tobyd

I'm deluded and clueless but I occasionally wondered if a 2T diesel + CVT wouldn't be an interesting combo. The engine spins at pretty much tickover the entire time and you just tool around on masses of torque until the CVT gives up a few miles down the road.

Unexciting but perhaps economical and fast?

That said I was taken around the block in an I3 'S' the otherday and my are they quick...

This old rascal is in for its MOT on thursday. Not ridden it in a while and whilst checking it over found both fork seals have popped.

Hottest day of the year...changing fork seals outside. I'd be lying if i said i wasn't in my pants...

Not a hard job but took 5 times longer with breaks to cool* off inside.

I jammed a spanner on the nut end, jammed it up against something convenient and bruted it out with the impact gun like an absolute amateur pro. Your welcome to try your luck with lidls finest if you'd like?

2 hours ago, thatsmacar said:

Any suggestions on how to persuade a bottom bolt out from a rear shock that's still on the swingarm?????????????

Jack up the rear wheel slightly to remove the load from it. The crudded up bolts on my SV needed a lot of attention from the (minimum) 90,000nm lidl impact gun i have to free them off.

9 hours ago, hairnet said:

Have you seen my daughter?

Any recommendations for Tank Pads? I have a new bike and never having such luxury before hadn't appreciated why tank pads exist and i've slightly scuffed the tank paint with my jacket zipper. I bought some Oxford 'transformer' pads which I feel won't last beyond tomorrow (at a push.)

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/04/new-ev-vs-old-beater-which-is-better-for-the-environment/

Was reminded of this article from the other day or week. It's all in American but they seem to think that its reasonably quick to have a new EV save the planet than keep driving your XUD 405.

I'm not sure how the numbers work for cars than do more than 30 gallons to the mile nor whether the EPA can read or count. There is a further link in the article to a study in Reuters re: breakeven mileage but i've not read it.

Also

Quote

“Gone are the days of burning toxic gasoline. A new age of electrons and instant torque is upon us,” you might say, standing next to your new vehicle and blue recycling bin.

This made me cringe (as I stood next to my blue recycling bin.)

On 15/05/2022 at 00:45, Schaefft said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194923608955?hash=item2d625a3b7b:g:A4MAAOSwpkFhh8Xm

Now for sale at £3k

5 hours ago, Talbot said:

We've always known that our current host was on the expensive side, but this has now meant that costs have gone up from under £50/month to around £80/month, which is a rather nasty increase.  Over the year that's a grand on hosting, which is rather too much in my opinion, hence I am now looking to see if there is anywhere else we can host the forum.  As there are plenty of people on here who have experience of using webhosting etc. I am looking for recommendations. 

Please, no "how about x company?" type replies... I can google just fine.   I'm looking for people who actually have experience of using a service, how well it works in reality, and how expensive it is in reality.   Given that the last webhosting I bought (granted, over 15 years ago) cost £5.99/month, £80 seems like a rather large pill to swallow.  Hence looking to see what's available.

I'm not sure I agree with this - they were specificially chosen because £50 a month for the spec of machine and backup of the entire site and its content to another country (in case the datacenter burnt down) was a total steal at that price. They've since bought their prices inline with most of their competitors but gave a years grace to their existing customers so this increase should not have been news to you or any of the administrators.

You might want to consider having Invision themselves host the site (currently $89/mo) - I can't tell if that offering does everything you currently have but you could ask them - this might also include the software license cost. I don't think you'll be able to get this site to run on a cheapo (£5.99/mo) webhost designed for peoples unread blogs or local interest websites written in Word '97 because they don't offer you full access to the underlying VM or have limits that the size of AS exceeds.

All the smaller cloud hosts (Linode, Hetzner, OVH, whoever), as you currently use, are priced about the same. The larger ones (AWS, Azure) are all more expensive.

Perhaps take the rocker off and observe which cylinders are closed in relation to where the rotor arm is as you turn the engine - if you've got fuel and a spark then unless there is no compression (or the spark is miles off) it should make a least a sad wump if not a proper bang.

What are the measurements over all 4 EX valves? if one is slack or another is loose or slightly over you might be able to swap them around to get them all to at least minimum spec? The size should be printed on the shim unless it went in print-side-up in which case its long gone. I'm pretty sure 2.68 is just 2.68mm (rather than 2.68 being some product code) though so some cheapo vernier calipers should get you most of the way there. I don't recall if i did but I may have written do the valve shims on the new* engine before it went in and written down the sizes of whats currently in there on a scrap of paper in the documents.

There were some spare shims in the box o' spares i believe? unless none of them are any good?

I have a 4a and it seems ok with both FF and Chrome.

Economy gauge and ambient* temperature! I thought you only got those on a GLT model. I retrofitted them to a 1.4 i had yonks ago - the economy gauge was happiest at higher than NSL which never worked out to be economical... I often wondered how hard it would be to retrofit the SPI from a Renault 19 to one of these engines.

Good work all the same!

well!!!!!

4 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

I recall there being a follow-up piece in the EADT or Star, can't recall what the conclusion was.

https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/ipswich-volvo-taxi-driver-john-winlow-update-2884898

Chap sacked off taxiing to join the 'Cru

I'm deeply sad but, the way lines flow around the door handle and carries on backwards pleases my peepers.

A replacement breather seems to be harder to get than it should be so in the interrim i've made a seamless* repair with some heatshrink

Put 60 or so miles on this now and its holding its coolant and the joint / rest of the block is dry so tentative that thats that. The car smells of diesel when idling or slowing / in slow traffic which isn't great for the old lungs. I'd noted that a breather pipe was a bit suspicious in its level of grot for being no where near anything that makes grot and lo and behold.

breather pipe from the rocker cover to the intake (post MAF for bonus points) is a bit haggard. Hopefully that'll see the smell gone and empeegees skyrocket. exciting times indeed.

Some minor fiddling and amateurism. When i stripped and cleaned the carbs i was puzzled that one of them had the mixture screw out at 4 turns and the other at 3 turns. "thats far too much" i thought i set them both to 2 which the bike hated. 3 was better but it was still a bit rough at minimal throttle, opened the front one out to 3.5 and it was better so given that another quarter turn.

Also checked the jet needle position. No idea how i'd missed it before but it was at position 2 (i.e on the lean side). Set this back to the middle position and will check it later on. What i'm not sure about is why it ran ok with the needles in this position before including a k&n filter - i'd have expected that to run hopelessly lean? unless various other air jets were blocked up countering it out? who knows.

Quick scamper round the block, gauge up to the middle the join is dry so maybe it's ok now? Will go on a longer run somewhere in the week and see how it gets on with some A roads.

Had a hangover yesterday so didn't do anything but today, with a yellow warning of rain, i took on the water leak. I might still be hungover as all the photos are focussed on the wrong thing.

any how, this rust 'n' black bit is the old flange, its just three 10mm nuts and pops out. access is pretty crap though as its below the vacuum pump at the back in the middle of the engine so much stretching was required.

I don't want to jump to conclusions but the presence of bathroom sealant is usually a good indication that this is completely factory...

It absolutely wouldn't budge from the coupler for whatever it is attached too, there is a little spring clip i removed but it in the end pried it out like a fucking savage. Looks like the inner lip has seen better days.

not liking that mark poorly circled in red, the coupler this fits into is only available, from vw anyway, as part of a larger assembly and they don't sell the oring that lives in there separately because of course they don't. autodoc do one so if leaks i'll swap it out with one of those.

anyhow, the new flange fitted into the old coupler without any force (which concerns me) and i've sprung-clipped it back and finger tightened the flange nuts down. Its now absolutely hammering down so i'll finish it all up later or tomorrow.

Its just off idle thats where its the worst, when you are just ambling along its rough as. the idle is smooth and giving it the beans is ok but throttle just slightly on is horrible. Maybe i dislodged some crap and now the needle is wandering all over the place, will investigate.

800s look like a decent proposition so will check out one at the nearby bike shop - they had one in last time i was there, didn't have the time to make enquiries. Wouldn't be the end of the world to have to have them service it, I'd just feel better about being able to do it myself.

My SV is being a dick, it started smelling of petrol a bit when i'd take the cover off and generally when stationary and warm, smelt like it was running rich but otherwise was ok. Stripped the carbs down, cleaned all the jets through, all the tiny air-correction nozzles, new gaskets, new float seats and needles and now it runs like a sack of crap. Carb sync is fine, removed a washer from the needle jet (different carbs to yours @Jerzy Woking, the linkage on that one had, fairly, worn a bit after 60k) ao its at about stock now, no exhaust smell, no hanging idle just running rough. Swapped the float arrangement over with the spare carb and put a stock airfilter back on and will see what its like tomorrow or over the weekend.

real question though.

VFR800s. Any experience? I like that they have fairings, are powerful enough without being silly but aren't really a sport bike but they appear unservicable and the single-swing-arm arrangement looks like it isn't very clever.