Again thanks everyone for the compliments Sat to the wee hours at saturday night in the garage fixing the wiring. To prevent the paintwork from scratching I decided to do the lazy man`s version, which is instead of pulling the whole bike apart I leeched off a known good ground, in this case the gauge ground wire, soldering the two wires to that. No need to have a separate groud wire for everything, and besides this is how Triumph made it themselves. I didn`t get to go for a proper test run since I could not leave the boy sleeping inside alone but I did take it once around the block and it seems to be working. I was meaning to go riding today but it rained the entire day so got nowhere. I have to go to work by bike the whole next week even if it`s raining kittens cause I have to get the Alfa fixed ASAP. Why? Well, because I have to get rid of it as soon as I can. Why? Well, so has come to pass that me and my wife are going to get our second baby around Christmas and I`m in need of an STW. Been looking at 2008-> Volvo V70:s, there`s one promising BMW 535 3.0 Xdrive, and I was just offered a 2003 Toyota Avensis D4D in trade for the Spider. We`ll see what the future brings ;D Might trade it to the Toyota just because it will be soooo much easier to unload and the car shops will probly give me a better value for it than the Spider. We`ll see...

 

Congratulations Matti - to you and your Wife for your new young 'un on the way.
Get all the riding in you can now because with two small ones underfoot time will shrink.

Cheers, SB

 

Don`t I know that... The wifey working three shifts, all day rides can already be counted with one hand fingers per season... But I guess it will pay back thousandfold to go riding three-up some years later ;D We`ll see, even we don`t know yet which one it is, and there`s a few things afoot that will propably significantly affect my usable funds in the coming years which is also why I`m hurrying with the car. Would be awesome to get one full summer of rag top driving but no one buys old two seater convertibles at autumn so if I could trade it for the Avensis, even with a less lucrative trade, I`m probly ending up on the plus to trade that to something newer. The Spider being such a rare car here that smaller car shops don`t even accept it in the trade or offer some pennies for it.

Everything`s open as we speak but I reckon some clarity will come in the coming month or so.

 

Can Missy whisper in that I am gonna be a godmother
And SOO SUPER SIKED!!!! When Matti told me I was crying tears of happy!
Emotional overflow extreme!!!

And In my opinion that Bmw looks ssöööyyyy bad ***!
Eventough I rarely cheer for bmw

Volvo most always a safe bet for a comfort ride. Dunno about Avensis tough...

 

Many conrats to you and Mrs. Matti! May the new addition arrive healthy and safe with a love of all things internal combustion related.

 

Congratulations Mattson! That's big (and great) news.


And congrats to you Missy.

 

Thanks everyone! I suppose it's safe to say that if the newcomer is any bit like it's brother I'm going to have to extend the garage when they are nearing moped age Lil Samuli is ALL about everything that goes broom! Every time he's in the Alfa he's pesting me to rev it and when I do he goes hehehehehebroom!

A bit of a pity to let it go but let's face it it's a toy not a commuter. I had my fun with it but it is not a car that you want to drive every day. I got a very good trade offer off a black 2008 Volvo V70 2,5T aut. Which we probly are going to get the coming tuesday if I pass the MOT before that. It's 200km away and the winter tires don't fit in the spider so we gotta go with two cars.

 

So, as written in the other thread the car issue is now sorted for a few years I hope. The only problem with that one is that the upper back support is pressing on my back and I can't find a good sitting position, have to fiddle with the seat settings a bit more later on...

...and on another thing I have now managed to pinpoint the real cause to all the gauge troubles I've been having. It's not a faulty gauge, not a bad solder, nor a broken wire. It is the multipin connector behind the gauge that's causing all the hassle. The connectors inside the white block are too loose to provide proper connection with the pins in the circuit board. If I wiggle the connector while riding I can get the gauge to work properly but it is VERY precise about the position so all the pins get a connection. I have contacted the seller, nothing. I have contacted koso europe, nothing. I have contacted koso north america who replied contact koso europe! I have even contacted koso taiwan which I believe is the manufacturer who replied in a suspiciously automated manner that they will redirect my message to the proper representative, who can then ignore it again! As a last ditch effort I will be trying to shove some threads off an electric wire into the connectors in hopes of a better contact but if and when that will fail I have a backup solution of buying a knockoff china copy gauge off a guy at another forum and send here and Koso a youtube video of me doing a burnout launching their gauge into a brick wall from the rear tire.

IF I'm getting a new connector at some point good but either way I gotta say because of the price/quality factor multiplied with the awful customer support the trust has gone and I will most probably NEVER buy another Koso product again. I would even be happy to order a new connector somewhere but guess what it's not listed as a buyable spare part! One thing to try would be to solder the wires into the pins in the circuit board but the area is VERY crowded so that might prove to be tricky...

Either way I gotta figure out something during this week as the bike's going to it's first show at thursday. IF it's not raining that is, it's an outdoor event and the weather forecasts for this week are showing pretty unstable readings. If it's pissing down I might have to skip.

 

finally taking some time to catch up on your thread, totally giving me a bit of the motivation I've been lacking as of late to crack on and get bits and pieces sorted on the cbr. not sure how i feel about the paintwork, mostly I'm just not one for bright colours but i think its one of those things if it were to be seen in person this jaw would be dropping, like you said theres a depth to it that the camera just doesn't pickup. oh and congratulations dude! cool to hear that.

 

As I said before it`s deliberately controversial. To be honest even I had my doubts about will the idea work for real or not, but to my relief at least in my opinion it did, and quite well even. I`ll gladly receive all kinds of feedback good and bad, cause that`s the only way you`ll learn. Now that I`ve seen it and have been thinking about different possibilities I`m quite glad I didn`t paint the rims and the frame orange cause that just would have been a little too much...

Been spending the last two nights in the garage rubbing and scrubbing every little crevice I can get my hands into to get the bike to look as good as I possibly can for the show at thursday. Really hoping it doesn`t rain cause it`s a ride-in event so having to get there on wet road would kinda kill the point of polishing every single place of it.. We`ll just have to wait and see, it`s raining ATM and it will rain for the most of tomorrow but the front is moving away so it might be gone by thursday morning.