I love windy days ……. not!

I hate them with a passion, I mean bone-deep hatred. They’ve made me grind my teeth so hard they’ve fallen apart quicker than celebrity marriages – I’m talking about that nefarious combination of plastic (especially plastic bags) and a windy day!

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid plastic on road and in the tree

If they’re not pinned to the nearest hedgerow or tree (‘witches knickers’ as they’re called in Ireland) they seem to spend their time floating on, around or above every highway and byway waiting for an unsuspecting biker. Then they pop out from underneath the vehicle in front, wave tantalisingly at you then dive straight for the radiator – or preferably some nice exposed headers to melt onto ….. swine that they are!

I once rode around for ages with OCSET (TESCO for those outside of the UK!) smeared like some naff tattoo across a set of nice new exhaust headers on my old GS550 ….. pissed off or what! That stuff just didn’t want to come off chrome at all. Thankfully the Capo’s headers are protected, so when this baggie set of plazzie-knickers shot out from under a passing car, they slid off the sump-plate and the rear wheel did for them ……

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid INNOVV K1 dual camera plastic debris in the road

…… seeing it float off down the road in the mirror gave me a kind of warm glow in pit of my stomach to accompany the smug smirk on my face. The sheer satisfaction that I’ve once again successfully out maneuvered an amorphous mindless mound of plastic debris. Damn I’m easily pleased these days! 😀 

Ognibene sprockets

The first Ognibene (7164-16) 16 tooth front sprocket was fitted last April, since then its done over 18,000 miles and I’m happy to say, still has some life left in it. In comparison to the excellent Renthal sprockets that I’d used since the OEM one wore out, I have to say I’m very impressed. Yes they cost a couple of pounds more that the Renthal, but it has covered more miles. The Reynolds typically averaged (15,000 miles), making the Ognibene’s running cost slightly better pence-per-mile wise.

Now a matching set of front and rear (8098-45) sprockets are going on, along with a nice new gold/gold DID 525-112 ZVM-X chain. Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid Ognibene front sprocket 7164-16The France Equipment rear sprocket (1683-45) I fitted last year is still looking pretty good, so it’ll go on the shelf as a part-worn spare.

One thing that’s maybe worth mentioning about Ognibene sprockets is to be aware that the ‘silent’ bands will bed-in over the first few miles. Initially the chain side-plates ride up on the hard plastic bands before sinking in – changing the effective diameter of the chain’s run around the sprocket ……. this means your chain adjustment has to be monitored more carefully at the beginning Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid Ognibene 8098-45 rear sprocket and DID ZVM-X chainand will no doubt require a couple of tweaks. Once everything beds-in I guess it’s business-as-usual with regards to the long intervals between adjustments that I like about the DID chain.

New chain and rear Ognibene sprocket courtesy of Motrag at a very competative price. Unfortunately they could only supply the 17 tooth front, not the 16 tooth…… that may change in time.

Cam chain tensioner – Part 3 ….. Judgment Day!

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid cam timing chain tensioner AP0236252 AP0236253A few days ago the two new cam (timing) chain tensioners (AP0236253) arrived ……. and as if she knew, the Capo started to rattle the rear cylinder for a second or two at almost every start-up! So as soon as we got home yesterday, it was off with the bike kit and into the workshop-wear and time to seriously twiddle some spanners.

Thankfully the rear tensioner is nice and easy. Fuel tank up, pop out a couple of spark plugs to make rotating the rear cylinder to top-dead-center nice and easy, then rummage under the wiring on the right hand side and find the cap requiring a 6mm hex-key.. Remove the cap and the copper washer underneath and then use something pointy to hook the tensioner out enough to get a grip with podgy fingers.

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid AP0236252 cam timing chain tensioner INA F-46807The tensioner shows definite signs of movement and rotation and the plunger could be pushed in about 1/2 its travel ….. I think FUBAR best describes it! The new tensioner was oiled up and before it was dropped into the motor I did a little experiment. Both old and new parts were flushed and filled with new 15w/50 and gently pinched in a vice. The new tensioner remained snug for a long time, only a small amount of oil could be seen coming out ….. next up the old one. This remained snug for no more than 1-2 minutes and oil could be seen leaking from it the second it was compressed. So all in all a major difference in performance between old and new.

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid cam timing chain tensioner AP0236252 AP0236253After a few more jobs were carried out, it was buttoned together and warmed up …. no rattles and in fact the idle was smoother than it has been in a while.

The tensioner that came out is an original Mk1 (AP0236252) that was superseded by the new version a good few years back. From what year they were fitted as standard I don’t know. Looking closely at the old one I found ‘INA F-46807’ printed around the edge. I can’t find much about it unfortunately. However ……..

……. I did find something that might be of interest. It looks like the tensioner fitted to the BMW 650 (late models) and F700/800 bikes could well be the same. Now this can only be corroborated by direct comparison, so I might tout the other new Aprilia one around a few BMW dealers to see if I can find out if they match. If they do fit, then they are available for substantialy less than the £68 each from Aprilia.