Why no progress on the car? I've been working on the house! The Aga Little Wenlock wood burning stove has been installed on a South African granite hearthstone and the whole room redecorated. The colour scheme and blinds (yet to be fitted) were designed by Design House Winchester who also supplied the Little Greene paint.

Thanks to Mark Pyke of Dog House Designs for doing an excellent job on the floor. The floor is 21mm Hadlow Oak engineered boards with a 6mm wear layer. It is laid on Duralay Timbermate Excel underlay. 

We are gradually getting the living room back together.

CF100 coax has been run around the room concealed by the scotia for the cable TV.
Next the hall......

Sylva website is down due to technical issues. For now, the content can be viewed here.

Urban Tune! No its not genre of popular music, it is a new type of ECU map for Triumph Bonneville / Thruxton / Scrambler.
The Triumph ECU inhibits start if the battery voltage drops below 12.6 Volts. Why? I have no idea! There is plenty of juice to start the engine. Anyway, what happens is when you try and start the bike it goes through its normal process, fuel pump screeches into life, warning lights come on, all good so far. When the start button is pressed, a relay clicks, the fuel pump stops and the warning lights go out. After about 5 seconds the pump and lights come back on.
A lot of contradictory information about this issue exists on the internet some suggesting bypassing the ECU start inhibit, others removing the left hand side panel and shorting out the solenoid with a coin! This is where "Urban Tune" enters the scene.
Some say that Urban Tune is a myth, others claim that it lowers the voltage threshold and others that it prevents the ECU from being powered on after the engine has stopped. So I called Three Cross where I bought the bike. Never heard of it! Must be a faulty relay, solenoid or starter, we'll pick the bike up on Monday. Hmm. I then phone up Triumph. To my delight I got to speak to someone knowledgeable. He confirmed that there is a Map called "Urban Tune" for my Bonnie. The only difference with this map is that it immediately powers down the ECU - according to Triumph. Anyway, I phoned 3X back again informing them that I'd contacted Triumph and that I wanted Urban Tune to be installed. They then admitted that it does exist and will install it FOC. Why not 'fess-up first time?

I must admit to being a bit disappointed. It seems that when Triumph converted the Bonnie from carbs to EFI, they located the ECU in the battery bay and installed a smaller battery! Then they program the ECU to inhibit start with a ludicrously high battery voltage threshold. Why, to protect the regulator / alternator? The Emerald ECUs I use in cars will operate down to 10 volts. Then to compound the issue it seems that the ECU remains powered up after the engine is stopped. Again why? I'll try "Urban Tune" and hope it restores faith in my Triumph.

The obvious solution is to put the bike on trickle charge to maintain its condition. However I don't have electricity in my garage! So I'm going to try an Oxford Solariser battery charger. I must admit I'm not convinced this will actually work. Watch this space......