Maintenance and Bike Prep Tips

Whether it's a brand-new bike or a 200 hour broke in one, proper maintenance is the key to keeping your bike in the best shape possible. How you maintain and store your bike between rides is very important to the overall life of the machine. We have years of experience with the TBI bikes (and a few models before as well) and we'd like to share our shop tips if we could.

Brand New Bike: Take it apart and grease everything!! Yes, before you ride it and before you wash it. The factory cranks out bike after bike and they don't spend the time on your specific bike to grease everything like they should. remove and grease the steering stem bearings, suspension linkage and shock mounts, the wheel bearings and the axles. Set the preload on the steering stem bearings as well. Kind of a "poor man's" steering stabilizer  to settle the front end at speed. Every rider will find a happy spot but you don't want the bars to fall fast on their own. Check every fluid level on the bike: brakes, clutch, coolant, gear oil and add the correct ratio of fresh fuel. Set the rear suspension sag, tire pressures and break the bike in. Breal in for an hour before changing the gear oil and changing the inline fuel filter. then make a maintenance schedule and stick to it. 

Maintenance before every ride: We have a checklist hanging in the shop to make sure we don't get ahead of ourselves and miss anything when prepping a bike for a customer. And we use the same checklist for our personal bikes before a race or a ride. It consists of:

Setting rear sag: 105mm             Bleed Fork Chambers

Tire pressures: 14psi base            Check coolant level

Chain slack: 65-70mm                  Check/Bleed brakes

Swap air filter                                Change gear oil

Change inline fuel filter                  Torque check/true wheels

Torque: Wheels, Lower Triple clamps, Front fork lugs, Top Triple clamps, Steering cross stem, Shifter bolt, Head stays, Sidestand bolt, Subframe bolts, Rear sprocket bolts, Front spindle, Engine mount bolts, Shock mount bolts, Linkage bolts, Swing Arm bolts, chassis/ remaining frame bolts.

We also hit all the plastics with SC-1 so the bike is super shiny and repels as much dirt/mud as possible. We note hours off the meter and write in down in our maintenance log for every motorcycle, sticking to an hour-based maintenance schedule of 10hours max.

 

Maintenance after the ride: Wash your bike as soon as possible!! Don't wait til tomorrow or later! Unload and wash your bike immediately once you get back. Mud, dirt and rust don't wait and will wreck your seal, linkages and plastic as long as you let it. We use the old U.S. Calvary moto of taking care of the Horse, the saddle then the rider. Meaning wash your bike, then your gear and then yourself once you get back from a ride. You bike will be happier and be easier to work on when you follow this mantra.

Get an airbox wash cover and remove the air filter. Use a pressure washer but be careful around electrical components and don't get less than 6" away from the bike to spray it. Use a prewash, like Maxima's Bio-wash or similar and scrub the bike before hand washing. Some guys remove the seat, some guys don't soak it, Whatever you do just let it dry afterwards or the foam will break down. We like to blow the bike off with compressed air after washing or you can use a leaf blower if you don't have air at the house. Lube the cables, the chain and wipe off any excess water afterwards. Finally, finish off the wash job with some Maxima SC-1 or something similar to seal in that new bike look! It smells awesome too!!   

 

Maintenance at 5-10 hours: We recommend setting a maintenance schedule and sticking to it. At 5-10 hours (usually every 5hrs), we replace/service the following:

Replace the Gear Oil        Replace the spark plug     Replace the inline fuel filter

Clean/replace the air filter       Check coolant level       Retorque all chassis/engine bolts

Check brake/clutch fluid levels and condition        Check brake pad condition

Set Chain slack                  Set Race sag                 Run torque on wheels/spokes

Bleed front/rear brakes         Check chain stretch     Clean fork seals

 

Maintenance at 50 Hours: Every 50 hours can get more in depth with bike maintenance. We usually do a complete teardown of customers and shop bikes at 50 hours. Everything comes off and gets greased and inspected. 

Compression check of engine            Check and grease steering stem bearings

Replace brake/clutch fluids                 Check and grease linkage/ swingarm bearings

Check and grease wheel bearings       Check and replace clutch plates and dampeners

Replace coolant hoses                          Replace in tank fuel filter

Check/replace chain guides                 Clean Clean Clean everything!!!

 

 

 

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