wild foamy

that's £500 for a full system, and it just wouldn't look right if i went to all the effort of powdercoating the frame e.t.c but only had the one silencer on it

Alex, i need all the sizes before i order, and would they all be going to the same address or would you want them dispatched directly to their front doors?, ideally it would be great if you could ping a mass PM to all the mods requesting size, design, colour and address, then once you have them all forward it to me and i will let you know the total Plus after G4S fucked up i've been dragged in to working the olympics... no internet out there, no internet means no access to vistaprint

£200 for stripping, hard rechroming, new valves/seals and reassembly at Rolling Art MC (links on my TURBO PAGE)

the only spares im really after is the exhaust, i ended up cutting off the manifolds and most of the RH silencer was rotted away to nothing anyway, was planning to go to predator exhausts and get them to fit one up (was about £500 if i remember rightly)

cor'blimey, that's a lovely 'Turbo you got there, hopefully mine will look similar when it's finally done, i just keep procrastinating about this engine head, really dont want to strip it down as its a lot of work but im very doubtefull as to wether i can repair it in place, stuck between a rock and a hard place. i've learnt most of this bikes' tricks and pitfalls when i was battling to take it apart, i assume that putting it back together will be the same kind of process in reverse, will give you a shout if anything unexpected crops up, everything is off the bike now, only really a case of cleaning/spraying everything up and fitting it back on now, that's going to be interesting...

haha, nope, mine is still in many many pieces

too bloody right n'all

Its sickening, Coca Cola provides all drinks aswell, even the bottled water we drink on the lanes is made under license by Coca Cola... i brought in a bottle of Pepsi yesterday just to show a bit of protest, dont even like Pepsi...

last resort is taking the head off, stripping it down and giving it to Glen at Rolling Art in swindon as he has done most of the major stuff on the bike so far, im just not too sure about taking the camchain off, stripping all the valves down e.t.c, i never intended to strip the engine back to its bare nuts and bolts as i know it is a good runner. fuck it, i've been dragged into working the olympic security clusterfuck, so once again work is at a standstill. should be back in september but then i'm moving up to wolverhampton soon after

Well peeps, on returning from overseas i have now been volunteered to work at the olympic games... how lovely, which also means that work on the XJ is yet again at a standstill, the forks have gone off to be rechromed by Glen at Rolling Art MC, he will be sorting out the carbs aswell when i get a chance to drop them off at his workshop, and once i get rid of the other Mini and get my original mini in a moveable condition also, managed to royally f*ck the engine head whilst attempting to drill a straight hole into the snapped studs so i could helicoil them, so... yeah, not really sure what to do with that, the old man reckons i could drill it out bigger and put a bigger helicoil in it, then screw a bush into it and helicoil the bush down to the correct diameter, which is a lot of work and i cant see that it will look right when its finished, if im honest i am rapidly loosing interest in it as it seems that as soon as i see light at the end of the tunnel some fecker slams the door on my fingers, but i have sunk a lot of money into it over the past year or so and most of the other parts are painted and ready to get back on, i just dont want to put them on until i can fit that engine in the frame as i remember how much of a battle it was getting it out

Nah, where's the fun in that? lead the feckers a merry song and dance, example, "ah right, now that you mention it i do have a problem with microsoft explorer freezing a lot" to which they respond something along the lines of"what version are you using? would you like to upgrade to our premium addition?" to which the correct response is "oh, well there's no version as such, i can surf the internet using my microwave"... if somebody tries to waste my time, i make it a challenge to waste theirs too

ah yeah, thats why i put the rubber ducky in there, because of the races, of coarse

good to hear it passed, shouldnt be too hard to replace the clutch plates, thats the one job i have never done, though.

They tried it on mythbusters and whilst they could get a car to run on bottled hydrogen they could not make a car run from a hydrogen generator of the reccomended size alone. one thing that has always interested me is an LPG motorcycle, i have an LPG converted kia sportage for towing the bikes'n'stuff around and on petrol it returns 25-30mpg (2.0L DOHC petrol), whereas on LPG it returns around 25mpg but LPG is nearly half the price of petrol, my XJ600 will do about 120 miles on £20 of petrol, theoretically if i could LPG it i would be able to do the same miles for half the money running it on gas. food for thought... its this kind of thinking that usually ends up with me getting "another project"

obviously i can't say my exact feelings about the situation due to my current occupation and the fact that government/parliament have us all by the balls... but you've hit the nail on the head definately. at the same time i like that place and look forward to going back, the work environment when your on an operational detachment is completely different to working in the UK, and the non-terrorist locals are usually always pleasant and polite, i remember walking into a local "jingly" shop and being offered a cup of watssinit tea and a piece of bread, its just the extremists that let the side down, i've always said if they built a few nightclubs in the middle of bastion the place would be ideal

Sacha!!!! can i come? you guys always seem to have all the fun stuffs oh yeah, happy 4th of july (didnt have a 4th of july emoticon, so i used a rubber ducky instead)

i had one of those electric smokes for quite a while, still have it in fact, but during a typical 12-hour shift i often found it was too easy to smoke and the battery would die about half way through the night, and god help me if i forgot to put it on charge, i also used the refillable cartridges with the foam wadding in them but found that the liquid would seep out of them and taste rank, when i deployed to afghan in 2010 fags were so cheap i stockpiled them and started smoking again, same happened this year, and probably the same is going to happen next year, sorry to hear you lost your mate, still dont understand why we are still there.

The XJs do have a habit or flooding if you arent carefull, take the plugs out and put some rags around the spark plug holes and give it a spin on the starter for a few seconds, this should be sufficient to clear the cylinders, photos of the mysterious black box would be helpfull, and as above definately check for spark

it probably can be removed if you are determined to do so, i wouldnt reccomend it as i like having both my eyes, the black box infront of the battery is the ECU, it controls various engine parameters and theres a good chance you have pulled out the connector blocks that slot into it, causing starting/running issues

like i said the spring is nothing to worry about, be carefull if you plan on taking it off though, its under a lot of tension and is likely to fook off on its own, be sure to use spring compressors of some sort

can't say for sure as the bike is at home and im away for the rest of the week, my guess is probably the ignition gubbins, cant say for sure without looking at my haynes manual (if you havent got one then get one, saves a load of messing around when you cant figure out where something goes or what to do with it)

eBay, there atleast 4 people breaking bikes from what i can see, best thing to do is if you see an advert like "XJ600 brake caliper - breaking bike" or words to that effect, contact that seller and ask them if they would sell a rear shock, i've used that method to find all sorts of parts for my bike

Rust on the spring is negligable, as the spring moves and flexs the powdercoating can flake off or get stone chips, and once the powdercoating breaks the water gets under it and it starts peeling off, if its rust on the chrome rod that goes through the middle then theres a good chance the seals are knackered and it needs replacing/refurbishing, There are enough people breaking XJ600 pre-divs for you to get a second hand one in good condition (ebay breaker), alternatively, find one from a bike of similar weight (230kg if i remember rightly) with the same length and width shock, perhaps an early fireblade? may need a stronger spring though as the fireblades are about 180kg, and dont expect it to ride the same as the rebound and damping settings would all be totally different, my advice is stick with a good second hand one or buy a new/refurbished one, my '89 XJ is still running its original rear shock and its still in good condition

650s and upwards had a shaft drive, possibly the 550 aswell but all of the 600s' had chains Haynes manuals are good or alternatively just start a thread in the relevant section, these XJs are still rather popular and chances are whatever job needs doing on your bike has been done before by myself or someone else

bought myself another mini with the intention of cutting it in half, turning the ass-end into a trailer for my other mini and the front end into a BBQ, but its too good to cut up, im just gonna sell it on if anyones interested?...