Out for the first time today since last November. Had this bike about 15 years and have looked after her well. She still purrs on start up. She’s been a trustworthy steed and with her Dream Machine paint job, I’ve grown to have a sweet spot for the old girl.
Today for the first time ever, she was grumpy.
First thing was the brakes, they felt horrible. Inconsistent and just nasty. Then, whilst continuing to ride and doing a mental fault finding on my issue she nearly spat me over the tank. Nothing to do with the brakes, I’ve no idea what caused it but exiting a roundabout and putting the power on is not the time to momentarily cut out. It disappeared as quick as it arrived. Just a split second but it felt like someone switched it off.
It could of been worse I suppose, 5 seconds earlier and I would of been mid roundabout and I would surely have gone down in a big heap.
Ok.... now I’ve 2 separate issues. Kept it local and carried on riding, I guessed riding it would help me collect data to sort her out. This might not have been sensible to some but that’s me.
I’ve Goodridge stainless pipes for my brakes with decent pads and they always gave a lovely sound and feel under heavy braking. This was gone. I had a strange noise transferring from below my tank, almost though it was travelling up through the gaps either side of the fairing. This was enough for me, home time. Two mins from my house, different sound, 3 rasps, same area, and then gone. Brakes almost back to normal, had some feel back anyway and some of my singing from discs.
Now back home I had a look over the front end. I found one off my bobbins very loose. The remainder don’t really move to be honest but one is really slack. This is new. I spent a lot of time up my garage with the bike over winter and this would of been detected.
So...... I’ve got a potentially dangerous cutting out/off issue and my brakes aren’t giving me any confidence. Bit bloody dangerous really... not happy !

 

I know the feeling Wes, was out for the first time today myself.

I'd just put a new rear tyre in, Pirelli Diabolo, only because the front Pirelli is still OK. I'd had a quick test ride in the afternoon, but then went out for a proper ride this evening. Tested the rear brake a couple of times and I was back home within 5 minutes, 'cos it felt so greasy and squirmy I was sure there was something loose!

Put her up on the ABBA stand and checked everything over, all fine, nothing loose, just a new tyre that felt like it had been greased-up

So, back out again, good long ride, but then noticed the clutch is slipping, I suspected this at the end of last season, but it's much worse now and the lever is getting quite stiff.

On the way home, I started to get some cramps, which wasn't good, then ran out of fuel on a roundabout, put her on reserve and nursed myself and the bike home.

Feel like I've been beaten severely and wondering how difficult sorting out the clutch will be

 

We do really feel everything that goes on and that can’t be bad.
Yes your clutch sounds like it’s time to refresh. Straight forward enough job. Positive your up to it.
Strip and lay out in order with no rush and just reassemble. You can soak your new plates for a bit if you want. I’d go for new cable to compliment your handy work and all will be good.
Best of luck.

 

Cheers Wes, plan to do the job next week.

Hope you get to the bottom of your troubles.

 

Dumb question - what are bobbins? Do they only come standard in the UK market?

 

Cutting out issue resolved a while back but just back read this post from earlier. Sorry didn’t post my solution.
As I mentioned initially, my bike felt like it momentarily “switched off “. Further investigation revealed that if I even touched the key slightly , I could simulate turning it off. A bump in the road could easily trigger this.
What I did was remove the ignition for a visual check, and thought the loom wiring actually felt more taut than I would of expected. I unwound the tightness and retried my key with the touch test. A hundred off/ons and wriggles later and nothing wrong. Reinstalled and she’s been perfect ever since.
I can only assume that what was happening was the natural twist in the ignition loom was actually stressing the mechanism trying to work against where I turned my key to.