Fozzie

I definitely forget it half the time I do it, and it's always on calipers with seized pin caps You should be fine, although worst case, if you can't manage it you can pop them in the post to me, I've done that for friends, family and a few forum members in years gone by

Big cans of brake cleaner are on offer at the moment from Toolstation. £3.99 a can. And the stuff is essential for jobs like this. I find caliper rebuilds quite therapeutic. It's delicate work on the internals. Removing them is easy, generally a couple of bolts. But I'd loosen the other bolts with it there, like the retaining pin/pins for the pads. When off pull the pin and remove the pads, also note there is often a retainer/shim at the top of the caliper that can fall out. Note it's position and make sure it gets a good clean. Remove the pistons with internal grip pliers, I find a slight twisting back and forth motion as I pull works them out easy enough. You can pump the brake with the line still attached to push the pistons out, but usually only one pops out a lot, and you end up using a piece of wood to jam one piston and get the other moving. Soft, but solid material is best so as not to damage the piston faces. Once apart, remove the seals. Clean their recesses well with either a pick (being very careful not to ) or I use a dremel with brass wire brushes that can't harm the bore. Cleans them out nicely. Thoroughly clean everything with brake cleaner and a tooth brush, with a final spray into the piston bores with the caliper held up so it all drains out. Reassemble with red rubber grease on the seals, and a very fine smear on the pistons, almost enough to not see. Brake fluid is fine for an alternative, but I like grease for its suspension properties. Bleeding is the bugger, you can be there for ages pumping and cracking the bleed nipple before it eventually comes through. I switched to using a vacuum pump that pulls it through from the nipple. Then I switch back to the usual one way valve, but as the seal is often imperfect around the nipple, I still tighten it after the last hold down of the lever. I usually pull it 4 times, and on the 5th hold it in and crack the nipple open, close, and repeat. Probably missed a few bits in here, but trying to keep it short.

Good morning! Money does weird things to people, I'm at a wedding later this month where half the family doesn't speak to the other half over the will of their still alive grandparents. One of the kids talked their parents into changing the will so she and her brother get 50% each, writing out all grandkids who previously had shares assigned. Doesn't help that the grandparents both have dementia, and were coached on what to say on the phone to the solicitor...

We live in odd times, if a beer company released an ad featuring a woman in lingerie today, you'd have to stop and ask if it was a man or a woman Good morning!

I've worked from home for 4 years now, I'd just appreciate the physical interaction to be honest

Is there a gym at least? Or facilities to keep you entertained? I always liked the idea of working on a boat, but more the engineering section (power generation).

I've been waiting for you to be back, I'm watching this build with envy!

Its been a minute, life has been a bit busy. My other project took priority in the second half of last year, and this year so far I've been able to do very little due to work pressures, and also saving up frantically for a house and last holidays before I lose the fight with my partners body clock :lol: So I've broken down the bike into its basic pieces, disposed of the old frame as I have a new, non-write off one. My garage is small, and a bit messy, but coordinated chaos as I like to call it. Good thing with small engines... Easy to take apart, it took maybe 90 minutes to get here. Fortunately I had the right special tools for various bits. I gave it all a very good clean first. All the grime on the outer casings was removed before disassembly as it reduces the chance of any getting into places I don't want it going forward. The lower section of the engine is in good order, the crank I need to get looked at, the conrod looks a little worn on the faces that meet the gudgeon pin. I suspect slight oil starvation still. I need to recheck the crank tolerances, as I'm hoping the casings were simply pressed together too tight and gave a false reading. But I'm expecting to need to send it off for a new rod, bearing, and being trued up. I've got a new cylinder and piston, as well as camshaft and all associated gubbins. Also have a full set of bearings for the cases, so I should be ready soon to build the engine back up, good as new. And with a fresh lick of paint.

Good morning, off to the gym for an earlyish session. Partner is still at home sound asleep, and probably still will be when I’m back. If I get an hour I might actually find time for the garage, everything has been on hold lately as I might be changing jobs soon, but I need to break down the little 125 project I have and actually do something with the scrap bits I don’t need as it takes up so much space. Had a new car with a massive boot for 2 months and only just twigged it could fit the old scrap frame in there!

Confronting isn’t my style when there’s deniability, as you end up putting them on the hard defensive. And once they know you haven’t got hard proof, they can often be emboldened. My notice states “there is reason to believe it was another resident” which I’m hoping will leave them on their toes. And that I will be implementing CCTV and watching from now on, and damage to me or other residents will be unsympathetically passed on to insurance/police/residents with no middle ground for dealing with outside of insurance. Might be a bit extreme, but repeat offenders that don’t learn from their mistakes in my view haven’t hit hard enough consequences yet to actually change. And it’s a lot more reasonable than I felt like being at the time I found the damage

Someone has scuffed up my car down the passenger side. And I know whose done it, a resident who has been consistently a problem with dumping her car in the road out front blocking delivery vans and sending them on a mission to drag her out and move it "I was just on a quick lunch break" was one excuse I overhead one time. The parking area is unmarked, so some residents try to leave their car in the same spot to better manage the space, using the access doors to the apartment buildings as a reference. The hit and run resident will routinely sling her car diagonally across two spaces that two residents normally occupy, and she's in a little Mazda for reference, filling a spot usually occupied by two saloon sized cars. I can see blue paint on her bumper from my car, there's white all down the side of mine, it's at the right height. I can also see where she's furiously tried to wipe it off, as the rest of the car is filthy. Both cars I've known her to own here have been badly beaten up over the course of her ownership, she's not someone you want to find yourself parked next to out and about. Since the damage, she has tried to park her car on the other end of the car park, which the sudden change in character further indicates guilt. Absolutely f**king fuming. Both passenger side doors, the scrape is over a metre long. Luckily, I've got a local bodyshop that will fix it for £400. I'm investing in some CCTV for my spare bedroom window, to watch the carpark. I've put up a firmly worded notice asking them to come forward and contribute to the cost of the damage and apologise, and without giving detail that I have my suspicions (with pictures taken to prove them). I'm guessing she's kept quiet as she's got an insurance record a mile long. I'd say nob, but I think she's a bit of a ****.

The SVrider forum is the same. Really sensitive bunch. I once said "the fasteners are made of cheese, but that's Suzuki" and it triggered a fight. And, not being in the mood, I replied to the chap who outright said I shouldn't own a bike if I wasn't prepared to look after it properly, which in his book involved greasing the fairing bolts once every 6 months. Told him I never had to do that with any of my Honda's, and he was confusing proper maintenance with poor design. He went nuclear. And all the anti-UK stuff comes out of the woodwork with the Americans, they've got a real complex with us (or at least some of them do).

I was told different, when I queried why different insurers can quote wildly different figures for the same address in the same area. The police data would seem to give a better place to start from, but I was essentially told insurers have their own data for most areas, which they prioritise as it bluntly shows how much they are making/losing in a given area. But this could have been unique to that particular insurer? I'd still say it's unfair to treat someone as if they've had a claim though. A new quote should reflect the updated data for the area, rather than penalising someone for a claim they didn't make.

Bingo Insurers charge based on risk, determined by the types and amount of claims they pay out for by area. So their risk is an entirely monetary based entity, so how can they charge you heightened premiums when you haven't had a claim paid out? It's like they are pre-emptively trying to charge you for a consequence that hasn't happened yet, or a future higher level of risk. Which feels like it borders the line of being a scam to me.

I've had this more than once in London. How was the bike parked security wise? Did it have a chain or anything like that on? It sounds like it attracted some chancers who tried their hand at electrics and got it wrong, thinking it was an easy theft. The problem with these sorts, they are usually f**king stupid, and persistent. So I'd expect them to return, and I'd get it locked to something or stored away at a friend/family members house for the short term. As for insurance, if your company knows, you need all the options. If they pay you out but offer for you to buy back the bike for pennies, it might offset some of the pain you'll have for the next 4-5 years. If it hasn't been logged, I'd probably look at repairing the bike myself and keeping it quiet. They say that you should notify your insurer due to any incident, for "notification purposes", which I've often taken as code for "your premiums are going right up son". If there's no law compelling you to tell them, I wouldn't.