Toutsuite

Studs... lots of studs... and suddenly the whole place goes quiet...

Hmmm, for equal length pipes, I think a good ol' straight cut is in order. I mean I don't think a slash cut will look hideous or anything, it'll look ok, I just prefer the straight cut on a staggered equal length pipe configuration. Not sure about our Canadian friend's assertion that the slash cut helps to collect spent gasses, never heard that before myself, but it could be true. And as for laws, well, you can always buy a pair of baffles and stick them in, if you have to, easy enough to do. Do you think your budget can stretch to a nice ceramic coat finish (i.e. matt black)? Or perhaps some hi-temp black spray paint and then exhaust wrap?

Hee hee... hallucinogens are fun(ny)!

Do you have any statistical evidence to back that assertion up? Because there is evidence to the contrary: according to insurers, cruisers (and draggies among them) are involved in fewer accidents than other types of bike. And among cruisers the draggie (at least the 650) is among the best handling.

There is no reason to grip the handlebars very tightly, even around town and in heavy traffic. It's just a bad habit you need to shake. Nor should you go the other extreme and have a very loose grip. Just find a happy, comfortable medium. And I don't think it's a hand size issue, you'd need the hands of a 5 year old to have trouble with the grip puppies.

I'll try and post a piccie when I get round to having the hose fitted.

Oooooh you cheeky bitch! I'd ask you to step outside, but I've only just done me nails... ;-) Tidy bike you got there Piln, and I see it comes with a handlebar that's different and better from the utterly hideous OEM one. That's half the battle won right there. Now if only it had a bigger tank... and didn't look so squished lengthwise.

I'm 5'9", and I suppose I may have got into the habit of sitting a bit more straight up than I should. Weekend weather is looking good so might try a longish ride up to the Cotswolds or something. The wrist thing I find as well on the CB, and yes the numb nuts on a long ride! According to a sporty rider friend of mine, the trick for avoiding wrist strain is to tuck your elbows in and *not* keep your arms straight, which transmits your weight down to your wrists. You're meant to keep your upper body in the right position with your stomach muscles alone.

The lean-forward race jockey riding position of the FJs and CBs, the street and sport bikes of this world, tires different parts of the body than the slouchy, feet-forward, cowboy riding pos. of cruisers. Long rides on the draggie just kills my lower back. Maybe because I'm about 20kg overweight...

Only with the addition of an expensive saddle like the mustang. I usually lose all feeling in my lower body after about 100 miles with the custom draggie's factory seat. The coccyx bone is usually the first to go...

In the sense of getting you from A to B reliably and safely, they are good little bikes. In the sense of giving you that huge grin on your face, not so much, I'll grant you...

There is basically nothing you can do to an xvs125 that won't slash its value. Leave it alone, sell it on later, get a xvs650 and mod it to your heart's content.

Welcome to the world of cruisers Piln! Not a huge fan of the look of the viggy myself, but they're undeniably good little bikes. And who knows what you might upgrade to in the future...

only a few weeks ago, and yes, they do soak up water, but with waterproof gloves it's not a problem.

+1 for the grip puppies! Fitted them on my CB500 and they work a treat.

as above but also it will sound like shit: sure it'll be louder, but in a farty, holey, rotted-through-exhaust kind of way. I've heard a few such exhaust mods up close and they were all invariably shit. Just save your pennies and buy either the v&h or cobra slip-on when you've saved up about £250.

Lowering kits are all the rage in the states. They just make the bike look like it's suspention has collapsed to me...

Wemoto, and the friction plates as well. I thought about using bolts of the same length, but you actually can remove the pipe if you remove the right forward control assembly (i.e. the footbreak and peg).

Cheers, guys, feel reet proud of meself! And yes, I'll get some copaslip pronto, thanks for the advice. Those nuts and studs on the front have probably not been removed since the bike was built 11 years ago! Both were destroyed in the act of removing them: I had to go down a size or two on easy-out sockets by the time I got them out, they were that stripped! The second one was so rust fused onto the stud it actually took the stud out with it. Saved me the bother of getting it out. The other stud would not budge though. So one new stud and two new bolts were used to put the front exhaust back in. The other thing was when I finally got the pipe off, I couldn't for the life of me find the old copper gasket in there. It was totally gone. So popped in a new gasket. Now this is a famously fiddly bit to do as the ruddy thing won't stay in there while you're faffing about trying to get the pipe back in the outlet. Solution? A tiny bit of wire wool on one side of the gasket, helps jam it in place while you get the pipe back in. Job's a good'n!

Had a very enjoyable ride this evening, having fitted new clutch friction plates and springs (both EBC aftermarket). Was a hell of a job doing it myself (the really difficult part was removing the front exhaust - took me about 3 hours using those special fluted sockets that bite into rusted nuts and bolts); and I installed the pressure plate incorrectly so had to go in again this morning but all is well now! A few points: at 41K miles a worn clutch is to be expected, depending on how previous owners rode. The old friction plates were worn almost down to the metal. The metal clutch plates between the friction plates seemed ok. Checked them for thickness and they were all well within tolerance. The new stiffer springs make a big difference at the lever! Although previously generally well behaved in shifting gears and finding neutral, when the engine got quite hot due to getting stuck in traffic, finding neutral became problematic (or sometimes impossible). Got in a bit of central London traffic today, no such issues whatsoever. Found neutral every time! Which is just as well because as mentioned above, that lever is a lot stiffer now! No more slippage! I also noticed that beyond the obvious slipping when really giving it the beans in 3rd, 4th and 5th, it's much quicker off the mark at traffic lights now, which means the old plates were not doing their job properly across the rev range, and at different loads. I could feel it, especially more recently, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. And I certainly could feel the difference today, wow! All the available engine torque and hp going to the rear wheel! The Silver Lady is back to her best!

I'd like to thank airhead, blackhat and dt for their advice (and sorry to slightly hijack alex's thread), I managed to install the pressure plate correctly this time! With the draggie, there isn't one way the pp can go on, but there's a hex shaped hole in the middle. Under the nut and washer that attaches the plate to the pushrod, there's another nut thingy that has to fit through this hole. I somehow missed this - I was working on the bike for 5-6hours straight by that time - 3 or 4 of which was spent getting the front exhaust off! Went back in this morning and all is well now! Loving my new non-slipping-much-stiffer-at-the-lever-due-to-aftermarket-springs clutch! Cheers guys!

The rule of thumb is actually one turn each, (screwing in or out). No need for torque measurement malarkey. You just gently screw them in till they stop, and then (again gently) tighten them up a bit. Basically try to remember how much force you had to use to undo them (in the case of these bolts it should be: not much), and try and apply a similar amount when doing them up again. I bet that snapped off bolt comes off with a pair of pliers. Annoying though...

Wow, just changed my friction plates and springs on my dragstar 650 today and I have exactly the same problem! So I've probably re-installed the pressure plate wrong?

Not quite: Homo Erectus was the first species of human (hence "homo"), and the first to be fully upright ("erectus"). And yes he walked out of Africa into Asia and Europe. Modern humans evolved in Southern Africa, from populations of H Erectus that stayed in Africa. The Modern Human (that's you and me) is essentially a native of Africa.

What the fook are you talking about? We can see billions of galaxies beyond the stars (in our own galaxy). We can't see individual stars in other galaxies (they're too far away, even for out most powerful telescopes). So all the stars we *can* see are in our own galaxy. Beyond them we can see other galaxies. What we can't see (and never will do) is the *whole* universe, because shortly after the Big Bang, there was something called the Big Inflation, where space expanded ridiculously fast (much faster than the speed of light in fact), so light from those regions has never caught up with us, and will never catch up. That's why astronomers keep going on about the "observable" Universe.