Well if I got a fresh bike and found a boat load of relays and wires under the tank, I'd be equally annoyed. People rarely solder their connections and often use those God-awful ScotchLoks.  Thing is, when I get a new bike, one of the first jobs I do is find a switched ignition source, fit a good quality relay and a small distribution fuse unit - job done.
 
Then whenever I decide to do a bit of farkling, I can tap into that one switched point with no fuss, no sloppy inline fuses here there and everywhere, no cutting into ignition cables every time and soldering again, and any future owner can see very clearly what the hells going on. And high-current horns will overload the standard switchgear.
 
As for heated grips, Oxford's latest digital units are designed to be connected directly to the battery with quite beefy cable, claiming that they will switch themselves off if you forget. But having had two pairs, I know for a fact that they let the battery get very low before switching off. Hmmm, not for me - I prefer to connect them to a relay to make sure that they go off with the ignition. And I certainly wouldn't want to cut them into a regular ignition-controlled cable.
 
And I guess I like doing this shit    Keeps me away from all that reality TV crap.
 
Tom
 
 

That instructor wants sacking! 


Love the photo through the door-glass 

  A cracker that one CRH
 
Wilko - I'm an advanced planner    I will be fitting heated grips and a MUCH louder horn that will both require the fitting of a relay. And let's face it, it's hardly complicated.

I went into my local Halfords last night to pick up a relay and some other bits so that I could hard-wire my TomTom. After spending a few minutes scouring the electrical section for one, I had to admit defeat and seek assistance. I approached the first spotty young student I saw and asked him where the relays where. He looked a bit bemused and asked me which type of relay I'd like. I told him the 12v kind. Errrr...
 
Another spotty student (female this time) came over and asked what the problem was. When I explained that I just wanted a 12v relay, she told me that nobody uses them anymore and Halfords stopped selling them. Are you kidding, I asked. So what do people use when they buy those big air-horns that you sell? Errrr...
 
So I trundled off shaking my head and walked over to the lubricant section to pick up some oil. Over there in a "Bargain Bucket" was a load of 12v Relays!     On the relay there was a "Clearance Price" sticker and a hand-written "£7.99".  Hmmm, that doesn't sound like a clearance price. It has a price-code letter "T" on it so I walked over to the price board and saw that Price Code T was, in fact, £7.99
 
Just for the hell of it, I picked up the bargain relay and took it to the girl on the counter who'd told me they didn't sell relays and pointed it out to her. I asked her why it had a big red clearance price label on it when it was still full price? She had no answer so I asked her would she sell it to me at a reduced price and she said no.
 
I laid down about £60 worth of shopping that I'd gathered up and walked out. What a bunch of to$$ers 
 
Tom
 

Fitted my SatNav mount tonight. Simply drilled a hole in the yoke and fitted the ramball mount shown below. With the SatNav fitted, 0-20mph is obscured by the device, but there's a true speedo reading on the TomTom anyway.

There's quite a few Tar & Glue removers. I can't remember the brand that I have in the garage, but I'm guessing that chemically, they all have the same compounds and work equally well. The only crap ones will be those that are "green" 

  Photos!!

I truly HATE overheating and quite often don't go out when it's heatwave type temperatures. But if I do go out in high temps, I always choose to wear my Hein Gericke Master V suit. The trousers feel amazingly fresh despite their weight with the armour in- much more so than say wearing just jeans. Despite lots of vents and breathable GoreTex linings, the heavy jacket does feel hot though when you stop at traffic lights.
 
I guess 35 degrees is 35 degrees - you're gonna be hot whatever you protect yourself with.
 
Tom

Today I removed the front decals on the Fazer. I think it looks better in plain black. I just might remove the back ones too. Oh, and I fitted the Yamaha Tourer Screen.
 
What do you think??
 


Tom

Yes they finished back end of 2005, but obviously a few remained in storage and/or stuck unregistered in dealerships like this one. It's not that uncommon. Hell, there was an unregistered 400/4 sold a couple of years ago :-)

Welcome Greg,
Not spent much time in South Wales to be honest (other than in-out business meetings).  Must do something about that!
 
My last remaining Boxer pup (there were 6) is going to live in Llanelli this Saturday 
 

Hi Colin,
I nearly bought an RF400 for my son a couple of years ago because I thought they were great little bikes. I found a superb example with virtually no miles on the clock. He, of course, wanted a ZZR400 instead which turned out to be a right pain in the ass 
 
Welcome to the forum.
 
Tom.
 

Come on now Mad Dog to even think about renovating a CB250N superdream has to be mad in itself...... 

Memories... light the corners of my  mind,
Misty watercolour  memories of the way we were