She is playing up again

I decided it was time to get my left hand pannier fixed the other day, some daylight had started showing between the welds and around one of the mounting points. This is the pannier that I have repeatedly punished ;- hitting a BMW GS1200 (twice in one day), sliding down a road in Argentina, sliding down a road in France, sliding down the side of a caravan on the M6 .... and many more minor slow speed drops.

I popped down to Vern's (http://www.projectvnd.com) near Chester, Vern had made the panniers for me back in 2010, and had the repairs done. Once I had bolted everything back onto the bike again and accepted the compliments from Vern about the fact the Italian bike was still going, it did what it always does, refused to start.

It was the classic dead ignition. Nada. Change the fuse, nothing.
Jiggle the wires at the ignition, life.... dead.

Suspecting the previous soldering repair back in Kazakhstan had failed I stripped off the front end, and split the ignition barrel only to see that the solder was still intact. This meant my Dutch motorway repair of sliding a piece of plastic into the barrel to put pressure on the connectors had failed. It was time for a new solution.

Carefully find a position at that the lower half of the barrel would enable the ignition to function when the key was turned in the upper half (allowing the key->dash->ECU security to engage) I got it running. Then strapped the lower half of the ignition barrel to the throttle cable and hit the road.

Arriving home, chuffed with my latest bodge job I switched the ignition off. Well I tried to, the key would not turn.Only one thing for it, get a screwdriver, push it into the lower barrel and twist.

So, the bike is back in the garage with the keys in the ignition, until I find time to work on her.

No more bouncy bouncy

After bouncing halfway round the world with a duff rear shock and being to mean/lazy to get around to replacing it in the 12 months since I got home, it took being told that when I went into bends the arse end of the bike "looked like a hippo having a shit" to get me to bite the bullet.

£440 of my fine British pounds later (delivery delayed by ordering in August when the Italians are all on holiday).

A bit dirty, but then it has survived 68,000 miles.

A quick oil and filter change, new front brake pads and the ride is significantly better.

Naked again !

Late last year I mentioned the bike was getting a rest, it was a very short rest and most of the work I was going to do never got done.

She was pressed back into service in January, when the XJ900F went away for an engine overhaul, that eventually took 5 months. During that time I have been working away and commuting on her up to Harrogate.

Then last week the XJ900 came home, and the Peg was resigned to the back of the garage again. But only for a week as the XJ900 is still burning more oil than an Iraqi oil field when the USA visit.

As my commute has now switched to Leeds, and it is fun on my 3rd bike (an XJR1300), I have decided that the Peg will just have to soldier on. But to make filtering less "interesting" the highly useful panniers have been removed.

It has been a while, but she is naked again !

(And here she is fully dressed)