(small) Bike Things You've Done Today

wing mirror "glass" fell off my recently MOT'd ugly last time out, and after struggling to find a replacement decided to make my own, happy to help others if necessary.

 

@Chris
I guess you grew up with Blue Peter.

 

The postman finally delivered my bolts & spacers, so I finished installing the skid plate on the Hyper.

 

Finally drew up the courage to mix up the Gateros Electroplating kit...wife was out so kitchen was used!

 

^^^^ for best results wear latex gloves for protection and also to stop any oil from your skin contacting the parts/bolts which will contaminate the surface finish. Degrease the parts thoroughly with detergent and a toothbrush or brass wire brush, rinse them and dry them with hair drier/heat gun. Wearing gloves, lace bolts/parts onto copper wire and acid wash with HCl (brick cleaning acid) and rinse whilst still strung up on copper wire. Allow to dry or use a hair drier/ heat gun then into the plating bath. The amperage and the duration will come with experience - too little and they will surface corrode in a couple of days - too much and the plating medium (zinc or nickel) will blacken and be difficult to get a good finish. Its time consuming but quite satisfying when it turns out OK, also saving the planet by not buying new bolts etc.

 

Took the K5 to a local mechanic, to get the godforsaken alarm ripped out of it

 

Cleaned the Gsxr1000 after my dry weather ride.

 

Nice bike, unusual colour scheme

 

Cheers. Just how the 2009 black ones came, I thought they were fairly common but thinking about it I can’t remember when I last saw another one !

 

This was my K9, didn't keep it long, I preferred the K5

 

I've turned into an uber geek... admittedly a chuffed one

Hope the gold turns out as good!

 

Put more petrol in it, then burnt it off.

 

Had a good day out at the Stafford classic bike show

 

Took the V4R to GT Motorcycles down in Plymouth and had the flash that comes with the wheelbarrow exhaust uploaded and as it was already plugged into the DDS gizmo, I thought it a good time to have the Evo 3 upgrade loaded also.

 

Noticed excessive play in the throttle on the 899 today so stripped it down when I got back to find the throttle spacer had disintegrated. Fixed it with 2 slithers of plastic glued in place instead. Dont bother with the cheap 3d printed spacers.

 

I’ve glued a thin cable tie in before, does exactly the same job as the spacers

 

That’s pretty much what I’ve done.

 

Thought this qualifies as a small bike thing.
The last few months I’ve been helping with my great friend Steve’s rehabilitation after he suffered a massive stroke in April.
Since late July we’ve been working on a Lego V4R model.
Steve’s still in rehab but has been making great progress lately and now recognises shapes, colours and is really enjoying the build process (we met 20 odd years ago racing two strokes)
The Lego model is a great bit of kit to while the time away.
Doug

 

Good on you

 

Took the slack out of my KTM throttle with an old debit card superglued and filed to shape.