Magnet device round fuel pipe to give 200MPG. How many fell for that one I wonder. Not me I might add. Goes to show my old man was right when he said "there's one born every minute", how true. Now ..................where's that design for the revolutionary new laser headlights I was working on. ;-)
seats. At any given time I seem to have 2 or three floating about. The Seat Concepts one seems ideal now but check with me in a year or more precisely mid-winter when most of those "gotta have" farkle decisions seem to be made. Beyond that, the headlight wire mesh cover thing is nice but it's a bit of a pain to keep the bugs off it, not that I'd ever take it off because of that tho...
Plasti dipped a luggage rack-peeled off after 50 miles into a trip. Should have powder coated from the get go.
Loosened my stem nut with an adjustable wrench-gouged a shiny silver scratch into the all black upper tree and rounded the nut off a bit. Should have just spent the money on the proper socket.
Bought tires off eBay. Went with a cheap rear roadrider. Turned out to be a bad tire. From now on I'll always have a shop source and install them.
The only thing I took back off was the Cowboy and Cowgirl seat. Too low. Too hard. Plus too wide. These are all the things that sell it but not for me. Stock seat okay. Oh plus the Kenda tires. Handled good, looked good. Only 5000 miles. Too soft.
Shinko tires. Cheap on line but soft and wore out after 4,000 miles on the back. Front tire wore weird and the bike handled crazy. Trying some cheap Dunlop 404's, so far they are hard and the back tire locks up very easy. So far my experiment with cheap tires is not working out very well.
... ... ... my first helmet, a Shoei (I learned I do NOT have a Shoei-shaped head) ...
... ... ... ... wiring heated grips directly to the battery vice to a switched source because 1) I'll always remember to turn them off (wrong); and 2) the manufacturer claims if you leave them turned on the controller monitors battery voltage and shuts the grips off if the voltage drops too low (lie) ...
1) As above - but in regards to buying helmets for the first time online.
2) using armor all to spruce up the look of your saddle.
3) trying to paint brake calipers another color.
4) using bbq black on headers. On cans it will work, but headers get too hot for most paints.
5) cornering hard on new tires or, if at the track, on tires/tarmac that aren't up to temp.
6) plastic bags over your feet in chuck taylors in lieu of waterproof boots....newspapers to insulate your jacket instead of a real - preferably waterproof - liner.
7) Riding across Michigan in the afternoon in early April and having to ride back in the early AM to go to work. Unless, of course, you LIKE riding a naked bike at 27 degrees F.
Things that didn't work well :
Two tire irons to remove a knobby tire off a dirt bike's Akront rim.
A left side kickstarter.
Six carburetors on a Chevy 350 engine.
A 1953 Harley's Suicide Clutch.
While I wouldn't consider this something that didn't work, I recently swapped out my D&D pipes for my old EPCOs. With the D&Ds, my Bonnie went like a stabbed rat but they were just so loud. It wasn't a good loud, either.
The EPCOs have a much more agreeable tone in normal riding and can get quite saucy when you give it some stick. My butt dyno says I lost some power with the swap but I'm okay with that.
Dual horns. After much wiring and hard mounting and oddball attempts at dual horns and relays and whatnot, I put a crap single "meep-meep" horn under the tank and rev the engine when lane splitting to keep from getting killed.
Oval mirrors. I think I bought them from BellaCorse, but I think a few other suppliers offer them too. Just about everything on them was poorly designed, but worst of all of course is that I couldn't see a damn thing behind me. I'd recognize my inner elbows anywhere, though.
Recovered my stock seat with a diamond stitch brown cover. Looked awesome until I put it on my Bonnie. Good excuse to buy a nice black Triumph gel seat.
I happen to be showing a friend the Bonneville in my garage when I noticed a puddle of gas underneath! These glass fuel filters fall apart! I could only imagine what it would've been like if that happening to me out on the street... :kumbaya
Thats interesting, seat of the pants dyno says it feels better but who knows. Still have a stock one that I got to see me thru the shipping times it takes to get to and from Australia so I could check it out, if I could be bothered.
My carb Thruxton with the reprogramed ignitor gets good mileage, very similar to the EFI Bonneville, Both run regular gas with no problems.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Triumph Rat Motorcycle Forums
3.9M posts
167.7K members
Since 2002
A forum community dedicated to Triumph Motorcycle owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about performance, racing, cafe racers, bobbers, riding, modifications, troubleshooting, maintenance, and more!