Friday 5 October 2007

First Month Back and a New Chrome Visor

It’s been a while.

Oh, don’t worry, I’ve still been scooting, but I’ve been so busy with school starting up that I just haven’t had time to blog during the last couple of weeks.

I’ve settled into a bit of a routine to start off the school year. I ride my bicycle on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It’s about 7 or 8 kms but there’s lots of hills so it takes me about 25 minutes. I’m fortunate to have a shower at my school so I just get up in the morning, grab a quick breakfast, and head out the door.

Thursdays, I head out the door in the morning, hop on the scooter and meet up with a couple of colleagues at Starbucks for a casual breakfast. I’m ready to ride the scooter by Thursday as I seem to get home a lot earlier when I scoot. On Fridays, I also take the Vespa.

If I have an appointment (doctor, dentist, etc.) I take the Vespa on that day - I hate arriving at an appointment all sweaty and I’m paranoid about my bicycle, a Cannondale, getting stolen.

Anyway, when I arrived home tonight, I decided to tackle a project that I had been avoiding the past couple of weeks.

I had read on the BlogLX site about a slick looking chrome visor for the front headlight made by the Jettin company. I ordered the visor and waited in anticipation. In the meantime, I had the flat tire fiasco and lost a little confidence in my mechanical aptitude. And then....


I took out the chrome piece from the shipping box. It is truly chrome, not a hunk of shiny plastic, and was well packaged. There were instructions but they were for a GTS even though the visor is specifically for an LX. However, they are pretty similar so that’s OK.



I took out all the screws I could find on the headset cover and I proceeded to the pulling off the cover step. This proved to be the most difficult, as I had to bend the headset cover back and forth several times and in several directions. I was getting a bit discouraged when a loud noise - sort of a cross between a crack and a crunch - issued forth from the left side and the cover came free.


I then disconnected all the wires and took it into the kitchen to finish taking it apart and installing the cover. It only took me about four tries to get it lined up properly (this is good for me) and then I proceeded to put everything back on.

When I replaced the cover, I was again a bit discouraged as the left side was quite loose. Luckily, once all the screws were back in, it tightened up fine.


Now that it’s installed, I really like the look of the visor. It’s just a little modification but I think it looks outstanding - a really sporty addition. And,. overall, a pretty successful mechanical adventure!

8 comments:

Conchscooter said...

It also prevents light being thrown up in the event you add a windhshield.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I've got a same one but I gave up installing... It's hard to fix it between the light unit and headset cover. do you have any advice?

I've tuned the podcast yesterday. what a nice voice you have! I can't speak calmly like you.
do you have any advice? LOL

vespajitsu said...

Nice going Dave, it sound like your as mechanically gifted as me lol!
I also have the Jettin chrome visor, and conchscooter is right about it keeping the light off your flyscreen. Plus I like the look of it, but it was a bit of a PITA to install.

Dave Dixon said...

conchscooter
What, there's an actual use for this shiny bit of fun? Cool!

kuni
I used tape to hold the visor in place - that actually worked pretty well!

And, I wasn't all that calm. Maybe it's all those years of teaching...

codyandmichelle
Yep, it's a pain to install but looks sweet!

Joe said...

You've got more courage to take something on like this than I do.

Dave Dixon said...

joe

Hey, believe me, if I can do this, anyone can!

Anonymous said...

Hello Dave. Just stumbled across your blog. Well done! I'm adding a link to it on mine. Stop by sometime: scooters.spaces.live.com

Dave Dixon said...

Andy

Thanks for the link and the kind comment. Back at you with a link! Good blogging.