This thing resides at cheese towers - A Buell XB9-SX Lightning City-X to give it it's rather catchy title

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Not so keen on these mirrors, eveyone seems to junk the standard ones because they are useless, I have the standard ones but may run without mirrors as I never use them on a bike - preferring a glance backwards instead.



And as a newbie to american twin ownership I'm not yet ready for the whole eagles and live to ride ethos - so this may have to go



Well the hacking started last night, because my mate noted that the rear light was flashing to the potato potato (tm) beat

Bodgetastic



I swear God sends me this kind of sh1t as revenge.

US flag? - this has to go.




quick twizzle with a disposable knife blade, a wipe with LMR sticky stuff remover and the jobs a goodun!



Putting a motorbike back together?

Cant be bothered to bolt components back on?

Simply jam them behind clock/flyscreen/lights, what can go wrong?



The horn and that relay were just flapping about, waiting to fall off or start a fire by earthing themselves randomly.

I've worked out where the horn mounts - not sure about the relay???


Probably wont bother putting the small plate back on,



I'd probably get pulled

Ages ago, I put some of this "live to ride" etc.... shite on Ebay and was surprised how well it went. The derby cover went to Italy. I thought the postage was more than the crap was worth. But there you go.

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Try doing this to yer fueller...........

When you remount them you'll find the relay bracket breaks off, and the horn flaps about and makes a clattering noise, unless you bolt it on real tight, then the bracket breaks off

(rubber mount the relay, don't overtighten the horn bracket, but wedge a bit of rubber between it and the headlamp mounting)

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Wear the fox hat

Thanks for the tips - useful stuff

I've got some isolation mounts spare, may try and use those.

Incidentally where does the relay actually go - it has a bracket attached, not sure it's original relay though. I've mounted it (inverted) on the side bolt of the top bracket that the lights attached to - but it's not really ideal.

Thinking about it, I've probably got some rubber relay holding brackets in the garage .....somewhere.

14mm hole drilled in the horn bracket and an isolation bush fitted (like they do on practically any other bike)

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Feros Ferio

I couldn't live with those standard bars, I'm not a fan of chrome and the bend on the stock bars look like something off my nan's shopping bike.

I bought some unbraced alloy bars then realised they were;

a - too long
b - too low to clear the fork tops

I chopped 20mm of each end of the bars to make them about 15mm wider than the stock bars.

The only way to get clearance so the bars would sit in the clamps properly was to drop the forks in the yokes by a couple of mm

Then I drilled the holes to allow the pegs on the switchgear to locate into the bars.

And fitted..



Standard mirrors fitted and a pair of knock-off pazzo style shorty levers





Might have to actually ride the thing now...

BOOM! ZOOM! WOW!

Finally took it for a spin

six miles in pissing rain and heavy traffic, entirely in 30 and 40 limits, feck all visibility and a never ridden before bike made for great fun.

What a bike though , I'm gonna like this.

Suspension needs some setting up, less preload and less compression would be a good start. Get a few miles under the belt and some dry tarmac would be nice too.


Meanwhile, a few cosmetic tweaks,

The bar ends are back...

When I finally worked out how to remove them, tried to grip them and unscrew them and realised that they were just wrapped in tape and jammed into the bars, tape removed and they were the right size to fit perfectly into my new bars.

Couple of minutes on the lathe first and they were transformed.

The nasty plastic chrome indicators had to go, at the same time I wanted to modify the bracket holding the rear indicators and the number plate. There was a gap that showed wires and ugly bracketry.



Modified and re-mounted to pull the indicators and number plate up a touch



Ideally the indicators want to move out a touch more, the plate move up, loose the numberplate light and utilise the clear section in the rear lens which is covered by fibreglass at the moment.

The engine tried to loose the hideous (live to ride/eagle spirit) timing cover by rattling one of the two retaining bolts out which prompted me to sort an alternative.

Unable to fit a suitable chunk of billet into my lathe I tried to use a 83 mm hole saw minus pilot drill to cut out a suitable disc.
Obviously the saw wandered all over the shop and made a complete mess.

Time for plan B

Made a thingy to hold a chunk of ally plate


Turned with a step to clear the step in the engine cases


Countersunk


And fitted, need to get some stainless hex head bolts to suit and maybe give it a coat of crinkle black

Double post

Having fun fettling. Quality time

Oh my god!

I've been commuting to work for 3 weeks now, all 30 and 40 limits, there was a brief foray into a 60 where I gave it 'some' beans in forth.

Sure there's a hefty glub of torque and the thing stomps along fair but to be honest these buells aint that quick, about on par with a jap 400/600 inline four.

Until today.



On my private test track I proper twisted that throttle in a lower gear and actualy revved the bugger for the first time.

helll! there was a scrabble as the rear tyre fought for grip and the twat just took off like a rocket, first time I've actually revved it.

wow.

These shitty old push rod harley pig iron lumps will shift if provoked, loving it even more now.

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Mithered ta death.
92 MB
96 S2T
98 S1W
00 M2
01 X1
03 P3
10 CR

As the world shifted to more highly focused motos since the X1 went out of production and the number of bikes I've had that excelled in particular areas , I can't help coming back to the X1. It was just a good all around every day bike for all occasions. Very few new ones out there that can fit that bill and still make you smile.

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Bob Krzeszkiewicz
2012 XR1200X - 2011 Kawasaki Z1000SX - 1999 Buell X1