billd766

This is scary - you better expect major engine damage! Hope you get a replacement bike. I once destroyed an engine due to not monitoring the oil...

Good luck!

Bill D, maybe you can find a Phantom Owners Group? The enthusiasts know the places for such a job.

Chris

The only Phantom owners group I have found so far were very helpful but unfortunately based in Singapore.

I bought mine in New Zealand last year and enough spares for a couple of years.

I also have a mate over there who can send them and Earl Grey teabags as well.

There was a thread on this a few months ago.

While I don't know the statistics (% of all bike sales etc.) for the Phantom, one cannot help but notice the disproportionate number of Phantoms which are for sale.

Have a garage remove the cylinder head and take a look at the piston ring. Any signs of wear & tear? You could have the ring replaced. In case of excessive wear, why not replace the pistons with 1 oversize and get a rebore with honing and all? Just make sure to take it to a really good shop which is doing such jobs (or has connections to a specialist shop).

Ride on,

Chris

I would like to do something like that for my Phantom which is running very well but the problem is finding the really good shop in the first place.

I have asked on the forum (thread running here http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Honda-Phanto...1#entry3336221) but nobody really seems to know anywhere which makes life not so easy.

Most Honda dealers out in the provinces don't deal with Phantoms but they can get the parts and do basic servicing work though I wouldn't trust my local dealer to strip and rebuild mine, (no real experience) and I don't live near enough to BKK, Chiang Mai, Pattaya etc to pop down there and back in a day as I am 1/2 way between BKK and Chiang Mai.

While I can speak and understand Thai a little bit explaining that I want a re-bore etc is way out of my skill set.

Garmin has just updated Mapsource to 6.15.11. I have downloaded the latest and really can't tell any difference.

I only upgraded a couple of weeks ago to 6.15.7 so I will leave it a while.

there are some great people here too, but they tend to be the more working/responsible kind

raising families, home most nights, sociable and stable. Shame they are more difficult to meet

as they don't tend to 'hang out' as much!

David

You are right, there are lots of nice family types around, but there are plenty of good blokes who are here for the action too (Ian Forbes is a good example). There are good people everywhere if you look hard enough.

Some of us nice Brits don't want to be found which is why we lead quiet lives out in the middle of nowhere with our Thai wives and families.

I went into my local Honda place this morning and asked the price of a new exhaust pipe, thinking that I can get it cut open and take some of the baffles out.

The price of a new Honda Phantom TA 200 is around 88,000 baht and a new exhaust pipe will cost me just over 10,000 baht.

I was polite as I could see the price in their book and luckily I was sitting down as well.

I will take a trip to Khampaeng Phet next week and see if I can find someone to make me a new pipe with less baffles, less back pressure and more noise.

I am using Mapsource 6.15.7 and Windows Vista Ultimate and the latest Rotweiler map works for me too.

I have been coming to, working in and living in Thailand for about 16 years now and I can understand a little of how you feel.

However for me, now retired with a 5 year old son, a good Thai wife with her own business who makes enough to support herself and our son when I die, I can't get enough of Thailand.

I like the food though at times it is too spicy and my body is unhappy with it I can always ask for mai phet kap and get it how I like it.

My wife owns our home and the 20 rai that we live on. I know it can never be mine but so what, I can't take it with me when I die anyway.

Up here in the central region out in the sticks I have not noticed any racism but mainly friendly Thais and not so many farangs an I don't live in a farang ghetto.

My neighbours are Thai and the 2 nearest farangs work offshore and come over 2 or 3 times a year.

Most of the farangs that I know in Thailand are not lazy as they have land and businesses and work hard at it and the others have worked 50 years or so like me and are retired.

I pay mostly the same prices as the locals do for anything I buy.

You say the only reason that you would come back to Thailand would be to see your son though he seems to want to go anyway.

He may have problems back in your home country.

Sorry to see you go but life is really what you make of it.

Sorry to hear of you and your friends problems.

I have a 2005 model which I bought at the end of June last year.

Since then I have clocked nearly 8,500 km and the only problems I have had are the front indicator bulbs have failed a couple of times at 30 baht a time and the main fuse blew at a cost od 5 baht.

I also replaced the saddle with on original as hte one it came with looked very pretty but was too thinly padded for my fat a**.

I have asked around about re-boring it and it looks as though it will not be an easy job.

One suggestion was that I get some baffles removed from the exhaust and this morning I asked at my local dealer the cost of a new exhaust pipe. 10k baht!!!!!!!!!!!

Forget that idea I think.

It is comfortable enough and reasonably cheap to run and it will do me a while yet.

As far as I know mine uses no oil between the 4000 km servicings.

Thanks a lot for that.

I have printed it out which should make life a bit easier.

Does anyone know what boric acid is in Thai.

My local pharmacies may have it but it will probably not be in English

But none of them could hold a candle to Queen and Freddie Mercury

I'm fascinated with billd766's comment about diesel being 9baht per litre in 2001, that's well before I ever visited and I can barely imagine it.

The Ford dealer on Sukhumvit 62 actually put 500 baht in for me so I boldly paid the rest (200 baht) to fill the tank.

I still have the truck with 214,xxx kms on it.

On second thought try the sprockets first, that may be all you need.

Go down a front tooth, or up 2-4 rear. I rented a phantom in Vhiang Rai once and drove to Chiang Saen. I have a feeling the gearing was to tall.

If you find a competent mechanic you wont need a new chain, links can be added/subtracted.

I really encourage trying the sprocket change first. Front will be cheaper.

For example if your currently running:

15/38 =2.5333 ratio

and you try 14/38 =2.7142

you can do 15/42=2.8

In both examples your acceleration will be about 25%-30% quicker.

Sometimes if the ratio is too tall, it will also impede top speed -restricting you unless there is enough torque, at a higher rotation speed it may even be a bit faster, problem is this bike doesn't really like to rev high.

I dont know what your ratio is so this is just an example.

I will try to find out what the ratios are which is probably the easy bit but the hard bit I suspect will be trying to find the competent mechanic.

From asking around it looks as though I will have to go to either BKK or Chiang Mai which is not a big problem.

How about before when there was an oil subsidy fund where the governments of the day subsidised prices from government funds and now they are trying not to do so.

How much does it cost in Europe for oil that probably came from the same hole in the ground.

When I first bought my pickup in December 2001 diesel was just over 9 baht a litre and now it is about 3 times the price.

Fuel in Thailand is still cheap compared to a lot of other countries.

Be thankful

When we moved up here to Klong Lan in the central region we were on the village water but it generally ran out from Feb to May.

I have 2 x 3,000 litre stainless steel tanks for rainwater and drinking purposes only.

For other water usage I had a slab built and put 20 ongs up which gave me around 30,000 usable litres of water.

Fine for most of the time but we had 8 adults and 2 children living here and when friends came as well we tended to run low.

Normal village water was about 3 baht cu/m.

I ran some 1 1/2 inch piping down the side of my land, across my neighbours driveway (buried), across the front of his land, under the road through a drainpipe, across somebody elses land to the klong. I connected my chinese "Honda" water pump to that lot and pumped water about 350 metres to the tanks. It used to cost me about 20 baht per cu/m.

A year or so later I bought a 1300 litre plastic tank and I used to go to the klong about 1 day per week taking 8 return trips with my pickup truck per day and that cost about the same per cu/m but was easier plus I could get a shower at the klong every time to cool down.

My neighbour had water trucked in by tanker and was charged 50 baht cu/m but they run a resort.

Now the village water is pretty much full time so life is easier.

My future plan is to put in a permanent 3 inch pipe and an electric pump to the klong, renting the land if possible but letting the owner use it and dig a collecting pond above my fish pond and pump into that and any overflow can run into the fish pond. From there I need to pump another 300 metres to some storage tanks I haven't built yet and then I can irrigate the whole land plus keep the house water topped up.

I also live on a slope going up to the national park but about 1 metre down is rock and nobody on this side of the road has been able to drill a borehole.

This is probably not relevant, but do you ride a motorcycle? I get this in both hands after a long ride, for quite a few days afterwards. I have a manual clutch so the left and right hands get used fairly equally. The vibrations seem to cause it, and the little fingers suffer the most.

Probably not relevant, but just in case it might be something as simple as that.

I hope you find the cause and get over it soon.

Yes I do ride a motosai and the doctor at Chulalonkorn mentioned that as well.

But I am not giving up

yet

I'd get the bore done, then the chain so you can see what the gain is.

What sprocket ratio are you using now? Going down 4 teeth may be too much. Thats a huge jump, like night and day.

The problem with getting the bore done is actually finding somebody who has already had it done (preferably more than one person if there are more), getting their feedback then finding someone to actually do the job well.

I live about half way between Bangkok and Chiang Mai and so far I have only found 1 guy (in Phuket) who has had it doe and ir took him a couple of weeks.

As far as I know my bike is standard so the sprocket and chain are original.

Thanks for the advice Bina.

I got 3 male puppies (farm style breeds) last Wednesday night unfortunately before I had made a small compound for them.

I feed them 2 or 3 times a day with scrambled egg, boiled rice and some small chopped pork or chicken and make sure there is always water and milk available for them.

Their compound for the present is around 20 sq/m as we have 10 rai and broken fencing everywhere plus we are on a fast road up to the national park.

They will join sam ka our 3 legged dog and hopefully become sort of guard dogs.

All the dogs we have had in Thailand have been outside dogs and one of these 3 will go up to my wife's shop later and become the resident dog there.

She used to have a bitch which had 6 puppies and I was going to get 3 of them but while we were in BKK for a few days somebody stole the bitch and the puppies and also the papaya she had out the back as well.

Thread below is about reviews of the Honda Shadow (Phantom 200) in Australia, one reviewer mentions in the write up that there are restrictor caps in the exhaust, he reckoned he pulled them out and got a power boost, dunno how true that is, or how it would affect engine exhaust vacuum balance, it's a thought though. I considered having a look but the screws where welded solid and it was too hot a day to mess with it. May give it a go though.

http://www.productreview.com.au/showitem.p...0686&next=4

Thanks for that.

Maybe I will find a non stock pipe without baffles and see what that can do.

The noise won't bother me too much as I am a bit deaf in my right ear and most of the noise should be behind me anyway.

Hi Bill, I am trying to source an after market air filter, if you have any success let me know and I will do the same. With regard to the exhaust I will wait until it needs replacing, for now I have knocked out the first baffle. It made it a little more 'throatier' but I didn't notice any improvement in performance other than it can breathe a little bit better.

I have now completed the 'custom' job on my ride, check it out.

Cheers

ImageDude

Yours looks nice.

I will post a picture of mine after I have washed it which should be this month if I make the time.

I have asked around here for uprated tyres and a "special" exhaust and get referred to Khampaeng Phet.

The Honda guy in Nakhon Sawan had no ides about reboring or after market pipes.

Hi Bastogne

Thank you for the further updated information and I really appreciate the work you have put into the reply.

I think now I will leave things alone and the engine as it is.

I was talking to a guy down in Nakhon Sawan about it and he doesn't want to know but suggested "somewhere" in BKK.

At the end of the day I can live with it but it would have been nice if I could have got a bit more out of it for a low price but there is always next year if I keep saving my satangs.

Thank you once again.

I used mine in Singapore, PNG, Australia, New Zealand and the UK and it works all the time there is money in the account.

I have some on My 2005 Phantom and touch wood I hope never to need them for that purpose.

It is nice to know in a way that they work.

I also have footplates for me and the passenger and I find they are very comfortable on a long trip such as to BKK (400 km).

They cost me around 900 baht in a soi off Soi Chulalongkorn in BKK.

You may have finger lock.

It is fairly common though painful at times and you ought to see a doctor.

I am 65 and in my case the ring finger on each hand hurts when I close my hand or try to grip things.

What happens to me sometimes is that the finger will close over and "lock" so that when my hand opens again that finger stays where it is (and hurts) until I move it slightly when it unlocks much like the trigger of a gun when it fires, hence finger lock.

I went to Chulalongkorn hospital in BKK (I live 400km away upcountry) as I was told that they are very good though a public hospital.

It is true that they are overworked but the doctor there spoke English and told me that if I took a course of

1 tablet of Miracid 20 before breakfast and 1 x Voltaren SR 75 plus 2 x Tylenol 500 after breakfast every 6 hours if necessary of the last 2 as pain killers it would slowly get better.

If not I will have to get a steroid injection and if that does not work then a small operation.

I also squeeze a sponge rubber ball about 100 times an hour in each hand which helps.

My hands are slowly getting better and I only take 1 set of pills per day now.

I hope that helps.

Thread below is about reviews of the Honda Shadow (Phantom 200) in Australia, one reviewer mentions in the write up that there are restrictor caps in the exhaust, he reckoned he pulled them out and got a power boost, dunno how true that is, or how it would affect engine exhaust vacuum balance, it's a thought though. I considered having a look but the screws where welded solid and it was too hot a day to mess with it. May give it a go though.

http://www.productreview.com.au/showitem.p...0686&next=4

Thanks for that.

Maybe I will find a non stock pipe without baffles and see what that can do.

The noise won't bother me too much as I am a bit deaf in my right ear and most of the noise should be behind me anyway.