After finding when putting in new brake pads a serious bodge job on the pad pins on my newly acquired '03 S3 I figured best to go over the bike for piece of mind. I changed front & rear pads and 2 pins needed drilling out and one was found to have a bolt welded to the end. During the week I ordered a couple of metal replacement fuel couplers to replace the standard plastic ones which I believe can be a bit unreliable, good job because first time removing the tank I snap the plastic ones off, DOH! After an hour digging out the plastic remnants I got the metal ones fitted. With the tank out of the way I removed the airbox noting the air temp sensor stuck down with tape as connector not clipping to the sensor and the 2 wires having chafed. Easy enough to sort. Pull off the lower airbox and the throttle bodies come away with them, awesome, not even secured to the inlet rubbers. Once secured I connected up by carbtune to balance the throttle bodies, way out as expected but 5 mins and all nicely balanced. Since getting the triple I've also found the amount of twist available in the throttle to be too much after previous bikes with Kawi 10R throttles fitted. So milled up a ring of acetal to fit over the cam to increase the diameter from 31.5mm to 38.5mm. After adjusting the throttle cables I can now go from idle to WOT without needing a second grab at the twistgrip. Am finding it much easier to get off the line not needing to twist the throttle so much. So if your not bored yet with my rambling there's some pics below and a couple which you may be able to help answer. One is of the throttle cam which I'm unsure about as it appear to have a couple of bits welded on, is this normal? The other is of two connectors that sit under the fuel rail, neither were connected but would be interested to know what they are there for? Cheers
Hi Shamus That sounds yourself like you have found yourself an accidental project bike. You certainly sound more than capable of the maintenance and repairs needed. Do fully check the rear hub bearings too as it is known for water ingress to start seizing things up in there meaning the chain adjuster freezes! Also the suspension linkages would need greasing as these tend to easily be neglected. Re the spare wiring linkages, I understand that as the wireing harness is used for Californian models with additional environmental gadgets to reduce immissions, the plugs are on all models just not attached to anything. Not sure about the throttle cam...
Yes, as you mentioned Red I did the linkages during the week. The bearings were dry but moving freely. They got a good packing of grease and put back together. Also working my way around the bike copper greasing fasteners. The bikes only done 6.5k but it's still a 13 year old bike. It has a full service history for those few miles it's done but it's annoying finding these little bodges and things not done. I can't blame the previous owner as he even got the garage to do oil changes, all this is down to the garage. This is why I always do my own servicing so I know it's done and done right. I'm just learning things about the bike as I go as this is the first Triumph and injected bike I've had, my bike history is with carbed Kawasaki fours. I also checked the spark plugs which were a nice colour helped by the current map for TOR can. The spark plugs were rusted however showing water ingress but I cleaned these off as the plug work fine.
As part of a thorough check I thought I'd do my forks, first pleasant surprise was they had fresh oil in so that saved a job. Had the fork caps off mind as found I only had about a turn and a half rebound to play with with the adjuster sitting about 3mm proud when at the stiffest setting. Re-set them so they go flush with the pre-load adjuster and now have a good 4 1/2 turns of adjustment. All back together with a new right side dust seal for the wheel given it wasn't put back in when they last had the wheel out. Slowly getting there.
