After the restoration: 13200-mile service
Monday, Oct 2, 2006
Yeow! It's taken almost a year to put less than 1500 miles on the bike. Not surprising, I guess, as I typically put about 12K miles/year on my bikes and since I got my R1200GS I'm putting that much on that bike, alone. Oh well.
Anyway, I'm at 13,071 miles and have 30 hours on the engine since last service. The CCCBBQ is this weekend so want to do the serice now, instead of 500 miles or so later.
The first step, as always, is to pull the tools out of the in-tank tool box. I try to do all of my normal maintenance using the on-bike tools. I will have to go to the tool-chest for things like torque wrenches and big hammers. I see that my cloth tool roll is beginning to fray in spots.
The bike is cold so I'll start with valves and timing. The first thing I notices when I pulled off the front cover was a wear spot where the clutch cable has apparently rubbed against the cover. The second image shows that the clutch cable is held to the frame with a cable tie. There is also wear on the sheath of the cable just below the cable tie. Hmmm. Perhaps a second cable tie is needed.
The spark plug on the left was pretty black. The plug on the right was nearly as bad. The bike was idling for a minute or two to use up the gas in the carbs before shutting it off Saturday, so I suspect the idle air circuit is a bit rich. I look at the carb settings after valves and timing are done.
The left side valves were near perfect. I tweaked the exhaust because it was maybe 1/2 a thousand too tight; didn't touch the left side intake valve. The right side, on the other hand, had both intake and exhaust valves quite tight. This is the same head that I did some work on last service. I re-torqued it for good measure and then set the valves.
That's all I had time for today. I cleaned the plugs, checked the gaps and put the plugs and valve covers back on the bike. Tomorrow I'll check timing, take a ride to warm up the bike to check the carbs, and change the oil.