It looks good to me bro, when I tried to clean mine up I just used some fine steel wool and deep creep. Next Time you try polishing some stainless hit it with wool first probably get that bit than you could polish my .02

 

over here in the states there is a product called 'bar keepers friend'. its a super fine powder that is used to clean stainless steel cookware and appliances it works great for that stuff. I wonder if a like product is available to you in Finland.

 

I tried one of those foamy soapy steel wool pads as the first thing, did absolutely nothing to it. I've heard of the barkeeper's friend, the active ingredient seems to be oxalic acid, and as it happens I do have a little jar of that in raw form. Some kind of kitchen top cleaning product it was but the jar says 100% pure oxalic acid. Might try that as well on the last round.

 

You know, after three nights of continuous polishing, a full tube of Autosol and shoulders so stiff I`ll probly gonna have to call a locksmith, I`m gonna go ahead and call this a close enough. It`s not a harley, you can see pretty little of the whole thing once fitted into the bike, I`m not looking for a mirror finish and judging from the stunning amount of weld spatter around the connector tube neither was Triumph.





That`s pretty much all that you can see so I think it`ll do nicely even though there still are some darker spots but most of them are in areas that you cannot see without getting to all fours and looking. I decided to assemble the radiators and things in place once again...



...to avoid things like this when the time comes for the final assembly. Lucky this was a quick fix by just screwing the leg out to get the damper to sit higher. It still hits the upper coolant hose but that`s not necessarily a bad thing as it will probly dampen the wobbling that it would otherwise do, the ball joint is pretty loose so I`ve been fearing the damper will clatter from side to side on idle. The rub patch was a test to see how easily could I get the color off the tube and the answer is: very. So that will also get either a brushed or a polished finish once I get to rebuilding it. The clutch cable still needs to be rerouted as it got left on the wrong side of the damper and will kink against the rad at full right turn but that`s just a small detail to be dealt with later on. Never noticed before that the place for the aerating screw is dented...

Still got a heap of electric work done, the biggest job will probly be to shorten the harness once I get everything to work first. But it`s getting there!

 

Tested fitting the fiberglass tape onto the crash cage today, not exactly happy with the results as no matter how tight I wound it, it kept unraveling at some point cause the tape does not grip onto the painted pipe pretty much at all so the stainless wire doesn`t provide enough pressure to keep it in place, gotta go buy some thermal clips or screw-on hose clamps and retry later to get it tight enough. Probly gonna put some glue under it as well but gonna wait with that until I`m sure the cage does not have to come off anymore. Speaking of glue, I put the valve cover back on after close examination of the seals which proved to be covered in some kind of glue residue but otherwise intact, so I scraped off what I could from the seal and the mating surface from the head, applied some aviation seal glue in between and refitted the cover. I then figured jus tfor the heck of it to drain the oil. I know some of you disapprove to drain cold oil from the engine but I figured since the engine has not been running for a year and a half any and all crap that is gonna, has descended from the head and the channels. The oild wasn`t as dirty as I assumed it would be, but what I found a little strange was that the oil is very, and I mean very lean and has the destinctive odour of fuel contamination, in other words it reeks of gasoline. Didn`t appear to have any streaks or anything once drained into a vat but when I rock the container the oil acts almost as water, must be some zero weight stuff or something. Don`t ever remember seeing oil so lean at room temperature. Could that be a symptom of something? Another thing I noticed and rather did not like was that the oil pan has been removed at some point as some of that wretched red gasket seal stuff is coming out of the mating surface. Makes one wonder why, IF I`m lucky the reason is external meaning that the pan could have been replaced after a crack from a bottom contact since the exhaust is also slightly damaged. Would be interesting to know what exactly has this bike been put through before me. Probly better if I don`t...

I was hoping to get the new muffler today, I`ve been tracking it`s whereabouts the whole week, did the customs declaration mere minutes after the email came that it`s sitting in the airport customs waiting for me to pay the taxes, had it released for delivery, only to see it miss the container coming here by an hour so it`s currently stuck in the Helsinki sorting facility and will probably arrive here by tuesday. Bummer, don`t really need it yet but sure would have been nice to see it in person already...





Decided to splurge a bit to riding comfort as well, when I bought the helmet I also bought the basic kit 2 to it which contains the headphones, microphone and the circtuitry to get them connected. I put everything in place and took for a ride, only to discover that the sound volume from my phone even at full blast is so low that I cannot hear any music above 40km/h. Bummed by it I ripped the mic off and forgot about the whole system until recently I bumped into a bunch of people complaining about the same issue on some forum writings, turns out you also need the "e-box" which is essentially an amplifier, and the battery for it, which are sold separately as an "intercom kit" which costs ANOTHER 119EUR. at first I only found the newer bluetooth versions which are even more expensive but after some vigorous goolging and a phone call later I found a set of the older wired version from my nearest Storm Motor -shop and decided to jump on it as they are getting rare now that the N90 has been discontinued. Did a nice dent on my wallet but at least now I got proper volume on the helmet as well as a volume setting right at the side of the lid. Ripoff I say, wouldn`t have bought the whole thing in the first place had the seller of the helmet mentioned that the basic kit is just the base of the system and can only be used as is when connected to another helmet that has the amp box... Oh well, at least don`t have to fiddle with plug phones anymore as they always either pop out or press into the ear and start to hurt after a while. While I was at it fitting the battery having to rip the insides off the helmet anyway I tossed em into the washing machine and let dry for a few days while giving the outsides a good scrub n polish. All set and ready for the next season.

 

Out of curiosity, what's the reasoning for the fiberglass tape on you cage?

 

Heat shielding from the exhaust & rock spray cover as well as just a visual thing, bit of a cafe look. Also covers the joint in the middle that doesn't sit 100% flush.

 

Gotcha. I always wonder when I see somebody using it. Sometimes (like yours) there are great reasons to use it. Other times I think people do it just to be doing it. So I always wonder.

 

Hehee, a few quotes from a triumph forum thread of interesting motorcycle pics:





Today I was thinking about the bike and a few little issues with it, I was actually hanging a rat so to speak when all the pieces just suddenly locked together.

I remember the bike having a lot of trouble starting when cold and a massive backfire when motor braking before the engine got properly warm. I figured it was because the coolant temp sensor plug was broken but later on found out that the sensor only switches the fan on and off. Then I suddenly remembered this from the first teardown at page 1:


If it looks like an FPR, then it most probably IS one... Would explain all the problems like running rich, backfiring, poor cold start and fuel contamination in oil. Now I just gotta study where it`s supposed to go, I assume it works on vacuum so I should also have a vacuum hose completely detached somewhere, probly better to fetch the Haynes bible from the garage and do a lil reading...

EDIT: can`t get the pic link to work, my pic server seems to be having some difficulties as some pics show and some olders don`t but if it doesn`t work there`s a pic of the tank and the fuel pump plate.

 

...and if only it would have been that easy... The FPR is NOT operated by vacuum as it is a "total loss" valve, the only hose that attaches to it is the drain hose that goes to the undercarriage. In theory I could test the operation of the valve with a compressor, the only catch is that according to the Haynes manual Triumph does not provide any data on what the opening and closing pressures should be, so basically the only thing I can do is the "shot in the dark" approach as in buying a new one and seeing if it did anything. A 50 EUR as if... Oh well, that`s one thing to come back to if the bike misbehaves once I`m done with the rebuild.

One good thing for today was that the Danmoto exhaust arrived!













When I first got the box in my hands I thought "that`s it?" as it felt so tiny like I`ve bought a can from a scooter or something but once I got it out and on the bike... it could not fit much better, ANY bigger would start to look goofy. As well as smaller. I have to echo the test videos found from youtube that the initial reaction when handling was that it is really, really light weighing only 2,3kg without the strap and the midpipe. There wasn`t any info on the net of it`s construction but as I suspected it, it is a strait-thru glasspack muffler so I suppose it will probly be quite loud so probly gonna either order or make a baffle to it at some point. Gotta be careful with that strap, it seems to be pressed from a steel sheet without any finishing so all the edges are RAZOR sharp, cut my finger pretty good when bending it and didn`t even notice right away.

Now I just gotta pack the bike to my truck some day and take it to a garage in Lahti to get a custom midpipe made.