LONG TERMERS WHAT HAVE WE DONE NOW?

AIRFLOW, PREPERATION AND CONTROL WE’VE BEEN BUSY THIS MONTH!

YAMAHA MT-07

FLY SCREEN PRICE – $199.58

The front of the MT-07 around the top of the headlight/instrument panel really looks a bit bare, so fitting the genuine Yamaha fly screen was a no brainer. I opted for the grey (tinted) version, (it’s also available in black) and it has given the MT-07 a more finished, classier appeal.

Fitment took around twenty minutes and the screen comes with easy to read instructions.

We’ve had a few tests bikes in at the Bear Cave lately so not many more kilometres have been added to the 450km we’d done last month. It is now up to 656km and I hope to get out for a decent blast on it shortly to get it up to the 1000km mark and in for its first service. In the mean time I have continued to fi t more and more accessories to this sweet motorcycle, and you can read all about that in coming issues. SW

Harley-Davidson XL1200 ‘72’ TREATMENT TIME

The Bear’s H-D 72 is getting prepared for the full Küryakyn treatment. Look for loads of chrome and custom bits and pieces. The lovely orange hard candy paintwork is going to change as well, but fi rst, a set of wonderful Ikon rear shocks have been fi tted and The Bear will give you a rundown on how they transformed the 72, next issue. SW

YAMAHA BOLT

DAMP IT

Keeping the Yamaha Bolt powering our outfit to its original appearance – and not fitting leading link forks – and having a super light sidecar, resulted in the steering being quite violent, in a tank slapper kind of way. Other than fitting leading link forks, the only other way to reduce the amount of force through the steering was to fit a steering damper. We purchased one of the new Ural adjustable ones from Jon Taylor at Ural of Oz. Sixteen positions of damping are available and now it was down to working out the right position to fit it to the Bolt.

I originally thought of bolting it to the underside of the lower triple clamp, but this resulted in clearance issues around the fork and frame, so I had to think about where another good position would be and came up with the outside bolts of the right side lower triple clamp. I made up two brackets – one for the triple clamp and the other for the top rose joint of the front sidecar arm, went to the good people at Lee Brothers, Parramatta and got some new stainless steel nuts and bolts in the correct lengths and bolted up the steering damper.

As the steering was violent, it requires just about all of the adjustment the Ural steering damper gives. I have ended up on 14 clicks out of the 16 and you can now ride the Bolt without having arms bulging like Popeye and you can even take one hand off the bar to rest if need be, whereas before you couldn’t unless you wanted bad things to happen. SW