I came across this SV while scanning eBay for some SV related bargain. I think I like it.

Ebay link here

I recently recieved this email from Roman in Slovakia. I had to know more.

Hi John,
I am Roman, my bike is in attachment, my letter to Chris is below, your great job is on your pages. This is amazing what you do. I don´t want to be annoying.
I am SV owner, during winter bike rebuilder and occasional www.motoride.sk (amateur) reporter (nick name Romoto). If you have time for few words, confirm , please, this e-mail.
Regards
Roman

The Chris Roman is referring too is Chris Baker who built the MV-SV many moons ago based on the original SV.

Here's the image Roman sent, I think the bike looks stunning.

You can read about it more here and check out the photostrip that runs down the right hand side for even more images. The webpage is in Slovak but you can run it through Google translate to get a better idea of the work involved.

It happens now and again. You jump in your car or bike start the engine and drive off without much thought, you take vehicles for granted. I did much the same last Thursday, I started the SV and let it warm up while I got my gear on. I started to push the bike out of the drive and noticed that she was mis-firing and soon after ran on a single cylinder. Bugger. I'd no idea what the problem was and no time to look, so I left the bike in the sun hoping that water or moisture from the weekend clean would clear any dampness in the spark plug area.

It was no better that evening. Checking the heat of the header pipes proved that the front cylinder was fine, the back was luke warm. Nothing I could do about this for the time being, it would have to wait till the weekend.

Of course during that period all sorts of things were going through my mind. Pulling out the wiring loom last year was a pain and you don't know what else you disrupt in the process. I know I managed to bend the tags on the left hand coil and maybe that's broken, on the other hand it could be as simple as a duff plug.

So to cut a long story short. It was a duff plug. No spark, zilch. It was also wet in fuel, so that ruled out a fuelling issue.  I always keep the previous set of plugs as spares, you never know. Cranking the bike over with the spare plug pressed against an engine bolt showed that the coil was fine and plug was inserted and engine ran okay.

I took the opportunity to reroute the rear HT lead as it was under tension from other wiring. The coil for this cylinder is on the right, so not the one that bent the tags on. I also noticed that the pipe from the front throttle body was not attached to the air pressure sensor, so that was quickly attached. I can't say that I noticed any performance issues, but my friend Ray commented last summer that he could smell unburnt fuel when following me, maybe this was why.

Moral of the story. Keep a spare plug. This plug had only covered 2.5k miles. I shall be packing one for my France trip later this year. I'm just glad that this plug failed in my drive and not miles from anywhere.

John

PS I was hoping to take the bike out for spin today, but we've had another dump of snow. I'll be glad to see the back of this winter.

I thought it was last weekend. Some sunshine and later sunsets were stirring the my biking soul and I rushed out to buy a new battery for the SV. I also gave the old girl some TLC in the form of a clean and a check over. Did I get a chance to ride her, no. What with neighbours and tree pruning.  The Sunday was cold and miserable plus the weekly demand of football killed off any spare time. Monday was nice, so a quick jaunt into Shrewsbury for work. Tuesday was a reminded that spring isn't here just yet and I got soaked coming home and caked in mud too. Today as I write this, it's trying to snow. Hmph!

Ed was asking what mods and updates I'd made to the bike this year, does a new battery count? Actually there is one mod, a Stainless steel rear wheel nut that I spotted on Ebay. It looks far nicer than the original which has turned that nice brown poo colour. Only a £5 and the seller has them for lots of other bikes too. Just a pity about the colour of the axle :(  Note also the Stainless side plates that Biblio sells on the forum. They're an improvement over the standard rubbish too.

Plans for summer trips are now in the final stages. June looks like it's going to be busy. The first weekend we're off to Ypres for a long weekend and some ww1 and ww2 site seeing. We realised that the last French trip to Brest a couple of years ago was too much for a weekend. We spent all our time riding. This year we want the balance back in favour of riding and being a tourist. What's to point of charging through the scenery at 90mph if you miss beauty of it.

I would like to attend the AR this year, it's been a few years and the early date for AR13 suits me better. I'm also allergic to camping, getting a tent out is like performing a rain dance, the memories of the AR in whiltshire that Fizz and co organised is still painful. So looks like a B&B this time.

No other news at this time except that DarlyB is now officially a Granddad. Pipe and slippers have been organised. Congrats to Frankie.

Bi for now

John.