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Alternative radiator & mods for Thunderace minus fairing


Mr. B
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Hi all - can anyone give me an idea of a realistic alternative radiator for my Thunderace please?

I'm fed up with aching wrists from the clip-on bars and heavy clutch so have opted to possibly junk the fairing and fit more upright bars. 

The reason to junk the fairing is the mirror supports are going to clatter on the higher, upright bars. 

This has led to the discovery of an awful lot of rat's nest wiring on show along with a radiator that's designed to be hidden behind a great big fairing which if removed reveals it in all it's glory with bit's and bobs poking out all over the place.

Or should I just remove the standard mirrors (and supports), trim the fairing and retain it.  If I remove the fairing there's an awful lot of mods to do including sort out the rats nest of wiring that's exposed, sort the radiator and source a headlamp fairing or some other means to hang the clocks and headlamp off.

Have I just talked myself into trimming the fairing....???

Probably...

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STOP!!!

I don't have any links, so you're gonna have to rummage yourself, but, there's a company out there that make top yolk and risers that are designed to NOT interfere with the fairing.

If keeping the bike with the fairing on isn't incentive enough to rummage the web, Thunderace fairing parts are getting rarer and rarer... Please don't go cutting bits off... lol

 

Out of curiosity, which colour pattern Thunderace do you have?

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🙂

No cutting - promise.  I think the post just clarified in my own mind what to do.  I've got the top yoke already and worked out I can just fill the holes in the cockpit where the mirrors mount.  There is an image at the CNC Top Yokes site showing an Ace with no mirrors on the fairing so I think after all the faffing I'll probably just go that route.

BEQK4290.JPG

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Vivid Red Cocktail! Same as mine!!!

 Dance Cat GIF by Garfield
The best colour pattern in my eyes (even before I got mine)...

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the clutch on my Ace is quite light. i just use 2 fingers to operate it.

Also ive got my eye on some cheap Chinese handlebars, on ebay, that raise the height by 30mm. no cutting of fairings or new cables needed. think theyre  around £30 delivered. 

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13 hours ago, Mr. B said:

I'm fed up with aching wrists from the clip-on bars and heavy clutch so have opted to possibly junk the fairing and fit more upright bars. 

Just out of curiosity, how old are you?

I'm 53 at the end of next week, and I've been shot, stabbed, blown up (twice), run over (several times), knocked down, fallen from height and have been through a windscreen (from the outside in). This doesn't even account for the injuries from playing rugby in school and a repetitive strain injury on my lower back from an old job bent over a hot sewing machine... Although I've got up and walked away from, almost, all of this, it's taken its toll...

What I'm trying to say is: What's up with your wrists? The Ace is damn comfy! Ok, I've got about 1.5hrs on it before I HAVE to get off and have a fag and a stretch to ease my back.
You might want to have your clutch checked, mine is light too...

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Oh I'm old.....nearly 62 but....I have issues especially with my left wrist from a friend of mine called polymyalgia.  I believe the main issue is with the angle of the bars from a life not helped by commuting from London to Plymouth in the 70s with Ace bars.  Sounds like your life now is a doddle and the pain induced by the bike is nothing compared to life as a risky stunt double for Evel Knievel :)

None of my other bikes have given me such grief as those clip-ons on the 'Ace so they have to go.  Other than that yes I agree the bike is nice and comfy and more than enough get up & go.

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And would you believe I've never been in the Army? lol
Although, it WAS the Army that blew me up once...

 

I find myself mostly resting on that huge hump of a tank. Even with the back injury I'm not really holding on that much.
But I do feel it in my wrists from time to time. Strangely, my new V-Strom is kicking the crap out of my back, I'm not used to sitting up that much lol.

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On 6/21/2021 at 12:02 AM, Snakebite68 said:



I'm 53 at the end of next week, and I've been shot, stabbed, blown up (twice), run over (several times), knocked down, fallen from height and have been through a windscreen (from the outside in). This doesn't even account for the injuries from playing rugby in school and a repetitive strain injury on my lower back from an old job bent over a hot sewing machine... Although I've got up and walked away from, almost, all of this, it's taken its toll...
 

the forum should rename you Lucky 🤣

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Hey Snakebite, you can't drop titbits like that and not give us the full story (unless of course you were/are a terrorist or OCG in which case stay hushed) 🤣 🤣

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There's really not a great deal to tell lol.
Most of it (being run over several times, falling from height (I used to free climb), various impact injuries (we used to go mountain biking in the woods (on racers, before mountain bikes were invented!) was just a mix between a youthful flagrant disregard of personal safety crossed with the indestructible-ness of youth.

The rest, well, I had a friend whose dad ran an Army adventure training camp in the Lake District.
We used to go over for the summer holidays. 5-6 weeks of orienteering, climbing, abseiling, cycling, canoeing, un-officially joining in on the training operations the Army ran out there like mountain rescue...
We were woken up at 02:30 (after having gone to bed about 01:00 lol), taken out silently in a Land Rover into the middle of frigging nowhere.
We got out, and in the dim light of pre-dawn, I was pointed at a line of hills about 3 miles from where we'd stopped.

Given a water bottle and told to 'Find a good place to rest up and break a leg!'

The story was, 2 hikers were missing on the hills, the Army was going to assist the mountain rescue. I was one of those missing hikers. I wasn't allowed to attract the attention of the searchers, but I wasn't to actively hide.
It took them about 5 and a half hours to find me, they were in my general vicinity more than once (I'd found a ledge half way down a 20' cliff face lol).
I got carried down the mountain strapped to two of the old frame burgens...

Anyway, we used to have a bomb fire every night with fallen wood we collected in the surrounding forests.
Big ring of stones, big pile of wood, half a gallon of petrol and a match. It was my job to light the bomb fire each night.
Well, this night, apparently, someone had had the bright idea to help me out and put half a gallon of petrol on the fire for me! Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one...
At best guess after the following investigation, There was about 9 gallons of fuel on there when I waddled up with my jerry can..!


The ensuing fireball was seen from 20 miles away! Went higher than the surrounding trees (about 120').
It lifted me from my standing point on the ring of stones, and deposited me (strangely unharmed) on my back some 15-20 feet away! Still holding my box of matches and a surprised look..!!!

As I say, I was relatively unharmed other than a rather dazed 10mins following the explosion, however, everyone else around me (up to about 30 feet) had singed hair and were not in possession of all their eyebrows!!!

 

Well, that's kind of a snippet of the strange life I've lead... I wouldn't swap any of it, but quite a bit of it has left injuries! lol

 

 

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