Motorcycle Ownership Experiences


Thanks all for your help...

@Aditya: Only god can save this person and his bike , if i see the same tank pad on his bike in the society. i will teach him a lesson for it... ( its like stripping bra of my gf... )

shall get in touch with bluevolt for the exact model.
But can u give me a temporary solution as i need to park my bike from 27th oct -10nov. as i will be going to my hometown...
Any temporay solution.???

ROFLMAO !!!

Hmmm. You can leave the bike with me. I'll take good care of it.

LMAO,(sorry couldn't resist)

understand your frustration buddy

Park at a friend's place or if your office has a secure parking, speak to the concerned guys, you may get some help.

Parking in office is not allowed for more then two days(consulted the authorities) and non of my frnds are localite ,all are living in rented apartments which have parking issues.


Though trying my level best to find a secured parking(a closed garage) before i leave for my home.

For temporary protection, find some option to tie the over under neath the bike properly. Also tips to the security person could help a bit

After that for perfect protection, get a good bike cover and external security alarm like Xena. Oxford bike covers price will be on a costlier side. You may check Rjays bike cover, if price is a concern. They are comparable with Oxford covers and value for money as well. But quality and tech wise Oxford is better. You will get what you pay for.

Below links could be helpful for you. The Rjays bike cover below costs around 1.8K INR. You may contact bluevolt and n_aditya for any details/reviews regarding Xena bike security



RJays Lined Bike Cover

Covers

XENA Security Locks, Alarms & Accessories for Motorcycles, Scooters and ATVs

Tank pad needed !

Hey ppl .....this is regarding the tank pad that i like but cant find anywhere ....ebay has it but i dont have a credit card !!....can anyone help me out ? Desperately need one .....im attaching the pic of the one that i have zeroed in on .

Hi Guys, need some inputs.... travelling to KL on Thu... looking at picking up some stuff like a alpinestars bionic jacket, crash bobbins, oxford cover etc.

Anybody knows shops/places in KL where i can buy these? been googling, but not getting anywhere much

Also, would it be worthwhile picking it up from KL or is the pricing similar here?

Thanx in advance

looks good.. need one too.. how much is it for?

Yesterday morning, I was returning from my morning coffee venue. After starting the bike, it suddenly stopped in the middle of the road at 7.30 am. The bike could not be moved forward or backward even though the engine was running. On closer observation, found that rear wheel brakes were locked. Somehow reached my house which is located around 100 mtr. from that spot. The rear disk was extremely hot to touch. Waited for an hour and then again tried riding it but the bike would not move.

Called up service centre. Satish Jori came down to my place within 30 minutes of my call. (Keep in mind that my place is min 15-20 min riding distance from workshop). He also checked and told me that the bike needs to be taken to workshop for checking. He released the rear brake and rode it back to workshop.

As is my normal experience, received a call from workshop around 3.30 saying that the bike was ready. I collected bike. Was informed that air bubbles were trapped in brake lines and so the brake had jammed. After replacing the whole brake fluid from rear brake, bike started performing as normal. I was told that the brake fluid has a life of 10,000 km. My bike running is 10840 km. Charges - ZERO.

While I greatly appreciate the prompt and good service, one question I would like to pose is how come if the brake fluid life is 10k, service intervals are at 6k each? I had got my bike serviced at 6k and it is due again at 12k.

Shouldn't this be covered in regular service?

I was riding at 15-20 kmph in early morning so there was no traffic but I can't imagine my bike stopping suddenly in the middle of road when I am ripping on highway.

I think the brake fluid should be topped up at each service. Service manual also specifies that this must be done at each service.

This is the first instance when someone says that brake fluid life is just 10,000 kms. The usual mileage is around 20k kms for heavily loaded brakes as in sportsbikes and can extend to somewhere around 35-40k kms for those that are moderately loaded.

The issue that you faced could be due to a few reasons:

1. Brake pads 'dragging' on the disc face. Pads constantly rubbing on the disc will heat up, expand and seize the disc tight. That the rear disc was very hot to touch means the pads WERE dragging.

They could drag due to any of the reasons.

a. Floating caliper pins are dirty and don't allow the pads to retract fully. In turn causing pad dragging.

b. Caliper piston seals gone limp and so don't pull back the pistons to allow pads to clear the disc.

c. Air in the system will cause the pedal to be spongy. And you could be inadvertantly compensating for the sponginess, which can feel like increased free-play underfoot, by keeping the pedal slightly depressed.

2. Loose caliper mount that warped and jammed the brake disc. The trouble with disc brakes is the extremely tiny working clearance between the pads and the disc.

Air in the system will not per se cause the pads to drag and the brakes to jam up. This 'air' can actually be real air or steam. Brake fluids are universally hygroscopic i.e. they have a very strong affinity for water. Moisture absorbed by the fluid will turn to steam when the fluid heats up as the brakes are used. This absorbed water is one important reason why brake fluids need periodic changing. Brake fluid with substantial moisture absorbed will appear murky and dark while clean fluid will appear translucent.

The jamming in your case seems to be a case of slack maintenance. The brake calipers need to be serviced by cleaning and lubricating the pins and torquing the caliper mount at each service. Usually a high pressure water wash is all they get. By changing the brake fluid, the service guys inadvertantly serviced the entire brake system and so there was no reason why it should not work after that .

There's one check you can do at your end to ensure that some such thing does not happen again. A high speed seize will mean a nasty fall as you rightly fear. Grab hold of the caliper and try to move it sideways. It should move a couple of mm on either side. This means the caliper pins are moving freely and even this little movement is enough to keep the pads away from the disc.

In the unfortunate instance of getting stuck like this, just loosen the bleed screw on the caliper body a wee bit, enough to release some of the hydraulic pressure pushing the pads against the disc, and ride home without using the rear brake at all. The 'wee bit' loosening followed by quick retightening will ensure that no air gets into the system. The bike's tool kit usually has a 8mm open ended spanner (thats the usual size of the bleed screw head) to allow you to do this.

I too think that mere air bubbles in the line wont cause the brake to JAM !
I have just recently bled the front and rear brakes on my bike cause of the air caight in the line as braking was unpredictable with play increasing or decreasing like it had a mind of its own. But thats all that can happen to brakes if u got air caught in the lines. I dont think the jamming can be attributed to this phenomenon.

OldFox thats some solid info !

I shudder to think what would have happened had the brakes jammed at high speeds. Can be very dangerous and life threatening too.

@Oldfox - thanks for the detailed explanation. Any self checks apart from what you have mentioned?

@ Old Fox - Thanks for the info. I suspected that brake fluid was not the actual culprit but without actual knowledge about working of brake system, unable to counter it.

In fact, the technician did bleed brake system a little to release brakes and then rode bike to service centre.

I posted this problem to make others aware of this potential problem.

thanks for the info TV. this sort of feed back helps.

thanks for the tips old fox

but the fact remains that it should not happen on a high speed bike like the ninja. the service guys are mostly ignorant or simply is not willing to reveal a defect which was caused by them overlooking during the previous service. free of cost normally means it is a created defect by the service team.

in india one factory trained service guy is supposed to train 10 school boys to do the same work playing trial and error ( of all things on ninja bikes too? )

the jamming of TV's ninja's rear brakes shows the shocking state of service level as i feel it is a service defect. something needs to be done by us(ninja owners )