On Sunday, the ever-helpful Weeksy dropped the bike back to mine, time to start work.
When I rode it, I noticed one or two electrical issues, no horn, brake light or indicators, bars were in the fully forward position and the suspension was unbalanced, rear soft/front stiff. Plus, I wanted to give it a full service, so I know where it is oil change wise and be happy all is good.
The bike was first registered in 2012 and only 77 hours / 2200 miles showing on the clocks, some bits look like that is true, others not so much, the MOT history shows that in 2016 it had only done 840 miles and since then the mileage has been minimal per year. The owner’s manual that came with it has pencilled in settings from 2013 so somebody did somebody set up work on it.
No wonder the forks were stiff, rebound five clicks more than any recommended setting, compression the same in one leg the other leg five clicks softer. Set all to standard, preload back to standard. Rear shock, again odd settings so back to standard. Went to check front tyre pressure – 0 psi, yet the tyre is hard-ish. Valve out and poke a screwdriver down the hole – mousse – result. Check rear – no valve at all – mousse – result. (Mousses are big spongy round things that going in the tyre so you don’t need an inner tube and can’t get punctures
). Happy about that, saved me about £250.00.
Brake pads, good in front, nearly new in rear – more result.
On to oil change, while the bike is warming up, run through electrics – yup – no indicators, brake lights or horn.
Dump the oil, sump plug has sludge on it but no metal chunks,
drill sump and oil screen mesh for lockwire (peace of mind as the cases are thin so easy to strip threads, can use minimum torque on tightening).
I use a white enamel baking tray to catch the oil so I can see anything untoward in the old oil. And there was, quite a few black lumps. They were non-metallic lumps of black crumbly gunge. I’m hoping they were congealed lumps of the crap that’s normally suspended in the oil that had settled out through non-use. We’ll see on the next change, which will be in 15/20 hours’ time.
On to the electrical issues, seat off and woah, all the wires are labelled – impressed. Check the fuses – all good. Check foot brake switch – good. Take the headlight mask off – the usual proper birds nest mess of wires - ☹ all labelled up -
check front brake light switch – all good. Make up a couple of jump cables, check rear light and brake light – all good. Scratch head, have cold drink, check wiring diagram.
Ok, time to go deeper, there’s also an extra bit of wiring that’s been added but not connected, so it’s tank off time. I’ll do fuel filter while I’m there. Tank off and ooh, somebody’s fitted a fancy big fuel filter with cleanable element. Nice. Whip that apart, give filter a squirt or two of brake cleaner and on with the wiring mystery – it’s an extra circuit up to behind headlight, could be for heated grips?
Check some more wires, all good. Draw wiring diagram on a piece of paper - got to be fuse, it’s the only common on those circuits. Change fuse for a different one and everything works, gaaarrrgh! There’s a tiny crack in the duff fuse, works sometimes, not others.
Oh well, problem solved, so while I’m there open all the connections and spray with GT85.
A bit, well lots of fiddling, filing and cutting and now the air cleaner side panel fits and stays clipped on (aftermarket plastics ☹ ). A good day’s work, all that’s left is to clean the air filter, oil it and we’re good to go.
All in all, I’m very pleased with the bike. At some stage it’s had some time spent on labelling wiring and sensible mods. We’ll see it goes in a couple of weeks on it’ first day out on the lanes.
20220729_200958 by crust, on Flickr
). Happy about that, saved me about £250.00. 
)
) minor fettling, but will be fighting fit again in good time for our next outing , am looking forward to it (as I imagine you are too