If winter wasn't here already, it will be now ....... I've given some love to both bikes
The "pretty one" has been suffering from an annoying misfire at low revs. After a bit of investigation it was apparent no.3 cylinder was the offender, which suggested it could be either plugs or injector. This injector keeps a positive feed on the overrun, as part of the EBS system, to minimise the impact of engine braking on the drive train/rear tyre without the need for a mechanical slipper clutch, and the controlling relay can fail causing issues.
To get to the sparkplugs, you have to remove the airbox. To remove the airbox you have to remove the fuel tank & airtubes. To remove the tank you have to remove the seat unit & side panels. To remove the airtubes you have to remove the whole upper fairing, side panels & belly pan. That means a grand total of three M5 allen screws for the tank & seat unit and around eighteen Dzus fasteners and two M6 allen screws for the whole fairing ...... or about 20mins
The airbox is held in with two M6 bolts, and as the filter is a re-usable foam one, that came out for a wash and re-oil.
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The sparkplugs are a little fiddly to get out (the inner ones, at least) but straight forward enough to replace. To resolve the EBS relay issue, the simplest route is to bypass it (a replacement relay is around £150). This means tweaks to the ECU and a bridge-plug for the unit itself .... so whilst the Eprom was being played with a few other updates were added as well - reducing timing retard in the lower gears, the way the maps respond to TPS movement and a few other little bits.
And some gratuitous video clips ....
https://youtu.be/Jpv0RGYge5g
https://youtu.be/gTuHka0JcLQ
https://youtu.be/5f-Gzr3vdqg
Just for a little comedy moment, whilst sitting the tank in place and reconnecting the fuel lines to the pump to test run it, I managed to dislodge one of the connectors on the fuel rail without realising it, so when I turned one the ignition my waist and crotch got a liberal soaking of high pressure fuel spraying everywhere
I finally got it back together today, but then found it was still trapped in the garage thanks to a flat tyre and a dead battery on t'other one .... So the "black sheep" got a new (smaller LiPo) battery and some air in its tyres, so it could be moved out of the way. After giving both a little test run, cut short on the MV because it started to drizzle on Haldon, the TL is about to go on the bench now - new plugs, valve clearance check, check cam buckets (they're prone to cracking on older bikes) and maybe some visual upgrades I've been promising it for the last eight or nine years
