Finally I have started work on getting my TLR back on the road, I took me 4 months to find a suitable fron fairing at a non rip off price !!!! a nice man in the UK sold me his for a satifying 50 Euros !!! All Hail Ebay

On saturday I spent a few hours on the bike, I changed the plugs, oil and air filter and of course the Oil ! 3.3 Litres of glorious synthetic Silkoline 10W40 for my baby …. judging by the state of the oil that came out of it it certainly needed some quality Lube and TLC !

I had planned on replacing the front brake pads and front and rear wheel bearings but the weather turned and i had to put the bike back under covers again Im hopefull that this saturday I will get this essential stage of the rebuild completed, Im also going to replace the head stock and top yoke bearings , the bike is now nearly 11 years old and its time to chuck out the old and bring in the new.

Heres a pic of her on the paddock stands !! More updates to follow …also some info of my proposed HID headlight conversion …bye bye shitty night time driving :-):-)

Cant beat those Micron paddock stands

I have not updated the site for quite a while now as many of you have noticed ! it seemed once I had rebuilt my bike after the fire that that was that , no more mods to do ? Well I thought that too. I was in Sangerhausen in Germany , September 2nd to September 9th on the world fmaous Dutch Afikiktoer 2008 , a fantastic tour organised by 3 great Dutch guys on roads which have been hand picked to provide the maximum riding experience, a wonderful mix of twisties and cross country treks to warm the heart of the hardened Superbike enthusiast. My Journey was a little longer than the rest of the group as I had to first get to mainland Europe from Ireland ! This meant me leaving 2 days before everyone else. I left Dublin Port on wednesday the 2nd September ont he Stena Explorer bound for holyhead in North Wales, I then had to make my way down to Harwich just north of London to catch another ferry late that evening to Hoek van Holland !!! I did over 550 Kilometres in the pissing rain - NOT NICE !!! I was so happy to get out of my wet leathers on the huge Stena Hollandica overnight sailing and get some sleep, not before a few pints of good old fashioned Body Lotion to wash away the grim and smog of over 500kms of motorway bordom …..   to make a long story ver very short on friday the 5th of Septmber whilst traversing the Kuyffhause region near Wippra in old East Germany I had an off, i lost control of the bike turning into a right hand bend and by the time i managed to straighten the bike and myself out I was into an Armco barrier. The barrier was none to pleased with my interuption of it s day and proceeded to tear a large chunk out of my left leg - the bike didnt like this either so it then proceeded to throw me over the barrier in to the gully below the road som 15 metres below the Armco… all i remember after impact was all these green leaves spinning around and around and around as i flew through the air like a leather superman !!  Imidiatly i felt serious pain all over, then within in second i felt nothing … ADRENALIN RUSH BAABY I managed to get to my feet , i could still here the bike running above me on the road, at this stage the person I was following ,Marika from Utrecht in Holland had turned back to find me, she had seen me hit the barrier and go into the trees, she was terrified …. i walked over to the bike and turned off the engine and then she pointed at my leg and there was blood pouring out of it on to my leathers and my boots …. the cut was bad , i had bearly missed an artery but managed to rip part of my leg muscle, then all hell broke loose, cars stopped , ambulance called, a german couple wrapped me in a NASA Space blanket thing, gave me water yada yada yada … then some more guys in the group who were behind me caught up and stopped to offer support and to make sure I was OK, to be honest I got scared shitless … I thought once I had hit the Armco that this was it no more Navanman …. I never felt the barrier cut me, but some discussions with the guys after i got back fromt he hospital having been repaired by a very competent surgeon, 30 something stiches both superficially and internal ones , the guys reckon it may have been a branch of a tree that did the damage as i hit it  …. I have loads of pictures - quite sick i know , of the incident … but here is onei will cherish for the rest of my life … When the paramedics got there the first thing they wanted to do was cut me leathers off - NN NO NO I said and mange to take them off even though they were blood soaked and torn open , this meant that once the hospital was happy enough for me to go back tot he hotel I had no trousers to wear …so we improvised, I have a great pair of legs ( from my rugby days ) and was only to happy to have the nurses fashion me a ” Surgical Kilt ” perfect for an Irish Warrior like me …so here it is, another post will  follow with thank yous and what i need to do tot he bike to get it running properly again - its wrth noting i rode the bike back to ireland to complete the tour, on the way back my holland - harwich ferry landed at 8pm I got off the ferry at 9pm - I had to catch a ferry in north wales at 02.00AM the next morning so I had to do another 550 kms in less than 5 hours , the bike never let me down and i made it to holyhead with 45minutes to spare …and yes my leg hurt like hell !!! Its taken 6 weeks for the leg to heal and i have not ridden the bike since ….

Its a well known fact that one of the biggest design flaws of the TLR was the hydraulic rotary rear damper - this was a complicated system designed by Suzuki as a real alternative to the traditional centre mounted mono shock. A great idea in theory but in practice it just did not work !! With the roatry system and when pushing the bike hard thrrough corners the swing arm had a hard time keeping up. The stock POS was just to slow.

Fortunatly all is not lost, there are a few shock manufacturers who make kits for the TLR, Ohlins, Bitubo and Penske to name but a few. The Penske and Ohlins units are hard to find and very expensive ! A high quality and good performance alternative is the italian made  Bitubo Rear shock. This a fully adjustable shock with a seperate resevoir which replaces both spring and rotary damper unit onthe bike, ohlins and penkse only replace the rotary part.

The Bitubo unit weighs tonnes less than the stock damper and it works brilliantly, set up is real easy and the necessary guide and tools are supplied in the box from the factory !

Heres a pic of the shock on the bike

heres a pic i borrowed from www.tlplanet.com - the bitubo unit versus the stock unit !!!!

This great shock is available in group buys on both www.tlzone.net and www.tlplanet.com

Get yourself a winner !!!

Lets face it - the TLR is an old school machine, and as a result has some old school parts, like the SRAD Gauge cluster seen in older GSXR750’s and 600’s ..One of the coolest mods you can do to your TLR is to swap out the antique instrument panel and replace it with a modern digital panel. I used a panel from a K2 Gixxer 1000. This mod does require some rewiring of the headlight harness as the signals sent from the TLRs ECU are different to that of a Gixxer one. This loom modification takes about 20 minutes, its best fo you aquire a spare loom to do the rewire in case you ever want to go back to the old gauge for fault code reading etc. Everything works as it should ont he Gixxer gauge except for the water temperature sensor, againt his is a wiring issue and hopefully some day i will work it out, for now though i operate my radiator fans on a switch. If im sittign in traffic for a prolonged period i turn on the fans manually.

Check out this picture of the stock POS Gauge and then compare it to the new GIxxer cluster below - Gixxer wins hands down !!!

Very little modification is required to the stock gauge / headlight holder to accomodate the Gixxer gauge !

And now everything back together - looks cool huh ??

You can find Gixxer 1000 gauges on ebay for as little as 100 Euros, a spare headlight harness which will need to be rewired can be had for as little as 20 Euros !!!

Heres the first of my many modifications to my TLR !!! These are CNC’d billet  rearsets which I got through a group buy on www.tlzone.net !!! These are fully adjustable rearsets and give a huge weight saving over the stock gear change and brake lever arrangment !

Give me a shout if you require some more information on how to get a set of these quality sets for your TLR !!!

The TL1000R is a [full fairing] racing-oriented version of Suzuki’s popular TL1000S . The TL1000R was launched in 1998, one year after its sibling, the TL1000S. Unlike the TL-S, the TL-R was designed to compete in the World and American Superbike Championships, although it achieved only one race win before Suzuki pulled the plug on the TL racing program, in favor of the lighter GSX-R 750  as its Superbike entry. The TL-R took aim at Ducati 916 both in the Superbike Championship and in consumer sales. The R shares basic engine architecture with the S but has special components including forged pistons, stronger connecting rods, and a much stiffer frame. The engine tweaks given to the TL-R made it known for its very good top-end horsepower^, (as compared to most V-twins that make better bottom end power). The TL-R was offered in Yellow, Blue/White, Black, and Red. Suzuki stopped production of both TL models in 2003.

The TL1000R’s sibling, theTLS , was widely known as a “widow-maker”. Some riders crashed, and blamed the bike’s instability. Although Suzuki claimed that they fixed this problem on the TL-R, the reputation stuck and Suzuki reported “sub-optimal” sales on both TL models. The TL1000R was also criticized by many in the motorcycle press for being overweight, and is faulted for its rotary damper rear suspension. I have removed this factory P.O.S and replaced it with a Bitubo Shock , its fanttastic and I will post some installation pictures on this later, I also replaced the stock sterring damper , its rubbish , I have fitted a Bitubo Steering damper whihc is fully adjustable  Despite the reputation for being a handful to ride, the TL-R enjoys a strong almost cult like following amongst its owners, who take pride in their bike’s history and uniqueness.

I will be posting more extensivly , information on all the modifications I have done to my bike.

Well the day finally arrived for my baby to come home ! On Saturday the 12th April me and my good friend Antal collected collected the TLR from the shop arrived 5 months of work and heart ache - it was great to have ride the TL again but my triumphant return to 2 wheel transport did not go with out incident …noting serious at all i hasten to add !

Basically I got wet ont he way from the shop to Navan … very wet , the kind of soaking you can only get on a motorbike when you are caught in a heavy downpore with no wetgear .. and to topt hat off i ran out of petrol … so Dutchie aka Antal had to navigate his way back to my house int he jeep to get the secret landmower petrol stash to get me going again … fun and games ! I also put on my new arrow cans during the week, they sound and look awesome ..im very happy with them , heres some pics i took after i put the m on and had brought the bike for a sound check test ride So what have I done to my beloved TLR you ask ?
Well here goes !

Bitubo Rear Shock, Bitubo steering damper, GSXR Gauge conversion, Airbox Modification, iridium spark plugs, Vandriver (of tlzone.net fame) Tail risers, rear brake resevoir, billet sprocket cover, aluminium pressure plate , stainless bolts and gold coloured retainers, just waiting on the clear clutch cover to finish that off ! Rated-TLR (also of tlzone.net fame) CNC’s Billet Rearsets, Powerbronze hugger, steel brake lines front and rear, Sintered brake pads, double bubble screen, PIAA Xenon Headlight Bulb, Cable Clutch conversion, DiD Xring chain , and last but not least a pair of beautiful Arrow cans - did I mention they also sound awsome ?
I have a Power Commander 2 ready to be installed, hoping to get a custom map sorted on a dyno for it some time this year …..