Rally Raid | Moto-Abruzzo

03/01/201404/01/2014

Air filter frolics

I mentioned recently that I’d ordered a batch of air filters made by Athena in Italy. They’re a direct replacement for the Aprilia AP8104169 one and the only obvious difference is the black foam material instead of orange, and that’s fine and dandy with me. However, on stripping out the old filter I noticed for the first time (that I can recall!), it has a code on the end …. hmmmm ….. could it be a viable manufacturers code I wonder?

A few minutes on the web confirmed that the number is definitely a manufacturers code – not Aprilia, but FIAAM. A bit more digging unearthed a total of three cross-referance numbers. Tecneco AR9474PM, FRAM CA9474 and FIAAM PA7301. The downside? All of them seem to be obsolete, with FRAM/FIAMM saying they went out of production in March 2012! Buggeration ……

But … one of the sites I found listed a filter that is an almost identical footprint to the OEM one:-

Aprilia OEM 210 x 140 x 30

FIAAM PA7180 212 x 140 x 60

Now a 2mm length difference is peanuts – the OEM one can be stretched/compressed by 10mm easily, the problem may well be the height, at 60mm it’s double the OEM filter. So to try to find out I took some pics of the airbox with the OEM filter in and had a play in Photoshop. Here’s the outcome.

Photoshop airbox The vertical lines show where the filter ends or interferes with the frame or lid. As you can see, the 60mm high PA7180 will squash in at the ends …… will this be enough to restrict air flow, or will the greater surface area of the larger pleats compensate? Answers on the back of a crisp £20 note if you please! 😀

Next time I’m passing a motor-factors, I’ll order one and have a play. At £4.68 each they’re half the price of the Athena …. and that brings me nicely back onto track, the new Athena filters that turned up today. What are they like then eh?

Well, dimensionally it’s an exact copy, so the fit is absolutely fine. One nice touch is the embossed pleats. It keeps them evenly separated for better air flow unlike the OEM element that is simply made of folded paper where the pleats can collapse onto each other. The bottom line is that it fits well, looks better constructed and is substantilly cheaper than OEM (€8.35 each from Germany) …… oh and it comes in a nice shiny box!

30/12/201331/12/2013

Let’s all do the Shimmie-Shimmie Shake …..

It took the best part of three weeks for the valve shim kit to arrive from the USA ….. and I think that’s rather good, considering the surge of Christmas post whizzing around the world, not to mention the holidays themselves getting in the way.

I’d ordered a Hotcams (SHIM-31) 10mm shim kit (thickness range: 1.85-3.25mm) that’s sold for the HD V-Rod and Buell 1125, but has a whole bunch of shim sizes in it that suit the Capo, or any V990 motor just fine.

The V990 engine uses shim sizes from 2.3-3.0mm in 0.025mm increments, so quite a few of the Hotcams kit are redundant, not only that, the kit only contains shims in xx.000mm or xx.050mm sizes, not the xx.025mm and xx.075mm that may be needed. Now this may appear to make the kit a rather poor choice, but look again at what you do get for your money when compared to the shims an Aprilia dealership/stockist will sell you.

So let’s compare ……..

Hotcams Shim Kit – delivered to Italy was $82.35 / £49.94 / €59.73 including customs duty & taxes. That’s 15 usable shim sizes (x 3 each) and works out at approximately $1.83 / £1.11 /€1.33 per shim. Now compare that with genuine shims from AF1 in the USA – $14.99 each*, or Ultimate Parts in the UK – £9.15-£12.85 each all of course with package and posting on top. I think it’s fair to say that if 50% of the shims are on hand for around 10% of the Aprilia list price …. well I can live with that!

*AF1 do sell a shim kit and it may well be the same one that Hotcams sell. Certainly the range of shims is identical – as is the box by the pictures on the website. Why didn’t I buy from them? Simply price, at $75.99 + $40 shipping, they weren’t even close to Ebay stockist Powersportsplus.

02/12/201303/02/2016

See ya later Indicator

While it rains, rains and rains some more, I’ve had time to complete the mods with respect to moving the warning/tell-tale lighting around on the dashboard. Now the Capo has a nice left AND right indicator repeater lights ….. and looks all the better for it. So to recap.

Unused ABS light is now the side-stand light
The side-stand light is now the low-fuel warning light
The low-fuel warning light has new green LED’s and is now a right-hand indicator repeater.

Here’s another piece of video with all the lights working. You’ll notice that the fuel is already on reserve, hence the old side-stand light (now low-fuel) is on throughout the video. Sorry about the quality, but a dismal dark day and a smartphone don’t work so well together ….. and my cold hands adding the shake didn’t help! I’ll add a new page to the site shortly with details of how the circuits were rearranged.

While I waited for Youtube to upload the video, I took a walk down the road to see what damage had been done by the 24hr+ of solid heavy rain …………

…………. let’s just say the Capo nor the Rangerover are going anywhere soon. We don’t appear to have a road left for about a 30m stretch. It appears to be languishing somewhere down in the valley by the looks of it! Pics tomorrow. 😥

23/11/201303/02/2016

Tacho/Voltmeter live on the Caponord

Phase 1 is over, Phase 2 begins …….. yes, the reworked dashboard with voltmeter/tacho and fade-in/fade-out auto-dimming backlighting is off the workbench and finally onto the Caponord. I know it doesn’t look too inspiring at the moment, but it is only a prototype unit for development. The white tacho face is simply a temporary inlay printed on a piece of A4, so it better not get wet!

Inside the box lives an Arduino Uno with a homemade interface board that switches and adjusts the signals to/from the dashboard as required. The single connector plugs into an additional fused loom that runs to the battery positive terminal. I’ve tried to build in safeguards against under/over voltage, battery disconnection and reconnection spikes and its own failure with regards to how the dashboard functions, hopefully most if not all eventualities have been covered …. fingers crossed!

I’ll run this setup for a while and try to iron out any other issues as they crop up, but what then? Well Phase 3 has already started in parallel with Phase 2! A new microcontroller board that uses the same chip, but with a footprint that is an astonishingly small 8% of the Uno has been ordered. Not only is it small, it also loses the peripheral bits and bobs that I don’t need – and that means much lower power consumption. I’m really hoping to get the whole thing inside the dashboard case if possible, but the worst case scenario will mean a small box fixed directly to the back of the dashboard – so no wiring loom or bulky connectors!

Where the ideas originated ..... the Kwak GT & GPZ's of the 1980/90 era As well as getting the inlay reprinted with the added voltmeter graphic, I’ve also decided on a little re-arrangement of the existing graphics and functions. For example, why oh why is a ‘side-stand’ light prime-center of the display when it already has a safety circuit to stop you riding away with the stand down? ….. Magneti Marelli over-egging the pudding I think.

So the side-stand is moving down to the (unused) ABS lamp spot, the low-fuel then moves up to the side-stand lamp and the low-fuel light then becomes the right-hand indicator – as it should have been all along. Yes, a turn repeater for both left AND right hand signals!!!

Left AND right turn repeater lamps!

With all this in the pipeline, I can now source a decent place to have the new inlay card made. I’ve spoken to a couple of companies in the UK already, but I’ll keep looking around for a little while longer …….. do you know anyone you can recommend? If so, I’d like to hear from you.

Last but not least, here’s another short piece of video with the panel working on the bike.

05/11/201305/05/2019

Clutch master cylinder seal

12mm seal UPDATED MAY 2019

A nice bit of news has come my way regarding the Caponord clutch master cylinder. If you’re ever thinking of finding a repair kit for it ……. good luck. No one has so far. But a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Eddie in the Netherlands, who being a rather determined chap, wouldn’t accept no for an answer. So he set about hunting through 12mm Brembo kits used by various manufacturers to try and find a suitable seal.

Well the bottom line is that after finding, fitting and testing a kit for several hundred killometers, he’s found a solution ……… from the KTM EXC125 – 520 range, part number 50313061000 and priced at £17.28 in the UK.

Now this may seem very expensive for a kit you will only use the seal from, but when compared against the cost of a new master cylinder or a second hand one from EBay of suspect quality, it makes the cost a little easier to swallow.

I have to wonder at the logic of producing various 12mm seals that would only be used in a few thousand units, compared to making one seal that will be incorporated into many kits throughout the years. If you spend a little time online and look at decent photos of various 12mm kits from old-timers like the Ducati Pantah to modern KTM’s the seal looks awfully familiar. Of course, getting your hands on one and trying it is the only difinitive proof. And an expensive hobby!

So I’d like to thank Eddie for contacting me and sharing this valuable information, I owe you a beer!

UPDATE MAY 2019

It looks like Wemoto (UK) are stocking a kit for the Capo. Well at least they list one! I haven’t bought one yet, but good friend Beasthonda from the AF1 forum has and I had a look at it last week. The main piston looks to be a little shorter, only a millimeter or so, and that may not even be an issue when the pin is adjusted to suit. Anyway I’ll update again when the kit is fitted and hopefully working.

01/11/201304/11/2013

Power distribution block

Andy (beasthonda on the AF1 forum) has just put these little beauties into production. A nice simple power distribution block that provides four feeds with both 5A and 2A fuses pre-installed. The circuit board is coated in potting compound to prevent moisture and vibration working its charm and the whole thing sits in a box 50 x 50 x 25 …… small enough to mount under the riders seat.

The very kind gent that he is, Andy sent me a pre-production one a few months ago and it has proved invaluable in clearing a whole rats-nest of wiring and in-line fuses from the space above and behind the battery. In short, a well made and neat solution to the inevitable side effect of adding extra electrical items to the Caponord.

Andy informs me they will on sale for approx. £25 each including postage & packing, about $40/€29. So if you’re interested, send him a PM from the AF1 forum and tell him moto-abruzzo sent you! 😀

19/10/201303/02/2016

Dashboard upgrades

Evening folks, I thought I’d share this with you as the nights start to draw in and riding gives way to winter tinkering.

I mentioned over on the dashboard page about the upgrades hopefully working by spring next year. Well some of them have come along in leaps and bounds, so I took a snippet of video so you can see a dashboard work-in-progress strutting it’s stuff on the workbench. OK, I know that there’s no voltmeter markings on the inlay yet, just use your imagination for now! It’s actually showing 12.4v ……….

Now while I’m waiting for an oscilloscope to miraculously appear, I’ll leave the board bench testing for a while to see if the code or controller breaks, then fingers crossed, it’s on to the auto-dimming back lighting instead of the three fixed settings of useless, mostly useless and acceptable.

26/09/201326/05/2016

You never get a second chance to make a first impression

Yesterday the new Karoo 3’s were fitted by a nice chap down at Vulcarapid in Pescara and by 3pm the wheels were snugly back in place. That just leaves a sneaky little test ride!

So the next morning with the thermometer nudging 27°c and not a cloud anywhere in sight, I loaded the camera and a couple of sandwiches in the cases and set off. So the question now has to be, what are the first impressions of the Karoo 3’s?

Before saying anything though, I want to ask a question ……. would you deliberately choose to ride your Capo (or any bike!) on black-ice …. or marbles? My guess is no.

Well, sadly that’s exactly what zero mileage Karoo 3’s handle like and it’s not a pleasant experience at all. As I turned right onto the black-top from our gravel road the steering felt vague and the bike felt as though it was going onto its side. Under gentle acceleration in a straight line the tyres squirmed left and right, exaggerating dips and undulations in the road surface. After about 3 miles I’d all but had enough, the bike just felt awful and I was ready to swing back home ….. but in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t.

I continued on to Castel del Monte and mile after mile the tyres began to settle down, lean angles slowly increased while acceleration and braking stability began to sort their act out. The mileage slowly climbed as did my progress up the mountain, by the time I stopped for a bite to eat, the trip meter said 52 miles and my confidence levels were a magnitude improved.

Now I quite understand if you’re thinking along the lines of tyre pressures, or tyres fitted the wrong way around, or that maybe I’ve screwed up the wheel installation. Fact is, everything was checked and checked again. The instability could only be the new tyres.

And here is where I hop off this particular pony ……. I’m not getting drawn into a ‘fresh tyre grip argument’ or the myth of ‘mould release agents‘. Knock yourself out on the internet or slug it out with your mates down the pub. I just know what I experienced and can only compare it to 34 years of riding both professionally and socially and having ridden out of a fair number of dealerships, tyre bays and workshops on all shapes and sizes of new tires …….. and never before experiencing this dramatic a start with any of them.

But back to the last bit of the journey …..

Well the remaining 50+ miles of the day took me back down the East side of the mountains where dense forest smothers the road down to 800m or so, where it begrudgingly gives way to agricultural land. The trees keep most of the road in dense shadow, dappled by undulating patches of bright light that pierced the canopy above. This camouflages the road surface so you can’t read it until it’s almost under your wheels. The problem is, the road is BAD ……. potholes, gravel, tree debris and water to name a few. I guess the constant dark and micro-climate helps nature do it’s worst to the road surface all year round.

Now though, the Karoo’s were starting to work for me, stable and unfazed by the constant variety of surface they needed to work with. Hair-pin bend after hair-pin bend had the Capo tracking like a mountain goat on steroids, each inspiring more confidence. Eventually I left the tree line behind and headed down to the SS80, familiar roads and onward home. The last few miles I road exactly as I would have done on the Anakee 2’s.

The days conclusions ….

Disastrous to start, but at least they continually improved throughout the day, a roller-coaster of a day in more ways than one! But I have to ask myself a couple of questions:

If I’d known how the Karoo 3’s would start off, would I have fitted the more expensive TKC80’s again? Yes probably.

At this moment in time, with only a measly 100 miles + on which to base an opinion, would I fit them again? The little voice, the one way back in your subconscious answered first …. errr no.

So not exactly a glowing start and one from which the Karoo’s may well struggle to recover, only time will tell. Winter is just around the corner and their performance on our gravel/dirt road over the coming months will no doubt make or break them.

13/09/201326/05/2016

Metzeler Karoo 3’s arrive

As the title says …… a rather grumpy little man arrived this morning tooting his horn like crazy and gesticulating madly about the state of the road. I tried to point out that’s why he was delivering my new tyres 😀 . Fell on deaf ears though.

Anyway, here they are, a nice shiny new set of Metzeler Karoo 3 110/80-19 59R TL and 150/70-17 69R TL tyres manufactures in the 18th week of 2013. Ordered on Wednesday evening (Ebay) and arriving on Friday morning, so that’s excellent service (and price €178 – approx. £149.70) from Felappi Srl – felaps10 on Ebay.it.

There are 6 TWI (tyre wear indicators) on each tyre at the minimum 1mm tread depth. Measuring the available tread down to the TWI gave the following:

Front 7.6mm at the centre, 7.0mm at the edge

Rear 9.6mm at the centre, 10.6mm at the edge

Snowflake symbol on true 'winter' tyres You can also see the ‘M+S’ text on the sidewall of the tyres. As far as I’m aware this means diddly-squate ….. nothing except that grooves at the edge extend into the centre of the tread and that 25% of the tread is open. There are no tests or criteria with regards to real-word operation of the tyres in mud or snowy conditions. Tyres that are tested as truly ‘winter’ tyres will have the snowflake symbol on them …. and I don’t know of any m/cycle tyres that have it. If you do, drop me a line.

This is all very well of course, but I’ve yet to fit them and put some mileage on them! Hopefully next week I’ll get them mounted and run them in playing on the Gran Sasso, it’s a tough life but someone’s got to do it. 😉

11/09/201317/09/2016

Agip Tec 4 is dead …… long live eni i-Ride

I know, I know ….. engine oil can be the most controversial of all motorbike subjects. So you’ll at least be pleased to know this post isn’t about what oil to use, rather info on changes within Italy (Agip/eni) regarding the originally specified stuff in the handbook.

It seems that the original Agip Tec 4 15w-50 as specified by Aprilia is rapidly disappearing off the shelves as it has apparently been withdrawn from production. Along the way it also seems there has been a re-shuffle/re-brand with regards to Agip and eni themselves.

The bottom line appears to be a new line of ‘i-Ride’ oils offered under the eni brand. The one listed as most compatible for the Caponord is the i-Ride PG 15w-50, PG standing for ‘Piaggio Group’ …… apparently the oils were developed and approved in combination with Piaggio. Click on each pic to open the tech sheet … and you’ll see that both oils are in fact virtually identical. So that’s it, just a bit of info just in case you’re every in Italy and need a drop of oil for your bike ……..