Variomatic

It didn't have any seal left at all for it's last MOT I just stuffed tissue under the dust seals. But the chrome is missing from one of the sanctions so they need doing. I think I'll risk it on a set of £90 eBay specials, even if they only last for a week after the MOT at least it will have passed. Problem is I have the YBR Custom and not the YBR, which uses a very slightly different stanction which is almost impossible to find, why they made such a tiny difference between the two sets of forks is unknown to me

Balls, the pitting is just into the travel of the seal. Looks like I'm gonna have to replace both stanchions then. Or just both forks since I found a pair of NOS ones for £120

I need to do my fork seals before my next MOT, one form needs to be replaced, the stanchion is missing some chrome and it's cheaper to get a replacement then just replace the tube. But, the other fork stanchion seems in ok shape, but there is very minor pitting on it, theirs one or two small pits about the size of a grain of sand, would that be a problem and end up ruining the new fork seal or do you think it'd be ok?

Apparently getting them right again is damn near impossible, no matter what he did with them he couldn't get them right again, a load of the guys on the BMW forum told him to replace them so he just did, come to think of it I don't actually know what made him decide it needed adjusting The chances are that he could have got it right with enough mucking but it was his day to day transport, I think he still has the old ones somewhere sitting in a cupboard

"It'll be fine, I'm good at this kinda thing....wait, what?....fuck" *commence 2 weeks of fixing a 10 minuet mistake*

Could be worse, a close friend of mine wanted to adjust the injection on his BMW K75 (At least i think it was the K75, definitely a 3 cylinder weird one), he found out the hard way you have to RTFM before doing it, turns out you DO NOT touch the butterfly adjuster screws, just the fuel/air mix screw. This is because they're sealed with epoxy from the factory and should never, ever, ever under and circumstanced be mucked with. What did he do? He fucked with the butterfly adjuster and had to to replace the entire throttle body

I've done exactly that, except it was a crack in one of the hoses

I have a YBR custom, as far as I know the frame and swing arm are the same. I have a 3.50 - 16 58p on the back of my bike, (Thats a 100/90 tyre in metric terms). You'd probably be able to get away with a slightly wider tyre, like the none I have, but you'd have to look at the spacing on either side of the tyre and just guess.

Like Slice said, definitely some little electrical fault, you can either take it to a dealer, or get out the multi-meter and start looking.

The reason I can't get the bead to seat is because regardless of how much I try, there is still a gap between the rubber and the rim that won't close itself up using an air compressor. I shit you not, last time a tyre shot put a tyre on the rim they had to use a damn air cannon to get it to seat correctly, However that might be because the tyre was a utterly dreadful make, perhaps this next one will be easier to install

Too late pal, he sold it, had a load of missing bits so I didn't want it, wrong wheels and bars, missing half it's exhaust, and to top it off the engine had a really hard spot that it was hard to get it to turn past, which as far as we could figure was a stuck valve, it was too far gone for me but the guy who bought it lit up like a little kid when he got his hands on it, if he still has some photographs I'll get them up asap! I didn't get it in the end for the above reason aha, kinda regret it, but tbh I don't have a few hundred quid to drop on what was almost a basket case, also it's really cool that Cosworth still makes parts for this bike!

Yeah I'm familiar with Cosworth, just didn't have a clue they made a factory performance model by them, even after looking I've found sod all on them, can't imagine they where very common if so little about them is on the web now Yeah as far as I can find they just added mild performance parts, no evidence on what they added though, I'm imagining something like a cam and maybe mildly higher compression, also, really interesting they worked with Norton, I didn't think the men in charge would have allowed it. Not sure I'm interested in buying it if it's got a significant number of rare top end parts, and from what I've heard the CB550 has some minor issues with lubrication on the top end.

Probably haven't fucked the rim up, and I wouldn't count on the second being a fucked rim, I managed to get 3 punctures all within 1000 miles, it can very much depend on the area you live in and the road conditions. The best way is to just take the entire wheel off, and submerge it in a bath of water and look for bubbles, if its the tyre then repair/replace it, and if it's the rim then bad luck, it'll have to be replaced. Also like neversaydie said, I never laugh at someone with enough balls for only wheels, and I don't care what anyone says, scooters are cool

Someone if trying to sell me a "CB550 cosworth", but I can't actually find any information about them anywhere, the only visual difference to the bike apart from a normal CB550 was that if has "cosworth" cast onto the cylinder head, anyone know anything about these?

Never in my life have I found a garage compressor with enough balls to put a tyre on the rim properly, I'll probably end up just finding a tyre shop that can put the tyre on the rim and go tubeless

I've been thinking about nearning to change my own tyres (why not, right?). But I have one huge issue, I lack an air compressor (or at least one with enough balls to seat the bead), meaning that I can get a tyre onto a rim but I can't seat the bead on the rim. But, I can do a tube tyre because the tube does the job for me once I inflate it. Now I need to know if I can put a tube tyre on a tubless rim, I can't really see any reason why I wouldn't be able to do it, but I could be missing something. (Also I SOMEHOW managed to put my shreaded engine back together again and it runs! Unfortunately my bank account hates me and the parts department of my local Yam dealer loves me)

I had problems with compression twice, low compression doesn't go away once the engine is warn, but on my bike the low compression caused the engine to stumble a little for about 30 seconds untill it had warmed up if you tried to rev it. I find that when problem solving the most likely and simplest thing is usually the cause of the problem, in this case you mucked about with the piped and carbs and now it doesn't run right, so it's probably that. Replace that defective stud so the pipes make a good seal, put the stock jets back in and go up in SMALL integers from there, you can usually get a kit with a selection of jets off ebay. Keep in mind: With correct air/fuel it should be easy to start (rovideed there are no other issues) Spark plugs should be a good colour (you can find a spark plug chart on Google or in the back of a haynes manual) A lean engine tends to run rather hot and will throw much more heat onto you as you ride A rich engine doesn't run as hot but will stumble, or in extreme cases even smoke a little A lean engine will stumble when you try to rev it up, might stumble more when cold How did you check the intake rubbers? The best way is to spray something like carb cleaer onto them whilst it's running and listen for changes in engine pitch that will indicate the solvent is getting in, Sometimes the intake rubber can be perfectly fine but the seal to the engine or around the carbs/filter can be bad. And one last thing, you said you have straight pipes, and bigger jets, but what did you do to the air filter? You have more exhaust flow, and more fuel, but do you have more air? It could be an issue of restricted air flow and it not getting enough air instead of too much.

Honestly cant say I'd dare buy a bike on finance, but it seemed to work out quite well for you, any idea how long till you upgrade to something bigger?

Honest opinion warning: They're utterly retarded, they're borderling police officer impersonation. All 3 times I've seen a one the person wearing it was on a K1300, they seem to be for guys who want to be seen as the police. If they see your Hi-Vis, it's not because it says Polite on it, it's because its neyon yellow. Impersinating an officer is a retarded was of trying to get yourself more respect on the road.

Very nice! Look forward to seeing it

Right, my engine is fucked, the keeper on the cam sprocket snapped off and fell into the crank and mangled some shit that I haven't even bothered to inspect yet, along with putting scratches into my BRAND NEW cylinder. So I'm just gonna swap the engine out for another one whilst this one gets a rebuild. Now, onto the meat of the question: I've been offered a 2006 YBR engine for a decent price. The problem is that those have a carb and not EFI, but thats the only change, and I'm guessing that I can just swap the stator over to the 2006 model and be golden. As far as I can figure that's about as far as I'd have to go, anyone else have any thoughts?

Agree with Cynic, SSD's are a golden ticket to speed. When I built my last PC I went out on a limb and threw one in after hearing so much good stuff about them, fuck me I was not expecting the difference it made.

You can probably switch over to a more modern YBR headlight as they use Halogen as stock, or do what I did and find a direct plug in halogen replacement, they sell the bulb in Halfords. Just look for the correct connector. But at some point you have to accept that bike headlights tend to be a bit shit.

Welcome to the forum! The guys here always have something useful to input, sure you'll find what you need!

I paid £12 for two of them, thought it was reasonable. You have to remember that cutting a key is a very skilled job, requires very specific machinery, and add on the price of the key blank. You have two options, £6 per key, or pushing your bike home with the steering lock on.