ST4sABS
 

Picked up my new yellow wonder yesterday and the weather gods were with me. Sunny all day, fairly warm. Put on about 300 kilos after leaving the dealer at 11. Nice riding and can't wait to get the engine broken in. Did a lot of variation from toll way to back roads and some traffic splitting. ABS is a little spongy, but easy to get used to. Ohlins and Showa combi is great, very compliant on all road surfaces. Seat is good for distance, engine is strong, handling stable, side panniers not too obtrusive and looks are eye-catching. A joy to ride so far. Couple of things though. Seems it has a tendency to kind of spit and quit around 2000 rpm. I can understand that happening when letting out the clutch at slow speed, but when moving and the clutch is pulled in somewhat (like when rolling up to a changing traffic light) it will just spit (sounds like spitting back up the carbs did on older bikes) and quits. New engine?? Next is the clutch and I think I need to work on my wrist muscles or get a servo. Definitely more work than my 750SS. End of the day had me pretty much using all my fingers to pull the lever in. Good fun. Got pulled over by a stealth patrol car. Guys clocked me at 122kmh, but I told them I was doing way more (actually about 165). They laughed and after some more conversation, they let me go with a warning. THink they liked my bike as tit couldn't be my personality. 165 is grounds for pulling my license on the spot! :barfy:

The clutch thing is common to most modern Dukes i think. It can be reduced to some extent by fitting an after market slave cylinder for about £100. The spluttering is something that both my Ducatis did and it was cured by getting the things set up correctly! My ST2 did exactly what you describe (spitting back), you could feel it though the right hand bar and if the tank was up i could see the smoke!

Thanks Paul,
Talked to the dealer about it and he said they do a full set up again at the 1000 km mark after the engine has been broken in a little. He said that usually cures the problem. I am learning how to control it. Otherwise, I just need to get used to splitting traffic with the side panniers on. Kind of like driving a truck!

If you stand behind the bike i think you will find that the widest part is the mirrors so if you can fit them through a gap then the panniers will follow!!

RIght Paul,
I came into work yesterday through a normal day in Tokyo traffic jam....about 12 km all told. Mirror watching did the trick. I feel a little more confident now. Roads are pretty narrow here so the is less leeway for mistake, but the mental image of my space is getting stronger and my time into work was just an hour, only five minutes slower than a normal run. Going home was a cruise at about 140-150....smooth

It took me a while to get used to it James! The biggest problem i have with the panniers is catching my boot on them as I swing my leg over. They do however make rather effective crash bungs if you ever drop the bike.

yep, boots do get in the way. Really have to be a cowboy and mount it on the run! Don't want to hear about crash bungs though:rolleye: Another thing I hav noticed is the cold start performance. Hit the starter and the engine doesn't really catch, but kind of gallaps along for awhile (10 seconds) so that I can then put on the fast idle. Interesting phenomena.

A friend of mine has a simular problem with spit back, this come in at about 3500 rpm, sometimes it is the CO setting which should be reset during the first service.

Happy New Year from Snowy Japan. Came back from California and had a nice snow storm the next day. Kind of precludes riding for a while. SO, I started to wrench on my new ST4. Decided to take the side panniers off for the time being and see what it is like to ride without having to worry about a big butt.
Anyway, pulling the beast out of my very narrow bike garage, I popped the left mirror off while I was watching to the rear. It seems there would be two springs to this but I only found one. Is this a repairable accident if the spring can be found. If so, any tips on how it is done?

Next, I decided that was not so bad, and continued with the original task. Did the right side alright (a little cold outside though) and moved over to the left. Pulled the screws from the pannier bracket at the bottom on the passenger peg and then undid the exhaust muffler. Tried to bolt that back up to the original bracket and the screw would not go in very easily. Not wanting to strip anything, I pulled it out, moved the exhaust hanger out of the way and inspected the threads in the bracket.....basically very stripped all the way to the other side! I did not even get that far on the initial turns, so I think this was done when mounting the panniers before I picked up the bike at the dealer. Anyone have this kind of problem?

Cheers ( I want to ride this thing while I still have some New Year vacation left!)

Mine dont line up that well and i read a road test in Bike it might have been where they couldnt raise the cans because the holes were so far out of alignment.

Paul,
That is what I thought the problem was originally until I looked in the hole and saw the miserable condition of the threads.

Know anything about the mirrors perchance??

No i'm afraid i dont know about the mirrors. All four mirrors on both of my ST's have had cracks on the undderside of the stalk bit but they never actually fell off.

Re the exhausts, maybe someone has tried to get the bolt in but not managed it and ended up butchering he thread. As a last resort a nut and longer bolt would do the trick.

take it to the dealer tomorrow. They must have put on the pannier and botched it. Probably a misalignment and they just forced it. Will see what they say. Took it out today after the roads became ice free. Pannier on one side, pipe up on the other side, one mirror. Got some strange looks! Good fun though.

Mirrors..... mine is an '01 and only has one spring in each.
Silencers/pipes.....the silencer brackets should have slotted holes where the bracket joins the cans. Try loosening the two mounting bolts off a bit to allow some fore & aft movement then offering your pipe up to the higher mount position - you may find it fits.
I have also known the pipes not to line up properly if the cruciform pipe where the headers join is not aligned correctly.
Cheers
Andy

[Edited on 2-1-2005 by Rushjob]

The 'spitting back' thing is due probably to the throttle position sensor not being correctly set-they should sort it out on the first service. Heavy clutch-'they're all like that sir'.
Exhaust misalinement-as Andy says slacken off the bolt holding the bracket onto the can and you will find they line up no problem.

John

Thnks for the info. Dealer will take care of spitting problem at 1000km check (not too far away, even with snow on the ground:o) and I will look at the bracket today after things warm up a bit. Still need to get the mirror taken care of. Wonder how the thing fits together if there is only one spring??

It just so happens that I have my right hand mirror on my desk in front of me while I wait for it's fresh paint to harden.

There is only one spring. If the mirror popped off it's spring while it was still on the bike, you'll most likely still have the mirror mount bolted onto the bike. You'll need to take bits of the inner fairing off to get to the bolts, undo them and take it off.

You should now be holding a small casting that fits inside the plastic mirror stalk, it has a square hole with a bar going across it. The spring runs down the inside of the forward facing 'leg' of the mirror stalk, so basically you need to push the casting back into the mirror stalk and persuade the end of the spring back over that bar. If you double a piece of string or a thin bit of wire through the spring hook then through the hole in the casting before you fit the casting back into the mirror, you should just be able to pull the string and pop the spring back into place. Since you won't need to tie the string through the spring hook, just letting go of one end of it should let you pull the string out leaving you with a mirror that's all ready to bolt back on the bike.

Excellent Jools,

I will get on it right away. A very detailed description....very kind of you Sir!

Well,
That was sweet. A lot of hassle to get to the mirror bracket, but pretty straightforward. The spring went in easily and I did the whole job in less than an hour. Thankfully, no fairing alignment problems.
THanks again Jools!