling off all the time.