Jonathan Delgado's Weblog » Motorcycle

New Reservoir and SAI Elimination

Jonathan Delgado — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:26:33 +0000

Well, Spring has sprung and it is once again time to get the bike back fully on the road. I’m not much of a high mileage person, but the bike does get its annual check-up and oil change. This year I decided to make a couple of changes to the bike while it was in the shop for service and inspection.

The first change was to replace the generic stock front brake fluid reservoir with something with a little more style. The Triumph black anodized reservoir was reasonably priced, so I opted for it. Here is the old reservoir (with the box from the new one:

Here is the new one installed:

Yes, looking at that picture makes me realize that I need to replace the hardware store fillers for my old mirror mounts with something better.

The other change I had made while the bike was being serviced was a bit more subtle. Last year I noticed that there was a fair amount of dry rot going on with some rubber hoses connecting to the front top of the cylinder heads. The shop guys at the time said they looked ugly but were still functional and cracks wouldn’t be an issue. This year I decided that they were looking a lot worse and it was time to replace them. When I looked a bit more closely at just what the hoses were I realized that they were part of the Secondary Air Injection (SAI) system. A lot of Triumph forum posts I have read have maligned the SAI on the Triple, saying it causes all of the popping on deceleration as well as increasing the engine heat. Now the popping I don’t mind, but the heat I do. So I had the shop pull the SAI hoses and install a block off kit.

Here are the old hoses and valve:

Here is a shot of how it looks now without the hoses, not the best pic, but it is certainly cleaner in there:

Fender Eliminator

Jonathan Delgado — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:50:47 +0000

I just recently setup my bike with the Skyking fender eliminator. I am quite happy with how it looks, although I would like to do a better job of finishing off how the wiring is managed (see the third pic).

British Motorcycle Meet, Auburn MA

Jonathan Delgado — Sun, 28 May 2006 14:58:04 +0000

Ok, so I managed to blow it on the MassBIA spring meet… it ended up I had 3 other activities scheduled for that day as well. I do have a chance to redeem myself and head to annual British Motorcycle Meet in Auburn on June 4th.
I think this was one of the first all-British events I ever went to, albeit it just once in the past some 16+ years ago. Here’s hoping that the weather holds out and and my schedule doesn’t have any mystery surprises.

Mass BIA 16th Annual British Motorcycle Show and Swap Meet

Jonathan Delgado — Tue, 02 May 2006 18:41:22 +0000

The MA Chapter of the British Iron Association is having their 16th Annual British Motorcycle Show and Swap Meet on Sunday May 21st.

I went to their Fall show last year and had a good time.

Maybe this year I will (in order of likelihood, not chronological):

Find the place where they sell beer straight off. Not through random discovery when searching for the loo before heading home.
Enter my bike in the show (they have a Hinckley era category) if it doesn’t get too messy on the way there. Anyways, you need to park it somewhere, right?
Be social. (There are probably some other items that I am not listing that would rank before this.)

Vanson Open House

Jonathan Delgado — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:19:28 +0000

Vanson Leathers is having an open house the last weekend of April. I usually find out about these things after the fact, but as I bought myself a new Jacket from them last year I must be on their mailing list and got a postcard for it. More info on the open house can be found here. My postcard also mentions “Bike contest with prizes, no entry fee – many categories” which I don’t seem to see on their website anywhere.

Anyways, I have always like Vanson, ever since I was turned on to them and got my first motorcycle jacket from them when I was 15 or so. Yes, that was before I could have a motorcycle license, but the logic at the time and encouragement from older motorcycling friends (Hi Skerry, if you are out there) was that if I wanted a leather jacket (as all good punks do), then I might as well by something that will be of use if I ever had a bike of my own.
Back then that was the Thayer Street days of Vanson in Boston’s South End. Long before it started to become gentrified… back when there was still an elevated Orange Line rail system serving it. Sometime in between they ended up moving to Taunton, into some soulless industrial park facility. Now though, they are in a giant old factory in Fall River whose atmosphere harkens back to the Thayer Street warehouse… less the Boston Rock ‘n’ Roll part.
Either way, they have always been a true motorcycle oriented place. I will try to make it to the open house, weather permitting.