The darkside with a twist of fun

[weeksy]

Man I love the look of those bikes!

Don't ever ever ride one.

IMO the best bike i've ever ridden on the road... Just a lovely lovely thing. I must admit, i didn't like it as much on track as i did on the road...but on the road, it was superb.

Too much bike for me!

They're smooth and effortless pussycats until you ask them not to be.

[Scuffmark]

As I still like to get oil and grease under my finger nails I thought I'd post a thread as some where to keep a record of all my tinkering on the current fleet and keep it all in one place.

The twist of fun...

The darkside ....



My 2018 Yamaha MT10. The shiney bike which apart from riding,cleaning and servicing doesn't need much. Perfect as is.

Man I love the look of those bikes!

Have you tried one ?

Like Weeksy says there fantastic on the road.

I tried all the hypernakeds ( I was looking for used bikes so not the Ducati streetfighter) and was sure I'd go with the 1290 SDR but it was the Mt10 that stood out on the road as the best all rounder..... it still makes me lol everytime I ride it

[Scuffmark]

Few pics of the exhaust system ...

Before..



After..



Cleaned with the power of Harpic , scotchbrite and a little bit of elbow grease.

[Beancounter]

Just searched Woodcraft bars and I think they'll do what I'm after so thanks for the very kind offer ... I cant accept them for free though , atleast let me cover the cost of postage ?

Stick a few coins in the charity box, can't imagine postage will be more than a fiver. They're currently bolted to my garage wall and used to hang bungee cords from so I'm quite happy to see them get used. PM your address and I'll get them sent.

I didn't know they'd moved from Stowmarket, makes sense though as it'll be cheaper and closer to where Darren lives.

He's built a workshop in his garden. I think he only moved in early this year, though ISTBC.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Good for Darren, his parents lived in a small bungalow in Mendlesham, good to see he's doing well.

[Yorick]

Good for Darren, his parents lived in a small bungalow in Mendlesham, good to see he's doing well.

If he was doing well, he'd buy them a bigger bungalow.....

[Bigyin]

Work done by MCT in Stowmarket/Wetheringsett.

Feck me, most people don't know where Stowmarket is, never mind Wetheringsett, which is more of an area than an actual village, we used to occasionally ride over to the Cat and Mouse (from 6 miles away) and I don't know if I could find my way from the A140 to it.

Not that far from me and loads of the old VD crowd used MCT for suspension work and tuning. I have ridden the local roads Darren used to use as an unofficial " test track" to find his base and adapted settings only because i was shown them by Adam and Oliver who was a Stowmartian (Gixxer, sadly no longer with us)

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Good for Darren, his parents lived in a small bungalow in Mendlesham, good to see he's doing well.

If he was doing well, he'd buy them a bigger bungalow.....

He might have done for all I know

[JackyJoll]

Cleaned with the power of Harpic.

Clean round the bend!

[Scuffmark]

Todays job was to strip the rear caliper and make sure everything is as it should be before rebuilding.

[Scuffmark]

Managed to find an hour today to drain and then pull the front calipers. It was nice to find some SBS sintered street pads with a good amount of material left on them.

Calipers were a bit grotty but the pistons have cleaned up better than I thought they would with a good brush over with brake cleaner and now look like they wont need replacing.


Still going to pop all of them out to inspect the seals and hopefully wont find any nasty surprises

[Scuffmark]

The postman dropped off the last piece of the rear brake parts for the Mt09 I've been waiting on so with a couple of hours spare I put it to good use and assembled everything.

Everytime I looked at the rear brake hose where it was connected at the cylinder, it bugged me that it was always under tension and looked like if left as it was would eventually fail.



I thought it was just fitted incorrectly but when removed it turns out that was the only way it actually fitted without fowling anything. It may have fitted if one of the banjo's was the other way up so its either assembled incorrectly or the wrong hose.


New hose (The blue hose didn't look right against the swingarm to me so I ordered black), new stainless disc bolts, pads, resevoir hose clip and fresh fluid.



Also found a small piece of black protection tape i had left over from something else and covered the rub mark on the swingarm while I was at it to.

Starting to look a little tidier

[Scuffmark]

Even though I'd managed to get a useable rear brake I thought it could be improved so decided to revisit it today.

On very close inspection it became apparent the caliper wasn't sitting squarely with the disc and when the pedal was pressed it flexed.

A quick Internet search found a couple of threads about the front sliding pin being easily bent if not assembled correctly. I'd not removed it only regreased it before reassembly and looking at the old pads you could see they were chamfered so it had been like it for a while.

5 mins removing the pin and then holding the brake on whilst retightening the sliding pin sorted it and it now has a good solid pedal

[Skub]

New shock coming? That one looks brave and krusty!

[Scuffmark]

New shock coming? That one looks brave and krusty!

Its only the part you see in the picture thats krusty the rest of it is in pretty good shape considering its age.

It works just aswell as a newer one .... which is poorly

Don't worry it will be replaced.

[Scuffmark]

Instead of sitting in front of the TV eating the last of the Christmas chocolates and mince pies I thought today would be better spent servicing the forks on the KTM.

A few hours and they now have new bushes and some fresh putoline 5w oil , just waiting on a dry day for a test ride.

[Scuffmark]

These aftermarket footpegs came fitted to the MT09 and whilst they look ok in the pics the rubber was quite hard and not very grippy, they also didn't sit flat, more angled down at the ends so I've replaced them with some standard ones.



Which meant I could now set the rear brake pedal to suit my size 11's

[Scuffmark]

Another week, another fork build



I wanted to service the forks before it gets ridden especially as the left fork leg had a leaky seal and know what I'm starting with.

Going by the airgap in the leaking fork its been leaking for a good while. Standard airgap is 153mm it measured at 290mm

7.5w oil added with airgap set at 130mm... They feel better already just at stand still which is a result.

[Beancounter]

Haven’t forgotten about those Woodcraft bars btw, just need to get to a post office.

[Scuffmark]

Haven’t forgotten about those Woodcraft bars btw, just need to get to a post office.

No worries, its a very kind offer

Theres honestly no rush it doesn't need anything better to push it across to the workshop than it already has