1 Low Flying Brick Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:22 pm
Dai
Life time member
How I came to get Low Flying Brick is a story in itself which can wait for now.
LFB got called that because, surprisingly, it caught me out by easily aviating some of the more nasty humps in the roads around home. I hadn't expected that because my Bandit 600 won't fly without some serious input.
When I got it two years ago almost the first thing I did was to get rid of the standard BMW touring lunchboxes and replaced them with Givis. Yes, it's an import and that's a Republic of Ireland number plate!
A close friend gave me an RS fairing because LFB is the daily commuter (50 mile round trip) and I was whinging about how uncomfortable it was. The fairing had been down the road quite badly; the previous owner had done about 95% of the repair job and then stopped. I reinforced what he'd done but didn't have the time to paint it.
I do a minimum of 6000 miles a year at night, so good lighting is a must. I found a 50amp alternator on ebay, used it for a week or so then gutted it and fitted the insides of a 60amp one into it. All the lighting goes through a relay panel and fusebox mounted in the tailpiece.
Other things done: usual problem with corroded brake switches so I replaced them with hydraulic ones. While I was at it I got rid of the hydraulic tube in the headstock and mounted a Kawasaki splitter on the homemade fork brace. I also dumped the original badly-scored stainless steel discs and replaced them with cast iron ones. The suspension got a good seeing-to as well. I replaced the rear shock with a RamShock and fitted progressive springs to the front. I used 10w fork oil; the improvement in handling over the standard setup was unbelievable.
It's an on-going project. Unfortunately I have lost half the movement in both wrists and both thumbs so I find the stretch to the BMW switches highly uncomfortable. The next step is to replace the entire wiring loom with a custom one so that I can use Japanese switches. I'm also no fan of the ratchet throttle (a brand new ratchet and twistgrip only lasted 15000 miles before getting notchy again) so I'll also be putting a Japanese twistgrip and master cylinder on there.
That's LFB as it currently stands.
LFB got called that because, surprisingly, it caught me out by easily aviating some of the more nasty humps in the roads around home. I hadn't expected that because my Bandit 600 won't fly without some serious input.
When I got it two years ago almost the first thing I did was to get rid of the standard BMW touring lunchboxes and replaced them with Givis. Yes, it's an import and that's a Republic of Ireland number plate!
A close friend gave me an RS fairing because LFB is the daily commuter (50 mile round trip) and I was whinging about how uncomfortable it was. The fairing had been down the road quite badly; the previous owner had done about 95% of the repair job and then stopped. I reinforced what he'd done but didn't have the time to paint it.
I do a minimum of 6000 miles a year at night, so good lighting is a must. I found a 50amp alternator on ebay, used it for a week or so then gutted it and fitted the insides of a 60amp one into it. All the lighting goes through a relay panel and fusebox mounted in the tailpiece.
Other things done: usual problem with corroded brake switches so I replaced them with hydraulic ones. While I was at it I got rid of the hydraulic tube in the headstock and mounted a Kawasaki splitter on the homemade fork brace. I also dumped the original badly-scored stainless steel discs and replaced them with cast iron ones. The suspension got a good seeing-to as well. I replaced the rear shock with a RamShock and fitted progressive springs to the front. I used 10w fork oil; the improvement in handling over the standard setup was unbelievable.
It's an on-going project. Unfortunately I have lost half the movement in both wrists and both thumbs so I find the stretch to the BMW switches highly uncomfortable. The next step is to replace the entire wiring loom with a custom one so that I can use Japanese switches. I'm also no fan of the ratchet throttle (a brand new ratchet and twistgrip only lasted 15000 miles before getting notchy again) so I'll also be putting a Japanese twistgrip and master cylinder on there.
That's LFB as it currently stands.