audiomick

Yes, welcome to the club, Dave.

Phil, my rationale was that the car (Aston Martin) was originally designed for right hand drive, so that is where the bonnet release is. Too much trouble to move it across for the left hand drive models. The cars you mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Kuga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Focus Both primarily designed for the european market, and manufactured in Europe. I.e., left hand drive. Same logic applies, I reckon: too much trouble to move the bonnet release to the driver's side. The Supra is Japanese. In Japan, they drive on the correct side of the road, i.e right hand drive. So the same logic applies: bonnet release on the driver's side in the country of origin.

Aston Martin? It's not only British, it is English! So, quirkiness is not a bug, it is a feature. And the right-hand side is the driver's side in England, as you very well know, so it makes perfect sense to put the bonnet release there.

I bought my Breva 750 on the 9th of August last year. The rego was transferred into my name on the 17th. August, 2023, which is when I started riding it regularly. It occurs to me that I didn't even notice the "first anniversary". I hope she doesn't get narky about that. Date of first registration, 30th. June 2005. When I bought it, it had 9,883 km on the clock. I bought it through a Honda dealership, and they had records of changing the tyres in 2013. Since then, it had only done just over 800 km. . It became my daily rider, and now has over 12,000 km on the clock. And an oil leak out of the clutch housing that has become apparent in the last month or so...

Or the other way 'round: he ran out of Bitubos, and swung a deal with Öhlins to chuck a crate of dampers in with the shocks he was ordering for the flash model that year.

Please translate for the plebs here.

Yeah, that's the plan. It might take a few days, but I will report back. Going for the golden elephant stamp here.

Yeah, I'm prepared to believe that. As I said, I'll probably bolt the mount up to the bracket on the triple clamp and see what really happens there. Assuming @Lucky Phil is right, the next step will be to contact the manufacturer and see if they have a mount without the ball joint. Failing that, as can be seen in the photo, the ball joint is apparently held in by a circlip (incidently, an external circlip in an internal application, but we'll leave that alone for now... ), so it shouldn't be too hard to get the ball joint out. If I can find someone who can turn up a bush for me, or find something to fit on the Interweb, that shouldn't be too hard to fix.

It's quite late in the evening here, so every chance that I may be dreaming, but... I just had a quick look at the circuit diagramme. A wire comes from the regulator, through a fuse, to the battery. Going away from the battery are a couple of wires that supply 12 V to parts of the electrical system, one of which goes to the ignition switch. So, when you "disconnect the battery", what precisely are you disconnecting? If the clamp on the plus terminal contains all those wires, and all connections are good, the electrical system should be getting volts directly from the regulator. The circuit diagramme indicates that alle three wires are (somehow) connected to each other. Are you sure this is the case? To put it another way, are you absolutely sure that when you disconnect the battery, you are not inadvertantly disconnecting the power supply to, for instance, the ignition switch? If the cables are all "in a bundle", do they all most certainly have good contacts to each other and so forth?

Give us a chance to finish writing the post, ya bugger.

Ok, here we go. The Hyperpro steering damper arrived today. UPS is a bit of a pain in the arse, but that's another story. The Hyperpro damper looks really well made, and it is quite pretty. A test by pushing the shaft through the damper slowly and suddenly faster indicates that the advertised "progressive" damping rate actually works. A good start. The best thing about the new damper is this: That number starting with KBA is the certification number that means I can legally use the damper here. The damper is made in the Netherlands, so it is no wonder that it has a German KBA number, but it is still good. Here are two photos of the original damper and the new one. In the first one, they are lying with the "base" lined up to show the length of the shaft. The shaft on the Hyperpro is a bit shorter. In the second one, they are actually lined up at the head, but the parallax caused by me not shooting straight makes it look like the aren't. The point is, the bracket on the Bitubo is placed where the easily visible wear marks indicate that it was mounted there. The destructions provided with the Hyperpro stipulate 39 mm from the base end to the bracket, so I am convinced it will be able to be mounted. The bad thing is, the mounting bracket does indeed have a ball joint. (Note, what looks black on the ball joint is actually chrome. I was using a flash on the camera, and shiny surfaces come out like that with a flash. Has something to do with physics, I think...) Funnily enough, the more than adequate destructions sheet shows a drawing that is recognisably the original mount on the lower triple clamp. I'm starting to wonder if they disagree with Phil's assertation that one shouldn't put two ball joints "on top of each other". I believe @Lucky Phil entirely, what he wrote makes sense, but I think I want to bolt up the mount to the mount and see what really happens there. Anyway, here's the destructions, and the provided screw, nut, washers and o-rings. And the best thing of all is, you get stickers!!! I'll be plastering them all over the Le Mans for sure, wont I?

Suit yourself. I use mine a lot. It's paid for, so it must be used.

I like Armorall. https://www.armorall.com/home Be aware, though, that if you use it on the seat, you will be able to move around on the seat very, very well. Slippery...

Indeed it is. Can't be New Zealand, though. I can't see a single sheep...

Yep. I wouldn't use anything else. I reckon that block gets a bit of a hammering.

My Hyperpro should be here in the next couple of days. I'll take some photos of it "out of the box" before I put it in.

Ken Shorter. Was he in there? I'll have to have a closer look. I've watched Stone at least 10 times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_(1974_film) Sorry, back to the topic in hand...

Sorry, absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, but you just reminded me of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAu_q1uvtGM I was between 8 and 12 years old during the first run, and I think I was never "officially" allowed to watch it, even the re-runs that no doubt happened. I don't really remember anything much, but the tile is still present. Etched in my memory, so to say. The show was based in this Matlock, I gather: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matlock,_Victoria Incidentally, the two-door car in the title sequence is a Holden Monaro, a HG I think. I had a HK for a number of years, and loved it. Anyway, back to the topic...