Motor_hobby You arrived at a part of my internet-site that is dedicated to other items than Amateur Radio hobby or HAM-radio. This part is describing one of my other hobbies: Driving motorbike. It started back 1993 when I passed the exams and was able to buy me my first bike. I was very much attracted to the big V-twins type of motor, not only because of the lazy drive-style but also because of the beautiful sound it gives from the exhaust. I decided to go for one of the biggest cubic inch bikes available at that time, a Suzuki Intruder VS1400. This was the Japanese answer to the very famous Harley Davidson bikes. The bike has 1400cc and a torque of 105Nm available at low RPM figures. This were back in 1993 great figures, but nowadays bikes of well over 1800cc is common for Japanese V-twins.    The above pictures Suzuki Intruder served me until 2008 without trouble. It needed little care and found a new owner now. Early 2008 I decided to change and wanted a more active driving style. I studied various models and wanted to change from the Intruder into a Honda Varadero XL1000V. This again is a V-twin type of bike, 1000cc and somewhat more horsepower compared to the VS1400. After using the Varadero for some time, a problem turned up. Sometimes, without warning, the engine stalls and was very hard to start again. Touching the trottle after restart immediate lets the engine to stall again. This was investigated and after consulting various forum-sites, the direction to look for was the fuelpump. Below, some pictures of the Varadero fuelpump repair (Varadero brandstofpomp reparatie) is shown. This repair is possible thanks to other Varadero as well as Transalp drivers that already experienced the same problem with this old-fashioned Mitsubishi pump: Varadero XL1000V and Transalp Fuelpump problem solved: (Keywords: Mitsubishi fuelpump failed after 30.000km) Some time ago there was a problem with my Honda Varadero XL1000V. From time to timethere were engine problems, were suddenly the engine stopped running. After trying to restart, the engine sometimes ran for several hundreds of kilometers but than out of the blue is stopped again. I consulted farious forum sites and discovered this was a wellknown issue for the XL1000V as for the other simular engines from Honda like the Transalp. It was the fuelpump (branstofpomp). This is a very old system pump, were a coil pushes against a membrane. Every movement of the membrane pumps a small amount of fuel towards the carburators and at the same time the coil current is interrupted. This caused corrosion in the contacts inside the pump. After some 30.000 km the contacts are so worn out that they do not make a good contact anymore. The pump stops working. Some people use a small U-shaped piece of copper tube for situations like this to repair. This solution only works when the tank is filled completely and works fine until 3/4 of the fuel is used. The fuel pushes towards the carburators now only due to gravity. I choose a differend approach, one that is also found done by others. I replaced the bad contacts by new contacts and made an external relay under the seat. This external relay is now activated by a very small current through the original (repaired) contacts of the fuelpump. The big advantage is that the small current does not harm the replaced contacts inside the fuelpump anymore. the cheap external relay takes the task. Some adviced to replace the original Mitsubishi fuelpump by another type. I tried this, but I can say: use the original or repair the original. My replacement fuelpump (QH) did not work in my situation and costed me 80 Euro. Here you can find a few pictures of my repair. The last one shows the replaced contacts taken from an old High-Power relay from the industry. I did not use the original method of rivets, but I soldered the new contacts in place. You can also see there are now 4 wires to the fuelpump. Two are for the coil, two are from the contacts. The coil inside the fuelpump is powered by the additional 5 Euro relay that is installed under the seat. This relay is activated from the original contacts inside the fuelpump. In the above picture I show the replaced two contacts from an old industrial relay. These new contacts are soldered in place. There is someone in Austria that is also able to repair the fuelpump for you for a small amount of money (40 Euro or so). Please find in the internet in forums more details like the new electrical wiring. In the pictures shown here: Blue and Green go to the external relay, Black and Red are the fuelpump coil. New exhaust system (October 2010): I have used the Varadero XL1000v now for 3 years and still had the original exhaust system. After search on the internet and viewed some youtube video's, I decided to buy a new LeoVince SBK system and wanted to install it myself. Should'nt be difficult right...?! The rebuild started by taking the parts from the bike that blocked the access to the original exhaust. The seat and the rear bracket for the lugage-trunk came off easy. Next the brackets for the side-trunks as well as the side-covers needed to be removed to be able to unscrew the bolts that hold the mufflers to the frame Here you see the left-side muffler as well as the front-pipe came off. Time to install the new muffler...It starts with mounting the front-pipe and after that the muffler. Installation of the muffler done! Up to the right side and do the same stuff again... Both sides done, after a few hours of work. Now the covers and the seat can be mounted and off for a testdrive! The only trouble I found is the rack for the side-trunks. They do not fit and must be changed slightly. Anyway, I don't use the trunks a lot and can do without them for now.