Modern Maintenance

Ratranger

Ratranger

XS650 Junkie
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These new bikes sure need a lot of work just to expose the areas for maintenance. I'm doing the valves and plugs on the tiger and can understand why a dealer charges $700 or so. I'm using the money I save doing it myself to replace the cam chain, tensioner and sliders. I figure its got a little over 100k miles, changing those out is cheap insurance.

I am also shocked at how dirty the air filter is, supposedly about 1k miles before I bought the bike the air filter was changed as well as the coolant and brake fluid. Coolant looks fine, brake fluid is clear, but the air filter is terrible for being new about 3k miles ago. But I do have a uni pre-filter to add that replaces the snorkel.
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I know what you mean, on my old Suzuki V Strom the air box ( like yours is up under the gas tank ) . To check the air filter the gas tank needs to come off and that entails removing a lot of plastic bodywork and disconnecting electrical plugs and of course fuel lines. It was SO inconvenient to do routine maintenance.
 
Yeah. That is part if the reason I invested the $40 in the uni filter that replaces the snorkel. People riding offroad have had the filter in the airbox look new after 20k miles with the pre filter, without it the filter can look pretty bad in 6k or under especially if you are around dust.
 
I just had a similar experience this year, as I was having some fuel related starting problems on my '01 FZ1. Tried everything I could to not have to get into total dismantling the bike, but ended up having to pull the carb bank out of the bike fearing gummed up jets. It was a major process and while it wasn't technically difficult, it required so much tedious work just to be able to access the carbs and pull them out. BTW, the jets looked a little dirty but not too bad really. What the biggest factor for my issue turned out to be was a VERY dirty air filter...somehow I had failed to change it last time I did an oil change... Go figure.

Modern bikes don't make it easy to work on...that's for sure.
 
Yeah, all the more reason to do it all at once. It's not as bad as the ducati I used to have. 6k valve adjustment, 12k replace the timing belts, remove fairing to change oil. Although they did have it set up to where pulling the seat and tilting the tank up to change the air filter took under 5 minutes.

I just found whoever put the spark plugs in the triumph 1. Used gimicky twin fire plugs, and 2. Only had them hand tight. The crush washers are un-crushed.
 
The 748 I had took a pretty good beating, but it by far took more maintenance than anything else I've owned.

Checking everything and the sliders looked pretty good, but I have new ones so they went in, the cam chain was stretched to the max limit, the chain tensioner had no more travel left, and every exhaust valve was tight. Intakes are all good, but they run cooler. The farthest valve out was .15mm, average was .1mm and least was .05mm. Not bad for a bike with 100k miles on it.

Once I have it all back together I'll run it up to temp and then change the oil. I put some assembly lube on the cams just so I don't get a dry start.
 
There was a time I wanted a Ducati badly, I even took a Hyper Motard for a test ride ( which impressed the hell out of me )! What really turned me off was the fact that doing a valve adjustment was above my skill level and the cost of the first major service at a dealership was ( if I remember correctly ) somewhere above $1000 !!
The Phoenix market used to have tons of one year old Ducati’s for sale that were all just shy of their first major service. Guys would unload them , rather than take that hit.
 
Yeah. I actually had a spare set of heads for the ducati. I would adjust all 16 rockers on the bench and swap heads when it was adjustment time. Then every other "adjustment" add another $200 for new belts. It was a great bike, sounded amazing, handled great, but took way too much work. I bet the new panigale is terrible to service, you'd basically tear the bike down all the way since there are just subframes bolted to the heads, and no actual frame.
 
Just wait till you have to replace the starter clutch on that Trunch, Ranger. You'll have lots of fun pulling the motor and splitting the cases.
 
Thankfully they updated the design so you are supposed to be able to replace it without splitting the cases. Plus from reafing the newer engines don't have the problems like the 955 and 1050 did in the past.
 
Lol, all modern bikes except the naked ones can be a right pain to work on. And even then there can be quirks.

Got the tiger back together, next up is to let it warm up and change the oil. Not too bad overall, less noise with the new cam chain. The new crash bars went on well, and I like the look. Time to start really putting some miles on now that I know it's up to par.
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