Terry

PVC pipe is all I have ever used. I have a piece of Marley uPVC 50mm Electrical Conduit about 600mm long; 50.0mm OD and 44.0mm ID. This has been great for the 41mm forks on the 99 and also worked fine on 43mm forks. I have put some longitudinal cuts in and can even use the same piece for the 45mm forks on my ST1300.

Feel the seal lips on the inside, and aim the sharper side downwards. The seal needs to scrape oil downwards. If the seal is inverted it will appear to seal initially but will weep fluid in use. DAMHIK. In general there should be some label info like a part number or similar and that is usually on the dry side of the seal i.e. uppermost. I've seen seals with springs on both sides, but one side has a deeper gap between the inner and outer parts and the other a shallow gap; the deep side should be downwards. The diagram below from AllBalls illustrates this nicely.

My guess would be the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.

More importantly...when you refit the cover, you need to ensure that the speedo drive coupler mates nicely with the sprocket bolt head; very easy to damage the coupler if it is not clocked as needed. Also...the hydraulic clutch piston will quietly easy out of the cylinder when it is off the bike; a g-clamp can be used to keep it at home.

A clock resetting when you start the bike is a classic symptom of a dying battery.

Boonstra Parts shows a complete used fork in stock. Looks a bit ratty but nothing that paint wouldn't fix. Can you not get your fork leg straightened? Usually as long as there is no sharp kink just a bend, they can be fixed easily. https://www.boonstraparts.com/en/part/honda-vfr-800-fi-1998-2001-vfr800fi-rc46-front-fork-1998/000001023433

100% agree that this is a failed regulator. If the battery is cooking, you are also overloading other components in your electrical system.

I can sort of understand the concerns. If you jump on Aliexpress and search for H4 LED for example, you will find bulbs with an H4 base that might have the emitters placed in the correct place to mimic a halogen bulb, but also bulbs that have emitters placed practically anywhere that will provide a truly awful beam pattern. I don't believe brightness is the concern, but poor aiming/pattern and the resulting dazzle are certainly reasonable reasons to reign in the careless.

I understand the UK MOT regulations got updated recently so that any bulb can be used provided the tester is satisfied that the pattern meets the original specifications. Over here we are still stuck with the rule that says you can't fit an LED bulb if the housing was originally fitted with a halogen bulb, which means I need to switch my LEDs out for dim orange bulbs whenever it is WOF time.

^^ this is why you were called, Graeme.

The possible reason for the original fuse blowing is the brake light wires on the front brake lever. If the lever is rotated down too far, the connectors can contact the handlebar and cause a short, this happened to my 5th gen a few weeks back. I'm not sure why that would leave the hazard lights out however. Paging @Grum

Yep; every day under our current regime is just like a scene from 1984: "The story takes place in an imagined future, the year 1984, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and propaganda. Great Britain, known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, ruled by the Party, who employ the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking.[5] Big Brother, the dictatorial leader of Oceania, enjoys an intense cult of personality, manufactured by the party's excessive brainwashing techniques." Whoops, must go, a big truck from the Ministry of Truth has just stopped outside my hovel....

Yes, that is our standard "chip seal", you can see it under my ST1300 about 100km south of Auckland. Apparently, it is VERY cheap. There's a few roads where they have used a decent asphalt which are gloriously smooth by comparison, and last much longer. The chip seal is very abrasive and possibly accounts for the feeble tyre mileage local riders get; I don't think I have ever got more than 10,000km from a back tyre, normally by 8k they are done. The chip seal suffers really badly from tar bleed when it gets hot, then the grippy stones disappear and we get left with glassy tar with close to zero wet weather traction. If you hit that stuff in a bend in the wet, even a decent Pilot Road 6 ain't gonna save you...

I have only just changed out the 11-year old Pilot Road 2 on the front of my VFR. TBH it felt fine until I had what I perceived as a scary moment when I dabbed the back brake while cornering quite hard and felt the front slip sideways. I initially put this down to a combination of linked brakes and an old tyre, but subsequently found out there was gravel in the bend. After that I decided a new front tyre was an inexpensive confidence booster. I rode my ST1100 on similar age Continentals when I got that, and they worked absolutely fine aside from being the wrong profile. If the tyre looks alright (not cracked/perishing) and warms/softens as it should, I will keep on using it.

The image shows the stuck open thermostat from my last VFR. The gap between the upper ring and the plate above the spring is what opens when immersed in hot coolant. When cold there *should* be no gap here. The brass coloured tube is where the expansion and contraction happens, I presume there is a wax pellet in there like the fast idle wax unit has on the later bikes. When hot, the plate will move downwards away from the upper ring. For a fun science experiment (when your wife is out) you can boil some water in a pot and dip your thermostat in and watch the magic happen before your eyes. Then remove it and run it under cold water and watch it close. Or, if your thermostat was like mine, just swear at it and order a new one.