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Friday, December 30, 2005

Replaced Oil Pressure Gauge


I replaced the FAZE Oil Pressure Gauge with a waterproof FARIA Oil Pressure gauge. My FAZE gauge had the backlight illumination fry out in a heavy rain storm. I do credit FAZE (AutoMeter) with great customer service. I contacted their customer service by email and explained the problem with the FAZE gauge and they sent me a new Power Supply without me even asking. Unfortunately, it was the gauge it's self that was the problem and not the power supply. The Faria gauge is for marine use and thus slightly better at being water resistant. We shall see how long this one lasts.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Ice Be Gone, I Have New Forks!


Okay, so not only are we in a current massive ice storm, but the snow and ice from a week ago still hasn't gone away (Usually, in these here parts, snow falls and then it is gone in a day or two). Time to work on the XZ550 Vision. I ordered another pair of forks from eBay not too long ago, time to swap 'em out. The process went without any problems and took maybe 1.5 hours, 2.5 hours after I changed the fork oil on the new forks. While changing the fork oil, I found that the new forks have some sort of spacer at the top of the springs. Did my old forks have these spacers?... Open the old forks, NO SPACERS. What is this? Flip a bunch of pages in the Haynes Manual/Look in the index of the Shop Manual... SPACERS! The exploded view of the forks in both books show spacers. I had changed the fork oil in the old forks twice since I owned the bike, I never realized that the spacers were missing. Could this be the problem I have been looking for creating the head shake in this bike? Oh, why is there ice out there, I need to take this bike for a test ride, I need to know if that front end wobble is still there. In any event, the forks have been swapped out and I patiently await a test ride. I will however, need new Tax and Inspection Stickers. Until they get replaced, I guess I will ride around with a picture of the old forks in my wallet.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

It Started Snowing...

My wonderful wife bought me this model of a Yamaha Vision last Christmas. I figured that it started snowing for the winter and I better get started doing something.

The turn signal lenses were just clear plastic, so I painted them orange to match my life size XZ550 Vision (Actually, this model is an XZ400, but who can tell). The model was white plastic, I painted it to match the color of my Vision.

You can click on any one of these pictures and you will be able to see better detail.

For example, look at the "Yamaha" badge on the gas tank. I painted that gold.

The mirrors are also painted with reflective silver paint. The model came with a teeny tiny set of gauges (Speedo & Tach), but when the decal was applied on the black gauge cluster, you could not see it. So, when it fell off, I didn't bother trying to put the decal back on.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to shrink down to 1/15th scale so I can ride this little bugger around the kitchen table.

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