Thruxton Thruxton tweaks

Altered/added a couple of things to my 08 Thruxton just lately:

1. Rear fender - I quite like the stripped look of the bikes with no rear fender but rather than remove this and end up with a filthy back end each time it rains I decided to put the cowl back on the seat and black out the mudguard as per the Thruxton Ace model. I also moved the lower reflector up towards the reg. plate.

2. Tool/waterproofs storage - I've moved my Kriega US10 pack onto the tank using the Kriega tank adapter.

3. Headlight - yellow film added

4. Visor/goggle cleaner - tennis ball with wet sponge mounted onto handlebars

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Was it a big job to amend the steering stop? Found the turning circle a bit of a pain myself. Appreciate any advice.

 

Bit of an update on the tweaks on my Thruxton.

Removed the baffles from the Arrow 2-2-a couple of weeks ago as a bit of an experiment and must say the difference is quite amazing. Obviously the bike is louder but you can hear the exhaust note now when wearing earplugs against wind noise. I find if I ride it sensibly through town/village limits by running a high gear at 30mph the noise is substantially reduced; in fact I was thanked the other night when I waited for 2 horses and riders to cross in front of me as I rounded a bend in one of our villages - no indication of the bike being too loud.

When I had Clive Wood sort the mapping and set up he recommended I remove the baffles then and I can see why. The engine revs so much more easily and is a lot smoother throughout. The other positive factor is that the fuel consumption has improved tremendously; from about 40mpg before to now in excess of 50mpg!

Removing the original bar end mirrors and sticking on the mini convex item has considerably reduced turbulence and now its a pleasure to ride without all the air disturbance of before which was so bad at times that I even considered fitting a Dart flyscreen. No need now. It's great as it is.

The other change I've made is to ditch the single horn. I've wired in a relay and fitted a low/high tone combination from Halfords. The sound is much better - not air horn/Audi loud but much better suited to the bike. I wanted to keep a clean, classic appearance and by mounting these each side of the engine mounting bolt I think it works great. The horns are quite small and fill the space perfectly without overcrowding.









I did support the bike when removing the engine bolt but took the opportunity to add grease at the same time when refitting. The oil line also had to be slackened and rotated to allow the bolt to be drawn out but I've refitted everything and it appears leak free after 150 miles.

 

Another mod on my bike this week. After a 110 mile nighttime round trip to see my old Guzzi pals at one of their meets down in Leicestershire last week I thought it could be useful to have a small flyscreen to assist on prolonged runs of dual carriageway.

After a bit of thought I knocked up a paper template then a card template and eventually committed the design to black plastic which I obtained by cutting up a new bucket which cost me about a £1 from Wilkos. A couple of holes to the sides and some semi concealed padding (pipe insulation) to the clock housings and I had a quickly fitted and easily detachable flyscreen. Not necessarily the prettiest but I tried it out this morning and it's stable at speed and certainly helps with wind deflection if I choose to hunker down and rest my chin on my tank bag. Even sat up it didn't cause any extra turbulence and I was very pleased. All testing done wearing my open face lid.

Beauty of it is that I can remove it in about a minute and easily reattach if I need to.

Couple of pics: