Month: October 2019 | Moto-Abruzzo

19/10/2019

Tuono clutch cover – AP0610992

Well it was a long time coming … I mean a looonnnggg time. Try several years in fact. But was it worth the wait? Well I think so, but hey, I’m biased!

Here it is …. AP0610992, a gold(ish) Magnesium clutch cover from a Tuono (2006-2010). It seems they are harder to come by in an as-new state than the proverbial rocking-horse doo-dah. All the ones I’ve seen have either been mullered by over enthusiastic riding Gods (crashers) or are brand-new at silly Aprilia pricing.

I know the standard cover does the job just fine, but ever since I saw one of these on a Capo motor I’ve wanted one as well – it just looks so much better. And besides, the weight saving alone must be worth at least 10 mph on the top end – right? 😉

Swapping over only takes a couple of minutes …. 8xM5 bolts and a click clamp to remove. I exchanged the old one for a nice new Zero-Leak low profile Stainless Steel 11.3mm version – very snug! In fact the old one wasn’t really squashing the pipe onto the siggot anymore and could be pulled/pushed/rotated very easily, which makes me think it was no longer vacuum tight ….hmm. Anyway, the new one crimped up lovely and everything is supper-sealed once again.

17/10/201917/10/2019

Capo memorabilia

Many years ago I asked someone who owned a Rally-Raid dealer brochure for a scanned copy. That scan is still available in the ‘downloads’ section of this website to this day. Today however, after all these years, I finally OWN that exact brochure! Luckily I happened to have a quick look on Ebay last week and there it was, the same brochure up for sale. Thankfully I was the only bidder.

It arrived yesterday in excellent condition and what a delight it was to finally hold the genuine article in my hand. Given the short production run of the Raid, it makes me wonder how many of these brochures still exist. Any left in the dealers probably went to landfill and those that made it home probably went the same way over time. The odd one may be hiding in a stack of magazines or hidden at the back of a dusty cupboard no doubt, but it won’t be many.

Now I have an original, I realise that the scanned copy isn’t quite telling the whole story …… some pages are missing and unlike the standard Capo brochure, it has several fold-out pages as well. Hopefully I can update the scanned copy in a week or two.

In the end I’m just really excited to add this to the growing list of Capo related items I have squirrelled away, somehow though this one item adds the finishing touch to owning a Rally-Raid. It only took 11 years to get it!

12/10/201921/10/2019

Seal of disapproval

Fair to say, things have REALLY dragged on this year. The fuel tank overhaul I mentioned in May and planned to do in July is still firmly on the to-do list -why?

I had 90% of the parts on the shelf in June and only had a couple of ‘O’-rings to order. The parts lists don’t give a size for these particular seals, so I needed new ones from Aprilia to measure for future reference – no problem really, they’ll only take a week or so to arrive I thought. Yeah right.

So I put together a list of parts and punched them into the Fowlers online ordering form. All items were available – except one. The dreaded ‘back order’ item. The deal was, wait for the back-order part and we’ll ship them all together, or we’ll send the in-stock items and charge you £3.95 to post the one remaining tiny back-order item. I decided to wait.

And wait they made me do alright ….. almost two months in fact!

In the end the parts arrived of course, but by then the warm and dry summer weather had given way to almost daily rain and nights drawing in earlier and earlier. But on a positive note, I have now measured the main O-ring I was interested in and can finally post up the size and alternative (UK) that you can have delivered within a day or two, not months! Far quicker and quite a saving on the £30.30 plus delivery for the genuine part.

AP8144478 Equivalent: 142.88mm ID 5.33mm cross section – Viton

£13.91 plus VAT (for two) from Simply Bearings Ltd (October 2019) – Thanks to Beasthonda for measuring for me!