I have grip envy, those new grips are lovely!

Also, I'll have to look at my heater mounting, that is much neater than mine.

There seems to havwe been quite a lot of variation in the quality of these handgrips, made from 'cold poured' Polyurethane, a two-pack compound from Devcon called 'Flexane 80' The number denotes the hardness, 70 and 90 are also avaialable, it's the 'Shore A' hardness scale and skateboarders will immediately recognise that 80 is on the soft side for skateboard wheels, which tend towards 90 (cue irelevent asides about Kryptonics and other very fast, big soft 80A wheels...)

I'm pretty sure this quality issue has to do with shelf life of the Flexane product, the evidence suggests that some original Voyager grips were made from 'old' Flexane and then as this stock in some local Powys supplier was used up it was replaced by a fresh batch that worked much better. Shelf life is only six months so it's worth buying from a dealer with a good turnover, and it's always possible to check the batch number with Devcon if there's any doubt at all. This shelf life limitation applies to most PU products, including the excellent 'Sikaflex' PU mastic. Ironically, once cured, 'in-date' PU is pretty much eternal, unaffected by UV or reality in general.

The original grips on 04 had deteriorated, showing the chracteristic 'crazy paving' surface cracking typical of the poor quality batch and the left hand grip had started to split away from the metal internal 'skeleton', revealing poor preparation and that the wrong size tube has been used. Degreasing and grit blasting is essential to get good adhesion to any metal structure. Regrettably Flexane is also expensive, the 1 lb. (!) pack, enough for a pair of grips costs just over £50 (2017) and when the turned metal mounting shank, fabrication and labour are added a pair of grips costs £125.

This photo also give an idea of the dense packaging which is the curse of all the Voyagers including FJ. The 850 Reliant/Guzzi powertrain is a big lump with many far from ideal component locations. Almost all the engine accessories - alternator, waterpump, even the fuel pump impose critical clearance problems. The big open space between the heater, seat nose and carburetor is about to be filled with an airfilter/airbox which will make it look tidy but obstruct access to almost eveything else. My one regret is that we didn't get to build an all-electric Voyager which would have been so much easier to packcage!