what did you do with your fazer today ?

[robbo]

Took the suspension link off to give it a good clean and lube the needle rollers. Fitted a carbon fender extender. Looks absolutely crap , but no doubt the radiator and header pipes will appreciate the addition.

[Dudeofrude]

Took the suspension link off to give it a good clean and lube the needle rollers. Fitted a carbon fender extender. Looks absolutely crap , but no doubt the radiator and header pipes will appreciate the addition.

Haha I've looked at them but admittedly didnt like the look although it would be the kind of thing I'd fit for the winter to save the pipes a salt bashing and then take off again in the summer
Did you at least get a black one so it's slightly more inconspicuous?

[unfazed]

Washed and polished the 600

[robbo]

Re:the fender extender. Couldn't find a gloss black one, so went for proper carbon which sort of matches the mudguard and the engine finish. Only if you've got your eyes shut though . Maybe I'll look out for another mudguard to fit it to for trips away, which is when it's really needed, as they look absolute dogshite. Only siliconed it on, as drilling holes was for too drastic.

[unfazed]

All washed, polished and nowhere to go

[fazersharp]

All washed, polished and nowhere to go

I like the way the red bush behind complements the bikes

[fatbloke62]

Yr thou is identical to mine  the best colour scheme in my opinion, others will no doubt disagree 😂🤣😂

[unfazed]

Yr thou is identical to mine  the best colour scheme in my opinion, others will no doubt disagree 😂🤣😂

Agree and I'm not even biased 
My 600 baby turned over 92800miles today returning from the shop, have it since new when it had 1 mile on it 

[coffee]

Yr thou is identical to mine  the best colour scheme in my opinion, others will no doubt disagree 😂🤣😂

Agree and I'm not even biased 
My 600 baby turned over 92800miles today returning from the shop, have it since new when it had 1 mile on it 

WOW !! That's dedication.

[Gnasher]

Yr thou is identical to mine  the best colour scheme in my opinion, others will no doubt disagree

I'm quite partial to this version

[Dudeofrude]

Been trying to find more things to play with on the bike so thought today I'd have a go at vinyl wrapping. Just did the two boys of underseat fairing as a start.
Looks alright, my bikes first bit of faux carbon 😅

[Fazian]

Did you use the wet method or the dry method with a heat gun? Looks good 

[Dudeofrude]

Did you use the wet method or the dry method with a heat gun? Looks good 

Dry with a heat gun... and thanks 😀

[Grahamm]

Tried to get the old brake pipes off to install new ones...!

Firstly I had problems with fastenings and screws that hadn't been undone for ages (or, even, since the bike was new!)

The Haynes manual says you need to drain the old brake fluid, but doesn't say *HOW* so I tried opening the bleed valve and putting a tube into a bottle whilst pumping the brake lever.

That worked for a while, but then stopped. So I thought I'd open the top of the front brake reservoir, but one of the philips head screws that holds the cap on rounded out, so after about an hour of trying penetrating oil and freeze spray etc, I eventually had to use the Dremel to cut a slot in it (and also in part of the cover too )

Then I undid the banjo bolt on the FBMR which let a little more trickle out, but not much.

I left that for a while and decided to try to undo the screw connectors that go to the hard lines from the ABS modulator, but, they wouldn't shift, to get better access, I ended up taking off the fairings and headlights (needed to do that any way for other stuff), however, even with better access, they still wouldn't move.

So I've squirted in a load of penetrating oil (and on a whole bunch of other fastenings) and I'm going to leave it overnight and get back to it tomorrow...

[robbo]

Regarding the brake reservoir screws, were you using a proper JIS screwdriver(Japanese Industrial Standard). A regular Phillips won't "bite" into the screwhead properly as the blade angles are wrong, resulting in the head getting chewed up.

[unfazed]

Do you have access to a vacuum brake bleeder, it is as you have found out a pain trying to do it without one.
Gravity flow to let the fluid drain out works well in a non ABS setup but not as well on ABS setups.
Other option is use a large syringe to pull the fluid through and out of the system and to pull it through to refill it.

Do not  turn the ignition on while you are doing this. 

When finished and the brakes work again take the bike out and get the ABS to kick in a few time to allow it cycle the fluid through the ABS unit.
If after the ABS kicks in the brakes feel soft bleed the brakes again.
I changed the screws on the Master Cylinder Cap, see Picture

[Grahamm]

Regarding the brake reservoir screws, were you using a proper JIS screwdriver(Japanese Industrial Standard). A regular Phillips won't "bite" into the screwhead properly as the blade angles are wrong, resulting in the head getting chewed up.

Damn, I didn't even know that *was* a thing...! 
It might be that sort of screw, then.
I've just had a look online and most of the ones I've found are listed as out of stock, but there's these JIS Impact Screwdriver bits which might be good as they'd deal better with stuck screws too.
Thanks for the info

[Grahamm]

Do you have access to a vacuum brake bleeder, it is as you have found out a pain trying to do it without one.

Nope, nor a syringe

What I've had to do was literally just undo each connector with kitchen roll ready to catch any spillage, then let it drain into a bottle before doing the next one. (Oh and then wrap the banjo bolt in a ziplock plastic bag and wrap an elastic band around it in case there's any fluid not yet drained!)

I'm still having problems with the screw connectors, I've been spraying them all day with penetrating oil and I'll give then another try in a day or two.

If that doesn't work, I'm going to pack tin foil behind them and try with a heat gun.

When finished and the brakes work again take the bike out and get the ABS to kick in a few time to allow it cycle the fluid through the ABS unit.
There's a test routine on the FZ6 which is designed to pump the fluid through the ABS system, hopefully after that and a bleed it'll be ok.

I changed the screws on the Master Cylinder Cap, see Picture

I might do that if I can't get any JIS screwdrivers

[Grahamm]

So this is how far I've got.

Windscreen, fairings, headlights all off, to give better access to brake hose fittings, but also because I need to do a permanent fix on the LCD display that started flickering and fading some time back. I bodged a repair that worked for a while (see another thread somewhere), but it's going duff again, so I need to sort it properly.
Also I'm going to get rid of the old fork springs and replace them some Wirth ones instead, plus, of course, new fork oil and maybe seals too. At the same time I'm going to repaint the forks because they're a bit battered.

Rear brake off and rear wheel out. I'm going to service the calipers properly, clean them up, new seals etc whilst I do the brake lines.
Swing arm dropped a) because I'm going to put a YSS rear shock to replace the knackered (and crap!) OEM one and b) because there's a stupid cover plate in the middle of the bike (buried under a whole load of other stuff!) that needs to come out so I can get access to the ABS Modulator and the hoses that come off that, but the only way to do it is to remove the rear shock and exhaust mid-pipe! (Another wonderfully stupid bit of design by Yamaha...  )
Still, I needed to take the exhaust off anyway, because I'm going to regrease the swingarm bearings and the underseat pipes on the FZ6 go up *through* the swingarm and you can't get access to them without doing that.
I just have to hope I can remember which order I need to put it all back together again... 

[robbo]

Had a quick look for JIS screwdrivers. The cheapest set of 4 made by Sealey (AK4314 JIS) that I could find, and are very similar to my Laser set(Laser Tools 7036), are £13.93, ebay item code 184084743936.

[fazerscotty]

Not today, but Friday 24th, went to Selby and back for work (from Worcester). Nice run out, cobwebs well and truly blown out. 

[coffee]

I'll bet ! that's a fair old run.   any reason Selby ? surely not a regular commute.?

[Grahamm]

Had a quick look for JIS screwdrivers. The cheapest set of 4 made by Sealey (AK4314 JIS) that I could find, and are very similar to my Laser set(Laser Tools 7036), are £13.93, ebay item code 184084743936.

I was looking at these JIS Bits from Bikers Toolbox which go into an impact driver, which is another tool on the list to get...

[fazerscotty]

I'll bet ! that's a fair old run.   any reason Selby ? surely not a regular commute.?

300 miles round trip. I go up two/three days a week. Normally stay in a hotel, which is shut  , so its a 300 mile day twice a week for now. I visit a small airfield near Selby, where I inspect and certify work carried out.

[Grahamm]

Ye saga continues...!

I decided to have another go at the screw fittings on the brake hoses that go to the ABS modulator after squirting them with Plusgas for the last few days, but still no luck


I may have to resort to a blow torch at some point, although I'm going to have to do that carefully because a) there's bits of bike right behind them and b) from what I recall, brake fluid is flammable!


In the mean time, I figured I'd have another go at the rear shock. I'd been up to B&Q (now open, but with 2 metre lines all over the place) to get an M8 bolt and some appropriately sized washers to create a "bearing puller" that should (supposedly) mean I can remove the sleeve at the bottom of the shock and get it out, because, at present, the shock is stuck against the underseat storage compartment.

I did think about trying to remove the underseat storage, but that's attached to all sorts of other stuff such as the seat lock and, it seems, even the wiring at the left rear of the bike, so that was a non-starter.

Anyway, I got a piece of aluminium tube that would go over the metal sleeve at the bottom of the shock and started trying to pull it out.

And tried...

And tried...

And not a bloody millimetre of movement could I get (I'd been squirting that with Plusgas too...)

Ho, bloody hum.

Might be another blowtorch job...

Alright, I've got to remove the exhaust because I want to check the swingarm bearings and also (as mentioned in a previous post) it's blocking the way to get a stupid metal plate out of the middle of the bike (another piece of ridiculous design by Yamaha  ) so I can get access to the ABS modulator.


So off with the header bolts (dead easy, fortunately, because I'd taken them off and Copperslipped them when I had the new engine installed a couple of years back ) and then removed the bolts holding the bottom section and the cat pipe and silencer section.

I decided to try to do this without removing the silencer too and, fortunately, after a lot of wiggling sections around and so on, I got the cat pipe out.

Just as I was doing this and feeling relieved, there was a "Clonk" as the rear shock suddenly pivoted on its lower mount and dropped to the ground and I'm staring at it thinking "How the FOC did that happen...?!  )

Eventually, after looking a bit more, I realised that the cat pipe was blocking the swingarm from dropping all the way down, so, with that out of the way, the shock (which is still attached to the swingarm) could drop an extra inch which meant that the underseat storage was no longer blocking its path!

So that also meant that I'd FINALLY cleared the way to get this bloody ridiculous metal plate out of the way to let me access the connectors on top of the ABS Modulator!

I'm not actually sure what this plate is actually supposed to do, but I'm seriously thinking of cutting it in half and then sticking it together with a couple of flat metal pieces and some heat resistant aluminium tape so that it'll still sit in place, but, if I ever need to get it out again, I can just cut the tape off, remove the plates and take it out in two sections, making life a hell of a lot easier.

At this point, I decided to chalk that up as another win for today and leave anything else for another day.

Here's a pic of the offending article (the thing at the top left is the ABS controller)