Wheel Work

• Clean wheels & sprocket carrier, and remove old bearings & seals.
- I've thought about painting the wheels black - it would suit my colour plan - but when the paint starts to chip (which it inevitably would, with tyre changes etc.), it'd look crap. So I'll just leave them plain alloy. Or will I? How do other bikes with painted wheels get away with it? Decisions, decisions...
• Fit new bearings & seals.
• There are quite a few guys who have replaced front and/or rear wheels (and even suspension parts) with parts from other bikes to improve tyre choice and handling. For a few reasons I don't want to do that...
  - I don't have the mechanical expertise to do the work myself, so it would cost me a fortune.
  - I personally don't think the FJ's handling is all that bad, and as I've said elsewhere, my style of riding probably wouldn't exploit the difference.
  - Compared with the state of the old suspension on my FJ, my planned replacements will surely make a massive improvement anyway... surely?...

Tyres

• As I said above, I think the FJ's standard sizes are fine. No, I've never ridden an FJ with a 130 front & 180 rear, but for me, the difference wouldn't justify the effort.
• When I bought my FJ, there was a pair of Avons on it. The best thing I can say about them is that at least they were a pair. Don't ask me which Avons they were - at the time I wasn't interested enough to pay attention. To be fair, both were squared off and had bugger all tread left. So I had them changed soon after I bought the bike. My third set of tyres are still on the bike and have a load more miles on them yet. Below is my tyre history. There was 36,000 on the clock when I bought it and there's 76,000 on it now, and of course, these are only my opinions...

(Yes, they did all wear in pairs... pretty much... more or less.)

* This was my most enthusiastic, agressive period with the bike, so I still think 9000 miles is good wear.

• The MEZs have worn pretty evenly. With 15,000 mls on them now, there's still legal tread left, but I guess after lying idle for over a year, the wise move would be to replace them. With what I don't yet know - a lot may have changed in the tyre industry in a year.

Brake Work

Being an 88 FJ, the brakes on mine are four-piston jobs, which I have to say are just adequate for the bike. On such a heavy bike with this much power on tap, you sometimes have to brake pretty hard. In all but these instances the brakes are fine, but for more confidence, and to reduce my reliance on cadence braking, I plan a major overhaul of both front & rear brake systems.