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Watching your vid reminds me how much i hate it when your getting a move on on hard packed tracks then out of no where a little mud section just pops up (usually hidden in a dip)...and you think "****...im going to fast for that!" :) |
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Erm, so I've kinda neglected this thread for a while, will try and do a proper catch-up at some point. In the meantime, have some head-cam footage from the Cambrian Rally last weekend...
https://vimeo.com/51813348 |
Nice landscape and driving! Superb
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I'd be tempted to do it in a kayak next year!:D
Nice vid. |
A bit of a teaser...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8189/8...9225a4e9e0.jpg Making plans by dashmoto, on Flickr |
This weekend I have mostly been washing and winterising, and assessing the damage from the rally season.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/5222/p1010456z.jpg New sidestand spring fitted (pinged off into the scenery during a crash at the Cambrian), took the centrestand off (bent in the same crash so it wouldn't go down past the swingarm). Replaced the indicator that fell off at some point, and put everything back together with a liberal coating of ACF50. When I changed the front end, I was a bit worried about the brake line rubbing on the bottom yoke. Of course I then completely forgot about it. Turns out I didn't need to worry about wearing through the brake line - quite the opposite! http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/1536/p1010457u.jpg Strategic zip-tie applied to prevent the brake line cutting the entire bike in half ;). You might notice that one of the lock-stops has also fallen off. No idea when that happened. MTC can and undertray looking a bit battered after the tail-tidy snapped at the Brechfa and then flapped around on the end of the wires for a while until I wondered what the banging was and stopped. http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2517/dsc0913j.jpg The Mk2 tail-tidy. This one hasn't fallen off yet (apart from one of the indicators, hence the dangling wires) http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8070/dsc0916g.jpg I think it might be time to take the brake pedal off and hit it with a hammer again... http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/3620/dsc0918xk.jpg A couple more of the undertray... http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/8960/dsc0912gj.jpg PCV lurking up in the tail, and one of the holes punched clean through the bottom of the undertray by the aforementioned stray-tail-tidy incident... http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/6755/dsc0920v.jpg Plastic cups turn out to be quite handy to avoid filling your airbox with water while washing the bike with the seat off... http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/7401/dsc0922k.jpg There's a long list of jobs to do over the winter. |
Looks like a good old strip clean you got started there.
How easy is the bike to disassemble UT? I could do with giving mine a good old clean. Took utility to the jet wash the other day, spent 5 quid and still came out filthy haha |
tank off
Can you give me a few pointers on getting the tank off.
I have undone all the bolts and its free and liftable - but not enough to undo the electric/Petrol connections. What am I missing? |
Dead easy to take apart as far as it is in the photos, only fiddly bit is the tank.
To get the tank off, I take the handlebars off and strap them vertically to the side of the screen/headlight. With them out of the way, you can tip the tank right up on its back end, which allows you to get at the fuel hose and electrical connections. The fuel hose is still difficult, just because of the nature of the connector, but it's a hell of a lot easier with the tank stood up than trying to prop it up at the back and reach underneath. There's still bits of mud in and around the engine. I don't think you can get one of these properly clean without taking the motor out :D |
interesting thread, good to see you using and abusing the Ten :)
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Yeah, poor thing's had a fairly tough year. Three and a half years old, and about 36,700 miles on the clocks.
If everything goes to plan over the next year or so, it will have over 60,000 miles on it by its fifth birthday, and something like 10-15% of that off-tarmac. Did I mention that when I was at the Adventure Travel Film Festival in August, someone I met described it as the "worst looking Tenere they'd seen". I think he was trying to pay me a compliment :D |
Brush on waxoyl FTMFW!
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Does it smell as nice when you fire the bike up?
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Tank Off
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First of all, I need to apologise to GulGo - I'm afraid I won't be attending the Lakes Weekend next year. Sorry.
To the rest of you, I'm going to need someone to step up to the challenge and win the NavXT event while I'm not there ;) I've got a fairly good excuse for not being there though. When I got home from work today, there was a parcel waiting for me on the kitchen table. http://getfile3.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg A very well travelled parcel, in a US Postal Service box, all the way from a Mr Sam Carrero of Corinth, Mississippi. Sam is an American motorcyclist who is rather enthusiastic about trail-riding. So much so that he spent years linking together a series of trails leading (almost) the entire way across the United States, from Tennessee to the Oregon Coast. He called this route the Trans-Am-Trail (TAT), and produced a set of maps and a roadbook/rollchart so that other people could ride it too. http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg The reason I've bought a set of maps from Sam is that next year, I will be spending twelve weeks in the US, accompanied by the Tenere, the first 4-6 weeks of which will be riding the entire 4,800 miles of the TAT from east to west. The remainder will be returning to the east coast by whatever route takes my fancy. http://getfile0.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg I'm really rather excited. |
ah nook means it down to the two northern Irish boys to show the rest how its done!!! Bernard you may get your racing boots on!!!
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That's no excuse at all :imgimg: On the other hand..... it's open season for the NavXT.. TAM - Well, I'm now jealous and I hate you. |
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YOU........LUCKY......LUCKY.....SOD!
Would love to do the TAT. there's also a trans canadian trail i think? |
Nice one Uber - looks like a proper bike ride that!
Full report needed as you go and I'll have a go at the Nav XT in 2013 as I plan to stay on next time!! |
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Nice one Dave, all the best with you adventure, i'm sure it will be a cracker!
the other thing is i too will not be attending the xt lakeland meet, unfortunately i'm taking a group of irish lads to the s of france for a camping trail riding trip |
This weekend, the Tenere has mostly been less than cooperative...
http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphoto...40828125_n.jpg |
Looks just like my garage.:smilies0349: i think the sledge hammer is to small:biggob:.
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Sometimes, as we age, some vital organs start to wear out, especially when subjected to abuse - such as overwork, exposure to dangerous environments or ingestion of harmful substances. Even if the organ hasn't failed yet, sometimes it's just too risky to wait until it does before taking action - and sometimes the only course of action is a transplant. Of course a transplant requires a donor, and as we all know, often close relatives make the best donors.
http://getfile2.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg Naturally, a surgical procedure such as this must be performed with the greatest delicacy. http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg A sledgehammer would also, metaphorically speaking, be a good implement with which to bludgeon another metaphor to death, so moving on... This was probably the toughest decision involved in preparation for my US trip - do I trust the engine in the bike? I've had the Tenere for three years now, and put 35,000 miles under its wheels, which combined with the rather pathetic 2,800 miles it covered in its first ten months on the road means it's rapidly approaching 38,000 miles on the clocks. I'm expecting to cover another ten thousand or thereabouts during the twelve weeks I'm in the US. A well-treated XT660 motor should shrug off that sort of mileage with little concern, and there's plenty of examples on the XT660.com forum which have done just that - some with over 100,000 miles on the clocks. Note the words 'well-treated' - a description I am pretty sure doesn't apply to mine. I'd estimate that I've done something like a thousand miles of rallying or rally training, several thousand more miles of trail-riding, and - crucially - filled the engine with water a couple of times. The first time, while trail-riding on Salisbury Plain, the bike came home on a trailer and had the oil/water drained from the cases as soon as it got home. The second time - during the Cambrian Rally in October, it did another seventy-odd racing miles before I changed the oil (but not the filter) and another day of racing after that before it got any proper attention. For all I know, the motor might carry on and do the same number of miles again with no issues. Or it might fail one week into the US trip, potentially in quite a remote place. This gave me three options: 1) Do the minimum - replace the worn-out clutch plates, and probably also the gear selector shaft in the original engine and hope for the best. 2) Do a full rebuild of the engine and gearbox - replacing all the bearings and inspecting everything else. 3) Get another engine. In the end, I decided that piece of mind was to be found in replacing the engine with a less abused one, and that - having briefly scanned the poor examples of engines available separately, I would look for a good, low mileage example of one of the other bikes which share the Tenere's 660cc motor - the XT660R, XT660X, and the MT-03 - these bikes being somewhat cheaper than buying another Tenere. Buying a whole bike just for the sake of an engine wouldn't exactly be the cheap option, but it would give me more confidence than buying a 'loose' engine with unknown history, which can't be heard running before committing, and which probably comes without side covers and ancillaries. Really though, it comes down to this - I'm lucky enough to be in a position where it's (relatively) easy to save up a bit more money, but opportunities to spend twelve weeks away from home and work riding a motorcycle on a distant continent are somewhat more difficult to come by. Just before Christmas, I spotted a promising looking MT-03 advertised on a certain well-known internet auction site. It was in Bristol, but Mrs Uberthumper and I were heading that way to spend Christmas at my parents' house just outside Cheltenham. A trip to the dealer in question on the Saturday before Christmas revealed a late-2007 bike with one owner and just 3700 miles on the clock. Cosmetically tatty, having apparently been ridden all year round by someone who had never heard of ACF-50, but crucially, it had four oil changes recorded in the service book - all done by the dealer the bike was now sitting in. The state of the rest of the bike was just a bargaining tool which allowed me to secure a price of �2500. We made a second trip down to Bristol just after the New Year to bring the MT-03 home - the ride back home and a couple of trips to work and back allowing me some confirmation that all seemed well in the engine department. It also revealed that the MT is a rather enjoyable little bike to ride - tiny in comparison to the Tenere, low-geared, wide-barred, and with a very forward-biased riding position and weight distribution. However, with a few long weekends lined up using carry-over holiday from last year, the time for riding the MT was over (for now) - it was time to get on with the engine swap. Things didn't get off to a great start - it took me two and a half days last weekend to get the old motor out of the Tenere. This was primarily down to a swingarm pivot bolt which was seized into the bearings - and on the XT range the same bolt passes through the rear of the cases. I tried gently tapping it out with a rubber mallet, I tried drowning it in penetrating oil and hitting it with a lump hammer, but in the end it was only by going out and buying a 10lb sledgehammer, then laying the bike on its side that the pivot bolt was finally persuaded to move. My facial expression in the photo above reveals something of how fraught my nerves were by this stage. The MT came apart slightly more easily, although the challenge in this case was a set of exhaust nuts and studs which had seen a lot of road salt. A bit of careful welding of clean nuts onto the remains of the originals allowed me to get the exhaust off and shortly after, I had the second engine out. http://getfile1.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg (Tenere on the left, MT on the right) A victory of sorts, but with something like ten weeks until the Tenere gets put in a crate and dispatched across the Atlantic, there's plenty more time in the garage to get it all back together. http://getfile5.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg |
cool, cool, cool!
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sledge frame ??????
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Nice engine transplant!
You bought a very cheap bike. I think it is the price of the engine around here. |
So, when I stick the bike together, which shall I fit?
Exhibit A, weighing in at 459g, or Exhibit B, weighing in at a whopping 7g? http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/3...2annotated.jpg |
what is it ???
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AIS Plumbing
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Uber, I have been considering the AIS removal as it's blocked anyway. The only thing stopping me is MOT time, as I am not sure if it is required? Clearly a blocked, but intact AIS, will fly under the radar, but do you know if they will notice if it is missing?
Or rather, do they even look for the AIS when doing the MOT? |
Can I just say; WEIGHT WEENIE!!! :D
Removal of the AIS will make ****** all difference at MoT time. |
Right, where was I? Oh yeah, thinking I had turned a corner having got the engines out of both the Tenere and the donor MT...
http://getfile1.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg Of course the very next thing that happened was that I snapped an exhaust stud off in the head of the MT engine. ******. As ever in such situations, the first action is to come inside, fire up the laptop, and head straight to a certain well-known internet auction site, which came to the rescue with a virtually unused complete head from a 2010 XT660X. After a week or so's wait (which I put to good use making a set of pannier racks, of which more later) the head arrived, as did the necessary assortment of gaskets and other parts, and the MT motor was duly beheaded... http://getfile0.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg ...and fitted with the XTX head. All fairly straightforward, apart from discovering that the decompression pin had escaped from the exhaust cam while in transit. Fortunately, it was to be found lurking in the bottom of the bag that the head had been wrapped in, and even more fortunately, I managed to manoeuvre it back into place without having to disassemble anything with some cunning use of a drinking straw. http://getfile0.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg A few pipes and brackets swapped from the original Tenere motor and it was ready to go back in. http://getfile7.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg Shame about the mismatched colour. One part which will not be going back on is the original crankcase breather. As stock, the engine breathes through an outlet in the cases between the starter motor and the cylinder. This outlet is connected to a plastic baffle-box to try and encourage any oil in the air to condense out and drain back into the motor. This box is then connected to the airbox. http://getfile8.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg All very well, until you take the bike for a swim and fill the airbox with water, which I've done twice now. A quick thumb to the killswitch as you go in will stop water getting into the cylinder and doing serious damage there (and if it stops with the valves open and water trickles in it's easy enough to pull the spark plug out), but since it's downhill from the airbox to the crankcase, you wind up with the cases full of water and ruined oil. I've been meaning to address this problem for a while, but it's only really practical with the bike stripped down this far. The length of hose connected to the engine in the photo above is part of the solution. Here is where it's connected (with the old breather held alongside): http://getfile8.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg I'll write more about that at a later date. First, it was time to wrestle the motor into the frame. Top mounts first: http://getfile7.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg And then the rest: http://getfile3.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg http://getfile1.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg The bolt at the base of the cylinder is still loose because it doubles up as a mount for the engine bars, which are away being powdercoated after I finally welded up the mount which has been cracked for most (if not all) of the time I've had the bike (they were so prone to it that Yamaha withdrew them from sale). http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg Finally though, it's going in the right direction. More to come. |
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When will you be in the States UberThumper ? I'll be back over there Early May hopefully. |
Flying out 21st April, back about 13th July
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With the engine and frame back together, it's time to build the rest of the bike around it. Throttle body onto the engine first, then try and remember how the big pile of magic spaghetti was originally wrapped around everything.
http://getfile1.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg Something like this. It's a lot easier to make all the connections around the throttle body and the back of the engine without the airbox in the way. http://getfile7.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg Time for the rear suspension. This is what a Tenere swingarm looks like after 37,000 miles of abuse. http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg This is where the centrestand rubs when the rubber stop falls off: http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg This is what happens when your sprocket carrier bearing disintegrates: http://getfile5.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg And this is a combination of flaky paint, motocross boots, crashing, and bending the centrestand into the swingarm: http://getfile8.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg New bearings, bushes and seals throughout: http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg On with the Off-the-road.de +35mm dogbones: http://getfile6.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg New pivot bolt to replace the rusty, sledgehammered one. http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg And back into the frame, along with the Nitron Racing shock: http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg Took the airbox apart, washed the inside out, and reassembled with a good splurge of grease on the seals: http://getfile2.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg Back together, and in with the DNA Stage 2 filter and snorkle eliminator. http://getfile1.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg My JMo Racing Dakar 2011 sticker has, sadly, seen better days. Just as well Jenny is going back in 2014. http://getfile4.posterous.com/getfil...scaled1000.jpg |
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