What did you do to your FJ-tracer-gt today?

[3sum]

Vinyl these days is pretty damn tough and realistic.  I added some over my carbon fiber fender on my Monster and people tell me it looks like it's been painted.

[betoney]

7 hours ago, Wintersdark said:

I've been working 70+ hour weeks all summer, basically no riding time, but I'm thinking I'm going to put aside some of my hard earned OT for a big refresh project on the Tracer.  Having it painted pearl white with red speed blocks inspired in equal parts by the limited edition R7 and @Warchild's hardcases.

That, a Black Widow exhaust, new clutch basket and plugs, and an ecu flash. 

Just trying to decide whether its worth having the speed block details painted, or applied as vinyl decals.  Thoughts?

That sounds like a cool graphic design, I agree with a vinyl wrap, if you change your mind down the road, you can remove it. 

Concerning the spending of your hard earned OT $$$, have you already upgraded your suspension?  I gotta ask because that is always my #1 suggestion for upgrades. 😎

[texscottyd]

1 hour ago, betoney said:

Concerning the spending of your hard earned OT $$$, have you already upgraded your suspension?  I gotta ask because that is always my #1 suggestion for upgrades.

I spent my hard-earned bonus money on an entirely new motorcycle!   Which (of course) I’ve now decided needs upgraded suspension…  🤷‍♂️

It’s a fun, vicious cycle 

[betoney]

1 hour ago, texscottyd said:

I spent my hard-earned bonus money on an entirely new motorcycle!   Which (of course) I’ve now decided needs upgraded suspension…  🤷‍♂️

It’s a fun, vicious cycle 

I agree, I always enjoy the end result after an upgrade, especially with suspension. 

[Satsteve]

I tuned the stock suspension on my 2019 GT.

TLDR; cranked up the preload & cranked down the damping - good result.

It's my 3rd season with the bike & I never really took the time to try setting it up.  I've only played around with the rear shock preload for 2-up riding.  Most bikes that I've owned didn't offer a lot of adjustments, so I don't have a lot of experience with suspension tuning.   Another issue is that I don't have a garage or help with setting the sag.  Anyway despite all of this, it wasn't hard to make considerable improvements.

First of all I am mostly a commuter & I do a lot of straight-line running.  I'll do moderately curvy roads outside the city; like curves at 60-90 kph with no pegs dragging or hanging off required.  When I was young I would hit the curves faster, drag pegs & all that, but not anymore. 

I did front sag first with the help of a twist-tie to mark the lowest point; basically used standard procedures from online .  I've got nobody to hold the bike & measure.  So I just did my best to get on lightly, balance with no stand for a moment then get off.  I was very surprised to realize that I needed to bump-up the preload to end up with only 2 of the graded lines showing.  Wow I started with 16mm now it's down to about 7mm.  Sag is 43mm.  I weigh about 160lbs; I didn't bother putting my gear on.

I did basically the same at the back.  To help take measurements on my own, I put the left side pannier into the top box.  I used a ruler between the axle ledge on the swing-arm & the edge of the hand rail right above.  Again I was surprised that I had to add a lot or preload to get a proper sag.  So my end sag was 42mm with the preload on 20 clicks (max is 24).

Next damping on the front.  I used a mirror set to see the front wheel while sitting on the bike.  The stock setting for compression & rebound are both 7 clicks.  I got on & hobby-horsed the front & watched the forks slide in the mirror.  I noticed it was very hard for me to get much movement.  I set them both to 10 clicks (1 is hardest, 11 softest); much easier to compress the forks & they come back up with barely any bounce.

The back only offers rebound.  Again I found the stock setting at 7 to be very firm, barely moves for me.  I softened it to 15 clicks (18 is softest). 

The test ride was amazing.  The forks soaked-up bad pavement like never before; huge improvement.  The back shock also gave a much improved ride.  I did 100 km on my usual commuter roads & I am very pleased.  I'll head to twisties on the weekend to see how that goes. 

 

[wordsmith]

The Yamaha rear rack was fitted today, a very simple job, replacing the OE pillion handles.   The rack is a fairly heavy piece of kit at 2.7kg, and I would have preferred it to be finished in silver - or even grey - instead of black, but that's no big deal, but at $AUD$311 the price is pretty steep, IMHO.

I can now mount my small 26L top-box, which will carry all I need for long weekends away, or even more - though I do warn bystanders to stand upwind of me if necessary at the end of longer trips.

But more often I'll carry a small ~8L Pelican-style case for day-rides, sufficient to take the camera and phone, spare gloves, puncture repair kit, and other small knick-knacks. 

I'll also mount the rear LED bar of flashing/ pulsing brake lights under the rack once I have the final part of that kit - more on that in due course. 

Today the bike was road-registered, so having now tested negative for covid - and about time too! - I hope to take that initial ride at the weekend.

.

[2and3cylinders]

I couldn't fit my lunch in a 28L box!

But nice if also as you said, heavy.

The Shad mounts and plate for my SH46 box is about the same weight though I'd bet.  Then add the SH36 pannier 3P mounts; though I only attach the latter "on tour".  With my maladies, the kitchen sink is mandatory. 

Being the Last Boyscout, my top box is always half loaded by weight with extensive tools including but very much not limited to a micro electric tire pump and kit, multimeter, zip ties, hot glue, duct tape, Clamptite wire wrap tool, a monocular, disc lock, and much much more.  More wrenches and the like live under the saddle.

I've never needed more than a 5 mm hex but if I left them at home...

I do carry a couple pairs of spare gloves, mist bottle, jacket liner, a mini dop kit, sun screen, the aforementioned lunch ensemble, balaclava, neck triangle and tube, glove liners and rain covers, and G-d knows what else.

Plus I run either the SW-Mototech City or Engage tank bag!

Now others have benefited from my tools and expertise.  I must try to bring myself to just use instead my semi soft shell pillion bag and be free of the top case's weight hung out to high and far back.  I'd feel free like a bird I'd bet.

Congratulations on being negative and road certified! 

I hope the weather cooperates with you when you head out.

You reminded me I must replace the auxilary red stop LED strip on the back edge of the top case rack.  However I do have a popular super bright programable tail/stop light with integrated blinkers, and taken to mounting the very effective BrakeFree helmet light to complement my Hit-Air vest.  We aren't as sharp and skilled as we were in our yute, and certainly don't bounce and pop back up like we used too!

Rubber side down mate and happy trails!

[Wintersdark]

On 7/27/2022 at 9:11 AM, betoney said:

That sounds like a cool graphic design, I agree with a vinyl wrap, if you change your mind down the road, you can remove it. 

Concerning the spending of your hard earned OT $$$, have you already upgraded your suspension?  I gotta ask because that is always my #1 suggestion for upgrades. 😎

It's resprung for my weight, but still stock components.  I'm pretty happy with where it is, but I also don't have perspective on what actual difference replacing things would have.  However, there's no real suspension specialists around here - I keep asking around, whenever I find new shops, but none are interested in actually working with me to do it, vs. just ordering whatever I want and installing it and leaving me to get it set up.  

I'm definitely going to do the base color in paint - mostly because my original lower panels are damaged from the wife backing the jeep into the bike and my replacement panels are the "Raven Black" model ones.... Which are silver.  And my case lids are pretty marked up now and need the prep work to smooth them down anyways.  

But as far as the speed block pattern goes, I dunno.  It'll look better in paint (See: @Warchild's hardcases), but as you say then that's very much permanent, whereas being able to pop it off and redo it in the future gives a lot of options. Also, this allows me to get the bike painted, then decide later exactly how to decorate vs. having to have everything decided up front. As a very indecisive person, this would PROBABLY mean it just stays white with red details here and there however.  Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

 

On 7/27/2022 at 10:45 AM, texscottyd said:

I spent my hard-earned bonus money on an entirely new motorcycle!   Which (of course) I’ve now decided needs upgraded suspension…  🤷‍♂️

It’s a fun, vicious cycle 

If I were responsible, I'd be using said OT $ to pay off the remaining bill on the two existing Yamaha's in my garage right now (because I took your approach last time around), but I'm not.  I actually really seriously considered trading in the Tracer, but honestly I just love it so much I don't see really enjoying something else significantly more when considering the costs of getting a new bike plus respringing it (which ends up costing roughly $1000cdn when the smoke clears) and all the other farkling that inevitably happens.  

So instead, I figured I'd just make the Tracer new to me again.  It's not going to see winter riding anymore now I have the T7 with studded tires and much more elaborate crash bars, and the only real wear it's got is the absolute havoc that 3 salty winters have wrought on it's headers and of course the clutch basket GRONK.  

 

[2and3cylinders]

"figured I'd just make the Tracer new to me again"

how many miles does it have?!

[wordsmith]

“See and be seen” is a pretty good mantra for road-users, especially we vulnerable bikers.   The headlight output on many modern road-bikes is glow-worm-like, hence my wish for something extra, so today I fitted pair of small  spot/ fog LED lights to give me that extra bit of visibility - it’s something I always do early-on with a new bike.

The brand - STEDI - is a new one to me, but they arrived well-protected in a pair of chunky boxes from the local vendor within a few days of ordering.  They are indeed quite tiny at only 43mm dia x 53mm long, boxed as MC-5 LED DRL motorcycle specific lights.  And strangely they glow blue until switched-on!   Unusually they come with two alternative fixing brackets – the usual U-shaped bottom bracket, and a side bracket, and plenty of fastenings. 

A length of 25mm x 3mm aluminium strip provided the mounting for the LEDs, screwed horizontally to the front of the bike immediately below the headlights.   Fortunately, the underside of the headlight surround has two small slotted openings, which I used to insert the mounting bolts, one each side, and a couple of rubber spacers lowered the outer ends of the mounting strip to clear the pointy nose of the bike’s fairing.   It’s not the prettiest of set-ups, but does the job and is largely out of sight anyway, but I’ll probably tidy it up later.   In any case, it’s much cheaper than the AUD$157 of the specific Yamaha light mounting bar! 

Accessing the aux wiring plugs behind the screen is pretty fiddly.   The wiring is hidden behind multiple onion-like layers of other elements of the bike (see pix) – the windscreen: then a heavy steel plate carrying the screen lowering-mechanism: then a complex moulded plastic plate secured by eight of those clever little plastic push-pins: then another small steel plate immediately in front of the wires and plugs.   While all this was apart I took the opportunity to put some light grease onto the screen sliding mechanism. 

Getting there was tedious, but wiring was eventually done by connecting the positive wires from the LEDs to the auxiliary plug via a PosiTap, red to brown/yellow, and the black earth wire to a screw-head on one of the steel plates, for effective grounding.

I switched on, and lo! - there was light,‘brighter than a thousand suns’.   

I've had this GT for eleven days now, but have yet to ride it.   I enjoyed the bit of farkling I've done so far, but unhappily this cursed covid will not leave me, despite negative RAT testing, so if it doesn't clear up soon it's off to my GP.     

 

[2and3cylinders]

Nice and very bright but will they blind out the headlight which is why I mounted mine lower off my GV case guards

[wordsmith]

14 minutes ago, 2and3cylinders said:

Nice and very bright but will they blind out the headlight which is why I mounted mine lower off my GV case guards

If they do 'blind' the headlight they are doing their job!   It's largely believed that DRLs like these are most efficient when mounted as high up and as far apart as possible - within sensible limits!   Too low, and I suggest they may lose some of their effectiveness.   On an earlier Tracer I was able to buy some LEDs that were attached to the front of the handguards, which I think met the 'higher' and 'wider' criteria, but they don't seem to be available any any more.

[2and3cylinders]

I get it but I run mine for conspicuity (for which they work well due to their larger size) but also for better night vision, which is more effective at a lower height.

Hope you can get out and ride soon!

[wordsmith]

5 hours ago, 2and3cylinders said:

I get it but I run mine for conspicuity (for which they work well due to their larger size) but also for better night vision, which is more effective at a lower height.

Hope you can get out and ride soon!

I understand, but never ride - or very rarely drive - at night.   I hope so too, otherwise it's going to be a wobbly ride!

[Kenny A.]

Fitted this today. 👍