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| | One of my favourite posts on the hawkgtforum | | | Saturday, July 12, 2008 (2:43 PM)
(I'm feeling amused) | | This was posted by MrDude_1 back in November last year. It turned out to be a wind up but brought a smile to my face as I'm sure many bikers put their bikes up there as their main priority:
What should I do?
I've never talked about this before, but I really need the boards advice on what could be a crucial decision. I’ve suspected for some time now that my wife has been cheating on me.
The usual signs… Phone rings but if I answer, the caller hangs up.
My wife has been going out with the girls a lot recently although when I ask their names she always says, “Just some friends from work, you don’t know them.”
I always stay awake to look out for her taxi coming home, but she always walks down the drive. Although I can hear a car driving off, as if she has gotten out of the car round the corner. Why? Maybe she wasn’t in a taxi?
I once picked her cell phone up just to see what time it was and she went berserk and screamed that I should never touch her phone again and why was I checking up on her.
Anyway, I have never approached the subject with my wife I think deep down I just didn’t want to know the truth, but last night she went out again and I decided to really check on her.
I decided I was going to park my motorcycle next to the garage and then hide behind it so I could get a good view of the whole street when she came home. It was at that moment, crouching behind my bike , that I noticed that the valve covers on my engine seemed to be leaking a little oil.
Is this something I can fix myself or should I take it to Hordpower?
www.hawkgtforum.com/forum/showthread.php
Some of the actual responses to the post are amusing too :)
| | | 20 Views | 2  Thumbs Up | 1 Comment |  |
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| | My back injury | | | Thursday, May 29, 2008 (1:11 PM)
(I'm feeling aggravated) | | On Monday we had really high winds here in the UK. The prevailing winds tend to blow from the south west but this past weekend they unusually blew from the north east. The wind speed got up to around 50 mph, not exactly hurricane speeds but the odd direction was enough to cause distruption in the form of the panels in my back garden fence to begin blowing out. So nails in hand, accompanied by an axe (I'd left my hammer in my toolkit over at my parents) I went out to begin securing the panels back on to the fence. I stooped down and began to secure some of the loose panels and then got chatting to my neighbour. As I was talking I began to feel a slight twinge in my back. I've always suffered with back problems and just put it down to a temporary back strain that would probably be right as rain in a couple of hours. Well, how wrong I was.
As the day progressed, my back began to get more stiff and the pain increased. I went to bed and was kept awake for most of the night from a combination of the bad back and the north easterly winds and rain lashing against my bedroom window; something I'm not used to as the rain normally batters the front of the house. Tuesday morning (my first day back in work after two weeks off) I awoke in agony, I could barely walk. I hobbled downstairs, had a cup of tea, checked LV and my mail and decided I would try my best to go into work. I really didn't want to call in sick on my first day back, which I may have considered if I'd known my boss was on holiday this week. I figured if I wasn't in too much pain when I sat in the car, I could get through the day in the office without walking around so much. I sat in the drivers seat in the car and it seemed fairly comfortable so decided to brave it in to work.
Things were going well, driving along the motorway was ok until I came to the usual morning 20 mile tail backs. The moment the traffic became stop-start the pain began to unleash itself as I continually engaged and disengaged the clutch pedal with my leg. I arrived at work some 90 minutes later and parked up in my usual spot. I really strugged to get out of the car I was in that much agony. I even considered calling reception to get the security guards to help me out of the car. It took me an age to get from the car to my desk. Hobblng across the car park, I was even beaten by Fat Rich, who himself has problems walking someimes. As the day went on, my back became less and less painful but then went through the whole same rigmarole again this morning after my drive in, but on a lesser scale.
My back feels much better now but I know the drive in again tomorrow will probably agravate it. I hope it gets better soon, it's becoming annoying now. It wouldn't be so bad if I'd actually strained it lifting something but I can't for the life of me, attribute the injury to anything I did apart from stooping down to hammer nails into a fence. | | | | 71 Views | 8 Thumbs Up | 9 Comments | |
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| | Plans for the bike | | | Thursday, May 22, 2008 (2:46 AM)
(I'm feeling contemplative) | | I went out for a ride on the bike yesterday for the first time in ages without the camera in my pocket. It was good to get out there and enjoy the whole ride without stopping and starting and thinking about the camera. I have a few vids backlogged now to last me a couple of weeks which will keep things flowing when I'm without the bike at home for another month (I've got another couple of work trips coming up in June).
I gave the bike a good clean yesterday and noticed a hole is begining to form along the heavily rusting welded seam on my stock muffler (see pics below). Luckily, I 've had a custom exhaust (including treated headers and necessary gaskets) sitting in a box at home since February so I should be able to elimiate 90% of the rusting/rustable parts.
Here's the state of the stock muffler, it's a bit of a mess on the underside.
I'm still unsure about the jetting requirements as I heard from another Bros owner that the recommended jet sizes and needle height baseline for the stage 3.0 kit with pods on the Hawk does not actually suit the Bros. I know the Bros has larger main jets from stock. I think I'll fit the exhaust with the baffle inserted and then do some plug chops and see how I get on. I first may try the poor man's jetting by moving the larger main jet from the rear carb to the front one, go a size larger on the rear and shim the stock needles slightly with small washers. I've also been told the foam pods can make a real racket too :)
| | | | 76 Views | 8 Thumbs Up | 4 Comments | |
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| | Final update on the mac mini saga | | | Monday, March 10, 2008 (11:15 PM)
(I'm feeling accomplished) | | So, Apple sent me a link to a customer survey asking for feedback as a follow up on the warranty service repair I received. I filled it in and went ahead and left a sizeable paragraph outlining my disappointment with the poor levels of service I received. As I was about to click on the submit button, I figured that whatever I had written would not be paid too much attention to and would hardly have much of an impact on the stats of their next customer service report.
At that point, I remembered how a friend had advised me to email Steve Jobs (Apple's CEO) directly. So I went ahead and constructed an email using the paragraph I had just written as the basis for the message and sent to it directly to the CEO. A few days passed without hearing anything and then on Thursday afternoon, as I retiurned from my afternoon teabreak, I saw that someone had left me a voicemail on my office phone. It was a message from a member of the Apple executve customer relations team which referenced the email I'd sent to the CEO and contained details of a contact number to get in touch. So I tried calling the number but it went through to a voicemail . I left a message for the guy asking him to call me back on Monday, as I would be out of the office the following day.
So this morning, I received a call from a very apologetic Apple customer representative who said he was able to confrim with the provider that they'd sent me away with missing memory. The guy couldn't apologise enough and thanked me for providing them with valuable feedback about this service provider. He then went on to offer me, as a form of compensation, a complimentary 4GB iPod Nano as an apology for the shoddy customer service I had experienced. Hopefully, I should have the nano by the end of the week. This was totally unexpected and, I can honestly say, this has completely restored my faith in the Apple Corporation. So good news all round. | | | | 93 Views | 4 Thumbs Up | 4 Comments | |
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| | Got my mac mini back | | | Saturday, February 23, 2008 (9:29 AM)
(I'm feeling aggravated) | | Well, this morning I got my Mac mini back but it wasn't that simple, oh no. I went to the repair place and picked it up first thing this morning and hooked it all up when I got home. The first thing I did was to check that it had the correct amount of memory in it. This was a reaction to past experience where I had taken a PC in for warranty repairs and for it to be sent back with missing memory so, naturally, this was the first thing I checked. And lo and behold, it was missing 512Mb, Mac OS told me that Bank 0 was empty.
At this point I was fuming, not only had I had to wait nearly two weeks to get this back due to Apple being out of stock of logic boards but now I'd been short changed yet again in the memory department. I called the repair place back up and explained to the guy that I was missing half my RAM. He asked me to bring it back in. So I drove all the way back to the place in heavy Saturday morning shopping traffic, only for the guy to tell me to come back in 1 hour after he has taken a look at it. He gave me some bull about it taking 1 hour to check the memory as you have to strip the whole thing down to get to it. That is true but it certainly doesn't take an hour, more like 10 minutes.
The guy wouldn't even let me wait in the shop so I went off to McDonalds for a coffee and killed some time waiting in the car listening to a Russell Brand podcast. I went back after the hour was up and the guy told me it was a bad memory chip and he'd had to replace it. Ok, so so far now, that is a bad logic board and a bad memory stick. I swear I'll never be buying another over priced piece of Apple hardware ever again. | | | | 96 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 2 Comments | |
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| | Exhaust - brief update | | | Monday, February 18, 2008 (12:49 PM)
(I'm feeling thankful) | | Well, my exhaust baffle arrived at work this morning. I saw the postman pull up in a van outside the building from the window at my desk. As he approached the entrance, I noticed amongst the mail he was clutching, an oblong brown package under his arm. On spotting this, I knew straight away that it had to be my exhaust baffle. Excitedly, I rushed downstairs to reception to see the postman asking the receptionist to sign for my package which had been sent via Royal Mail recorded delivery. I lunged forward and grabbed the parcel addressed to me, only to have it snatched back out of my hands by a jobsworth receptionist. She went on to sternly inform me that I couldn't just take the parcel away as it had to be checked in formally (I can't ever remember the post ever being checked in in the eight years I have worked at this site). On hearing this obviously fabricated bunkum, I confirmed that instead of being able to just take my package back upstairs with me, I had to wait for it to be taken over to stores which is located across the courtyard in another building.
At this point, I returned to my desk to have a moan about the receptionist to my colleagues and then proceded downstairs to eat breakfast in the staff canteen. After toast and coffee, I strolled over to stores to the post room where I collected my parcel, along with the other post from my department's pigeon hole. Why I had to walk over to another building just to pick up my package, I'll never know.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, on arriving home, I have just slipped the baffle into the end of the can to test the fit and it is perfect. It fits like a glove; almost as if it were custom made for that specific model of can. The seating is really flush and there is no movement or rattles at all. It looks like I'll also be able to secure it in there without having to drill a hole in the muffler outlet. I'm hoping this baffle will quieten the can down considerably as it does look like it will restrict airflow and create some back pressure. At least now it's not possible to see daylight through the end of the pipe. Maybe this even means I may not need to re-jet if I keep the stock airbox and filter but I guess I'll have to test that when I fit it. Hopefully, I may be able to get away with just adjusting the mixture screw a touch.
I've been reading up about a poor man's method of rejetting the carbs on the Hawk. This entails moving the larger main jet in the front carb to the rear (both carbs have different sized jets, due to the front cyclinder running cooler as it gets more air flow) and purchasing just one single larger jet to replace the front one. Then you just need to to shim both needles slightly with small washers. However, I figure if I am going to go to the trouble of pulling my carbs and tinkering, I may as well buy the uni pods and the stage 3 jet kit package (just $120 + shipping) and obtain maximum perfromance from the bike. I'm told the Stage 3.0 kit is absolutely required on the Hawk for the larger jets it comes with (the only difference) when using uni foam pods as they allow much more air flow than the K&N type filters.
The only thing I am slightly tentative about is stretching and then baking the carb slide springs (which require two hours in the oven at 325F to retain their length). My only concern is that it is a one way move and I would possibly have to buy new slide springs if I ever decided to return to stock. I'm guessing they are probably the same springs as in some other Honda models and can be easily procured from my Honda dealer. The stock slide springs are 6" in length and need to be stretched to 8" for the stage 3 jet kit. According to the jet kit instruction sheet this is a "must do" for a hawk with open race exhaust and 4" foam pods. However, I'm not sure what the effects will be if they are left at the stock length. I'm guessing the slides will need to close much faster with the larger jets. Anyway, I may not need to go down this route but it is interesting nonetheless.
So now I have my baffles I just need to buy the header and collector pipe gaskets and I'm ready to fit the new pipe. If any jetting is required I may do this over at my parents home (I live right inside the city) as it will be much easier for test runs. They live out in the country on a lane just off a perfect long straight road (less than one mile away) where I can go flat out to test for the best main jet size combination and any mid range flat spots.
Anyhow, I'll keep you all posted of my progress and hope to make some vids of it all. | | | | 90 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 1 Comment | |
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| | Exhaust and re-jetting proposed plan | | | Wednesday, February 13, 2008 (1:03 PM)
(I'm feeling optimistic) | | This started out as reply to a video comment UKrider posted on one of my vids. It turned into a pretty long response so I thought I'd include it as a blog entry too.
After some on-going extensive research I've managed to track down a forum thread on hawkgtforum.com from the original owner and customiser of the Yoshimura stubby exhaust I bought (who also ran with uni pods) where he records all his re-jetting details and test runs. He outlined which size of main jets, needle jet height and mixture screw settings, so I'm hoping this will save me lots of time when I come to re-jet.
I've found I can buy the Stage 3.0 jet kit, uni pods and uni breather fiilter package deal for $117 plus $37 postage from hordpower.com. If it gets stopped by UK customs (hopefully not, when shipped via USPS) , add another 30 percent. Even so, it still works out cheaper than buying from the UK (we always get ripped off with shit here). So I've decided I'm going to forget the dyno run now and do it by hand, feel and sight. Everyone on the Hawkgtforum has had no problems re-jetting, using plug colour, power range / power fall off and top speed (less than 110mph in my case) as good indicators. It may take 10 carb pulls and test runs to get there but I plan to take a week or so off work to do this when the weather is better.
This is a full exhaust I have bought but it really just equates to an open slip-on as the headers on the exhaust are actually stock headers that were hot jetted along with the muffler and collector. So in the worse case scenario where it all goes pear-shaped and I give up (I'm not gonna let that happen, I'm committed to this project now), I could sell the muffler, pods and jet kit on ebay and go back to the stock muffler, air box and jets and still keep the nice finished headers.
But don't hold your breath as this probably won't happen for a while yet though until I bring the bike back here. If anyone is interested, I'll be making a vid series of the whole process. Wish me luck.
| | | | 77 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 1 Comment | |
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| | My mac mini just died | | | Wednesday, February 13, 2008 (11:52 AM)
(I'm feeling angry) | | I don't believe it, my mac mini just died on me. I was using it and the screen just suddenly went blank. I think either the power supply or the main board has gone. I swapped out the fuse and even used my laptop lead to plug into the mini power brick and it is as dead as a dodo. I'm damn annoyed.
Today is 6 days outside the Apple 90 day full warranty so now I have to take it to a Apple authorised service provider myself but I'm still covered under the limited warranty so it won't cost me anything more than inconvenience. Furthermore, I had earlier made an exhaust preview video that is now on the dead mini. I was going to back up the video it up as soon as my camera had finished charging, I previously deleted the movies from the camera too. So you will have to wait for that video now until the mini is fixed I'm afraid.
Who said macs were superior hardware? Grrrrrrr!!
Edit: I called the shop this morning for an update and it is the logicboard (Apple's fancy name for a motherboard) that was faulty. | | | | 90 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 3 Comments | |
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