audiomick

I've got another question: why on earth is there an "established" helicopter route that crosses the aproach path to a an airport? Bugger the maximum ceiling, why are they allowed to fly through there at all?

Without wanting to completely de-rail the thread, measuring the tyre is not the right way to go at that. One should mark the side-wall of the tyre where it touches the ground, and make a corresponding mark on the ground. Roll the vehicle forwards until the mark on the side-wall is back down to the ground, and mark the ground again. The distance between the two marks on the ground is the real rolling diameter of the tyre.

@HadaDaytona listen carefully to Phil's advice, and then ignore as much of it as you choose. Phil knows what he is talking about, not doubt. On the other hand, it is a great project. The substance of the Centauro is good, and deserves to look like a sports bike. If you have the money and the perseverance, go for it.

Seems to me more like a surcharge for having to work on the porch.

Have you asked here? Probably, but I thought it can't hurt to mention it just in case. https://de.tlm.nl/

That's nasty.

Brown? Is that original paint?

I'm speculating a bit now, but that isn't plausible. When the lever is "activated", it is pumping, so how could anything, fluid or air, get back past the piston into the reservoir? There is, however, a way back past the piston when the lever is released. One can often see fluid swirling back into the reservoir when the cap is off and the lever released after a pumping stroke. As far as "zero pressure" and "no resistance" goes, I would suggest that those are relative terms. If your braking system really was creating "zero pressure", it would not have worked after the subsequent successful bleed. A bit like the guitarist sitting in front of his Marshall who claims he "can't hear anything". Of course he can, and of course your braking system was creating pressure, just very little. Given that the system must have been creating pressure (even if it didn't feel like much at the lever) because it subsequently worked without any other changes, one can assume that the bubbles in the system where a little smaller overnight when the lever was tied off. Maybe that helped, as well as maybe some of the air going into solution. Or maybe the bubble would have found its way up to the reservoir anyway, and tying the lever off was just voodoo.

I assume that is not your bike, as I don't believe you would see any real benefit in putting bandages on the headers. Unless they were bleeding, of course.

As far as I know, the studded tyres are no longer permitted in Germany, but I'm not absolutely sure. What I am sure about, if you have an accident between about November and about March in icy weather, and you don't have winter tyres on the vehicle (M+S tyres, more or less) the accident is your fault, no matter what happened.

Yes, there is a lot of truth in that, but I would care to expand on it. It is not so much that the smaller bubbles collect into fewer larger ones, although that may happen, as much as that the bubbles will all become smaller due to the higher pressure. This can cause bubbles that are lodged in "traps" in the lines to dislodge, and rise to the master cylinder. The factor "the air dissolves in the fluid" also plays a part. Maybe not all of the air, but some of it will go into solution at higher pressure. The chances are good that when it comes back out of solution when the higher pressure is released, it may do this in a part of the system from which it can then easily rise to the master cylinder to be vented. So my informant's opinion that the fluid should really be flushed with fresh fluid to remove the dissolved air can probably taken with a grain of salt. Whatever, I too have had success with tying off the lever overnight. I didn't flush the system again afterwards, and didn't have the feeling that the pressure point deteriorated with time, as my informant predicted it would. Maybe it did, and I didn't notice, maybe it didn't. I had useable brakes, and didn't delve into the issue any further.

It's not that complicated, actually. Look here. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festigkeitsklasse

I'm not a physicist, but I'm incredibly intelligent, so... Firstly, the air in the brake system is, as far as I understand it, dissovled under pressure, not suspended. Therefore, the system is filled with liquid with practically no bubbles. The point is, liquid is incompressible. Bubbles (gas) are compressible. Gas dissolves in the liquid surrounding better under pressure. So holding the lever under pressure overnight can lead to the air bubbles dissolving in the fluid. Because the bubbles are dissolved, you will have a better function the next day. The next step (confirmed to me by someone who has done professional workshops on hydraulic brake systems and so on) would not be to think "it's all ok now", but rather to seize the opportunity to flush the system with fresh brake fluid to get rid of the dissolved air. The air was dissolved under pressure, and when the pressure is not a constant, the air will come out of solution and form bubbles again.

What it is about is "Kundenbindung", i.e. the manufacturer keeping contact with the customer. Don't get me wrong, I'm not up for that in any way. I buy the product, and when I want a new one, I'll contact the manufacturer off my own bat. So leave me alone and stop sending me "informative e-mails". That the gathering of such information can lead to "big brother" style surveillance is obvious, if the laws of the land allow that. Here in Germany, there are a number of hurdles to prevent that. Whatever, I don't like the idea that my car is constantly "phoning home" to tell the manufacturer where I am, but I don't see a global conspiracy in that. It is "only" the manufacturer trying to consolidate his contact to the customer. Bad enough, but not the end of the world.

I always thought metric is standard.

I've got one, but you can't have it. Seriously, though, I'm well impressed with how this issue has been solved. Everyone looking for a solution without worrying too much about who was or is in the wrong. Very pleasant. When I think about how such discussions sometimes develope in other forums I'm on, I'm very glad to be here.

Incidently, one of the founders of a PA company that I have done a lot of work for over the years used to have a Kawasaki Triple. Allegedly, he was able to claim it on his tax return as a "musical instrument". He actually did produce music and sound collages, and probably did record the bike and use the sound, but still. Well done, that man....

might have been this bloke. He apparently makes a habit of welding smaller motors together to make bigger ones, and does a lot of the work with a hacksaw and a file. https://www.youtube.com/@AllenMillyard

@p6x all of that, without doubt. I wouldn't even like lose what is in my wardrobe. Trivial stuff, but I dread the thought.

Yeah, capitalism is the only way to go.

Yes, but... Norway is apparently one of the world leaders in electric transport, despite this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway#Economy I expect they have thought well about placing so much value in electric cars. I rather suspect that they have seen the light at the other end of the tunnel, and realised that it is, indeed, an oncoming train.

Well, I'm prone to that myself... Maybe it would help to look at it from the other end, i.e. "going back". It doesn't seem illogical to me at all that the pipe increases in diameter from front to back. There are factors that I really can't judge relating to reflected pressure waves coupled with negative pressure at the head, resonance helping to suck out the gases, and so on, but the bottom line is "get that gas out of there". It seems logical to me that the pipe is getting bigger towards the exit.

What a delightfully silly car. I love it. PS: for those interested in velocity stacks, this link was posted a while back on the german forum. Seems plausible to me. http://www.profblairandassociates.com/pdfs/RET_Bellmouth_Sept.pdf

All the exhausts I have seen have had the "male" part of the fitting on the "upstream" side, and the "female" part on the "downstream" side. That strikes me as the only sensible way to build them. With the male part on the downstream side, it is almost certain to leak at the join, I would imagine.

An anecdote: I used to work at the Linde annual stockholders meeting. I don't remember when this was exactly, but it is at least 15 years ago, maybe closer to 20. Anyway, at one of the stockholders meetings they talked a lot about big investments they had made in Hydrogen. A couple of years later, one of the stockholders asked why, after the big investments, there hadn't been much movement in that direction. The CEO's answer was very honest and very short: "it seems there is more resistance to hydrogen from certain directions than we reckoned with." Linde hasn't given up. Their site today: https://www.linde.com/clean-energy I am convinced that hydrogen will come to play an important role, both in transport and in "stationary engines" like, for instance, high-power mobile generators. The oil industry is doing its best, I reckon, to slow that down as much as possible.