Today I ordered a $1.25 bolt from Germany.
I spent my day today doing a ritual which repeats itself every four months: scheduled maintenance day. Every 6,000 miles, the F650GS maintenance schedule recommends you check a bunch of things, but most importantly it’s time to replace the oil, oil filter, and air filter. With my bike being a single-cylinder thumper, parts are bound to shake loose or go missing as I discovered today:
Removing the body work
The F650GS is a mess of plastic fairings. In order to change the oil, look at the battery, and look at the air filter, you have to remove a total of 16 bolts. In a car, it’s normally just one.
While removing the body work, I noticed the bottom left fairing screw was missing. It’s not the first time it’s gone on vacation, so I already had spares in stock.
Changing the oil
Changing the oil on the F650GS is a messy 3-stage affair: remove the upper drain bolt, remove the lower drain plug, and then remove the oil filter. The first thing I noticed while loosening the upper oil tank was that the bolt in the top-left was missing entirely:
I called my dealer to see if they had them in stock, but it seems that they had to order them from Germany. WTF. It’s just a simple torx plug. Well, if my bike ran fine without it, what’s another week of waiting? Oddly enough, the spacer was still there.
The lower drain plug provided no such drama:
However, when I installed the bash plate back on, I noticed this bolt was completely loose, at the point of falling off. I’m not sure what the screw did other than hold the rear shock to the engine case, but it was easy to tighten it. The space was however so cramped enough that it took me 15 minutes to remove my socket wrench:
Air filter
Now that I have the right screw head for the air filter, removing it was no problem:
The airbox was completely soiled in oil, as it has been every time I have done the 6k maintenance. I scrubbed it out with some paper towels, and renewed the air filter using the K&N cleaner and oiling kit.
Wiring in the Zumo 550
One overdue item was to remove the rats nest of wiring I installed two years ago for some external lights that I never used:
I hijacked the battery terminal connectors from a battery charger I killed, and spliced in the Zumo 550 connectors with the help of a pair of pliars and some electrical tape. Unfortunately, the GPS stays on even if the engine is off. This GPS is really slick with it’s bluetooth integration, voice synthesis of the street names, and the ability to play MP3′s:
Power testing
When I warmed up the bike before the oil change, I heard a strange metallic rattling. I decided to worry about it later, so when it cropped up again after I put everything together, I used my ear to hunt for it. It ended up being this heat protection plate mounted to the catalytic converter pipe:
Chain cleaning & tightening
Ever since I put the 17″ front wheel on, I’ve been putting off cleaning the chain. I just could not get the bike up on it’s center stand, and cleaning the chain on the side-stand is just an exercise in frustration. I e-mailed John (indigoid), and he assured me it’s entirely doable, it just takes an extra tough of effort. Sure enough, it went up without any issue!
While cleaning the chain, I noticed that it had a little too much slack in it. Adjusting the chain on the F650GS is a particular pain because you have to line up the indicators on the left and right swingarms pretty close to exactly:
For the first time, I used Motorex 622 Chain Lube instead of my regular Motul Chain Lube Road. The Motul was completely invisible, but put a weird feeling coat on anything you accidently sprayed (such as your hands). The Motorex is white and foamy, which while it looks a bit weird, makes it easy if you are over-spraying things.
Coming up..
I have a few outstanding things to do maintenance-wise, but I’m waiting for parts. I’m overdue a refresh on the fork oil (waiting on a new o-ring), and brake fluid change (waiting on my speed bleeders to come in). I’ll most likely get it done the next weekend. Until then, it’s nice to have everything buttoned back up:
She could sure use a wash. =)
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