[krishnaprasadgg]

Finally, back with another post, and this time, it is not just a ride post; routine mechanical maintenance and preventative stuff have also been done.

I hadn't really taken the bike out since Jan apart from the one time I had to get the PUC updated and that was barely a 5 km round trip. But if you remember the last time in Jan when I rode back from Bangalore post a small jb turned big thanks to the broken coil pack, we had done a deep clean of the Throttle body, while the bike has become a lot fresher to ride I had started getting slight vibrations at the handlebars at highway cruising speeds, and this was an early reminder that the TB is starting to fall out of sync, how do I know this? Because this exact same symptom had presented last time and we had diagnosed it to be a TB sync issue, but we caught it a bit later when we had the hot idle issue as well.

Anyways so I did not want to put more miles on the bike before I get it fixed, also the fact that the oil was very close to 6k km since the last change, and didn't want to ride around on 6k km old oil too. I know that it doesn't really cause any real damage and riding in the current state of the bike is not at all an issue, but when it comes to my bikes/cars, I get a bit nitpicky like this with mechanical stuff, aesthetic stuff I am known to be more laid back.

The work was planned to be done in late Jan but again, life happens and it had to get postponed multiple times until finally, it happened over the weekend. And as usual, I was not riding alone to Cochin to my friend's place for the DIY job, Xaos636 joined me as he had some minor work to be done on his blade too, and another friend of his tagged along as he had unrelated work at Cochin, he was riding a super clean CBR650F with the facelift color scheme and headlights.

Funnily enough, just 2 days before the ride was planned weather reports started showing rain forecast in Kerala, and then on the same day bhpian Deepfreak15 pinged me saying neil.jericho is in Bangalore and sure enough it rained that night, went to meet him(and a bunch of other bhpians, finally!) next day ie the day before my trip and yes it rained again. So I started thinking that this trip might again be affected, but that worry was soon put to rest because Neil confirmed he was going to be in Bangalore for the entire weekend, so naturally, no reason for me to worry about the rain, and as certain and un waving laws of physics are there was no rain in Cochin on Sunday when we made the ride. So the urban legend, rain follows neil.Jericho stands tall and true.

Now back to the main program. Reached my friend's place(Fmotors for those wondering) and we immediately set to work and got to dismantling the tank and the air box to gain access to the TB onto which the TB sync reference machine had to be connected.

I am not dwelling into detail on the process as it has already been covered exhaustively in post #189,#190 (Review: My Yamaha R1 (WGP 50th Anniversary Edition)).

While we were there we cleaned the air filter and kept it for drying out before recharging the filter and plonking it in for the re-assembly.

This is the first time I removed the airbox cover post installation of the bmc filter and yes, the difference from the K&N filter was night and day, with the K&N filter the pre and post-filtration part of the airbox was always dusty no matter what and this contributed to faster gunky deposit on the TB butterfly valves, but this time around the Post filtration section of the airbox was clean with no dust visible and the result was same for the butterfly valves of the TB, clean!

Look at how clean the post-filtration section of the airbox is!

This confirmed that the K&N filter was not sealing properly courtesy of those jagged cuts it had on the base of the filter bezel material.

Next, we went on to remove the airbox and this is where we hit a snag, the airbox bolts had seized on pretty badly to the tb, took a bit of persuasion (no power tools or impact gun was used) to crack open the bolts using age-old conventional methods with handtools.

Anyways, once we got that cracked loose we hooked the sync reference machine to the TB and loosely reassembled back the TB and fuel lines to start the TB sync test.
And sure enough, the proof is in the pudding, cylinders 1 and 4 were slightly off from the acceptable tolerances, cylinder 2 was alright while cylinder 3 is the reference pin so that is not to be messed with.

Before




After

Took us maybe 10 mins to calibrate all the TB banks to be within the acceptable limit and the major job was done and dusted.

Next, the air filter was placed and seated properly and the airbox was buttoned up, this time we made sure to coat the airbox anchoring bolt threads with anti-seize so that we don't have a repeat of threads seizing again with the airbox.

During this time while we had easy access to the fuel lines, and I had a long strip of silver heat reflective tape with me I went ahead and covered the primary and secondary fuel lines in them, I don't think it is going to give any benefit at all, but did it just for the heck of it.

Before


After

At least now I can prevent the fuel hose from getting heat cycled and wearing out till I get my brand new hoses from Yamaha India, if you are a regular here you'll get the joke.

Since that was done we moved our attention to the coolant reservoir we noticed that the expansion tank was almost empty, which was weird as I had just topped up the can in Jan post my Bangalore-Kerala ride, upon removing the reservoir outer cover I noticed that the top rubber seal that covers the reservoir was half popped out (my bad) and I'm guessing it might have dried out when the bike was running at operating temp, but we did a thorough check for coolant leaks all around and we had no coolant mix issues either(engine oil even at 6k km had the reddish tint of the Motul 7100) so we just filled up the expansion tank again and made sure the rubber seal is seated correctly. It's good that we make it a habit to look over things like this because things like this can happen.

Next on the agenda was engine oil change, which was done promptly, did not take any photos, next we moved on to the brake bleeding part, the brakes had started to get slightly spongy and I could see from the brake fluid reservoir that the color of the fluid had indeed darkened a bit which are signs of moisture absorption.

This time I went with the Motul RBF660 brake fluids which are a step above the Brembo brake fluids I used last time. People, in general, prefer this fluid above the brembos because this has a higher boiling point than the Brembo race fluid and has been vouched for by people who push their bikes and cars on track. We run this fluid on our VRS too and the improvement in brake pedal feel has been immense so it was a no-brainer for me to go with the Motul fluid this time. And not to mention the Motul fluid is a 500 ml can while the Motul is 250ml while costing the same.

P.S: I am in no way affiliated with Motul, I just like the products they offer and this is purely my opinion based on my usage/experience.

The final thing left was tightening the chain and it was a breeze thanks to the Lightech chain adjusters, done within 1 minute of cracking the rear axle but loose. The only difference this time was we actually had acquired a torque wrench that was rated for locking the rear axle nut. Up until now, we could not do it as we did not have a heavy-duty TW for it. And sure enough, we used it this time. The torque setting is 150nm and for the first time ever we torqued the nut to spec! I know it might sound silly to some but I nerd out on this pretty hard

Torque to Spec!



All done and ready for the ride back home the next morning

In between all this finally caught up with bhpian Ani0404 in person and had a lovely long conversation on biking and about his recent acquisition of the epic Kawasaki Ninja 1000! Let me take this opportunity to congratulate him on his new steed!

I'll cover the rest of the ride in the next post as I have hit the 30 photos limit on this post.

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Now that all the work was done, we were pretty spent and fell asleep almost as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

We had an early morning start to the ride back home and almost instantly the R1 hit 36k km on the ODO.

We started getting sleepy again a few km in so we stopped for a fresh cup of coffee near the Airport road.

At this point, Xaos636 and I decided to swap rides to make sure we tested out the changes done on each of our bikes and compare results to make sure it is not just some placebo effect in play.

Xaos636 on the R1 and me perched on the blade

This is something we always do when we fix issues on our bikes. It has proved very valuable so far for us.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. So nothing much to add. Let me leave you guys with a few more pics we took en route.

Ending the post with a customary ODO km check.

P.S.: This is something I have always wanted to do, I managed to get a half-decent audio clip of the Akrapovic while the bike is on load. Recorded it over the last 7 km of my trip before I reached home, it has a good mix of twisties and straights so felt right. I set the phone in Voice memo recording and placed it inside the Kreiga tail bag which was attached to the rear seat since it is just above the under-seat exhaust I think it managed to record a decent soundtrack. You can hear the overrun on deceleration and how good the bike sounds when you rev-match while downshifting. Do note I have a habit of doing clutchless upshift when riding with intent and always practice manual rev-matching.

Hope you guys enjoy it, had to convert it into video format to post here. Excuse the lack of visuals. Feedback is welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFr3nJDrVok

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Minor update and some not-so-great news.

The R1 has added around 700ish more km onto the odo since the last update, thanks to another Palakkad Bangalore shuttle, and a few smaller rides around both Kerala and Bangalore.

But the bike has been largely sitting idle for the past 2 weeks, all thanks to most of the weekend getting used up by travel on 4 wheels. While I was away the R1 was being babysat by fellow bhpian @deepfreak15, here are a few pics of her when I went to pick her back up recently.

Now to the not-so-great part, before dropping off the bike to be babysat I noticed that the coolant level in the overflow tank has dropped again when the bike is cold. This is the second/third(can't exactly remember) time this has happened post the Samco installation. And while the bike runs perfectly fine, does not overheat even in clogged traffic, and the oil window is clean(no mixing) and no coolant leaks anywhere.

This leaves me with 2 possibilities, the coolant is vaporizing inside the overflow tank or there are small air pockets in the system which need to be flushed out. So as always, I decided to drop off the bike with Karthick as Highlander since both the bike and I are in Bangalore anyways.

In the trusty hands of Karthick

I had a few other small niggles also to take care of, the tank breather hose seems to be clogged as after riding in the hot sun opening the fuel cap releases a fuel mist with a loud pop! Which is dangerous if not careful. I have been careful so far to slowly open the cap and release the pressure in a controlled way to any startling moments at fuel pumps. And the oil filler cap o-ring has failed and I am having slight seepage around the filler cap area. All 5 min fixes.

But now comes the bad news, the R1 has a busted fork seal on the left fork.

Leaky fork

During the last maintenance work I was doing when I changed the oil we did notice a bit of a ust formation around the left fork, with dust sticking onto the fork stanchion, I attributed it to the ride in slight rainy conditions, cleaned it off and went ahead, bhpian @deepfreak15 had also asked me about a small black ring on the stanchion when I dropped off the bike at his place and I brushed it off saying the same thing. But when I dropped off the bike at Highlander the teeny tiny leak it had at the point had already developed into a full-blown leak. So yeah, now that's something that needs to be addressed ASAP.

So for now the bike will be out of commission till the fork seals arrive. Will update the thread when any progress happens.

Cheers
Krishna

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

So for now the bike will be out of commission till the fork seals arrive. Will update the thread when any progress happens.

Same same. Mine popped mostly because of the age of the seals and the bike being stationary for years. Tie a cloth at the bottom so the oil doesn’t land up on the disc and then the pads.



And hope you’re changing both the fork seals and try to change the dust seals as well if you haven’t in the past.

[VW2010]

So for now the bike will be out of commission till the fork seals arrive. Will update the thread when any progress happens.

Your forks are possibly pitting. The seals won't last and it will break again. Try to fix the tube. Had the same issue with ex-FZ1.Either need to change the tubes or do some DIY. Since you mentioned rust, this pitting will be micro and not visible sometimes. You can try changing seals but if it breaks after some spirited riding, you should not rule out fork tubes.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

Same same. Mine popped mostly because of the age of the seals and the bike being stationary for years. Tie a cloth at the bottom so the oil doesn’t land up on the disc and then the pads.
And hope you’re changing both the fork seals and try to change the dust seals as well if you haven’t in the past.

Ah, that sucks. Busted fork seals are some of the most irritating roadblocks, fix is seemingly easy but turnaround is a bit much if the seals aren't in stock.
And yeah always replacing in pairs only, not worth taking the risk, and no it's not the OE from factory seals(dust/fork), last year I changed it to all balls racing replacement seals when the fork was being overhauled.

Originally Posted by VW2010

Your forks are possibly pitting. The seals won't last and it will break again. Try to fix the tube. Had the same issue with ex-FZ1.Either need to change the tubes or do some DIY. Since you mentioned rust, this pitting will be micro and not visible sometimes. You can try changing seals but if it breaks after some spirited riding, you should not rule out fork tubes.

Hi VW2010, no pittings on either stanchion, I do routinely check for these when the bike is washed. This is just a seal blowing, I'd credit it to one of many potholes I have had to encounter recently. I don't think I mentioned rust anywhere too.
And I really hope I never have pittings, recoating stanchions is a wasted effort. At that point, I'll just double down and probably get an upgraded Ktech or Ohlins fork. It's a good thing the wallet doesn't need to agree to the dreams you can see.

Cheers
Krishna

[winsto_keny]

Busted fork seals, one annoying thing to look at. It gets worse when the oil starts flowing on to the brake disc and calipers, use fork seal covers to prevent some oil reaching the brakes. But I doubt if the fork seal covers will look good on sports bikes. Leave a review if someone used it and is using it on how it looks on the bike and how it helps.

Beautiful bike <3. The mighty R1.

[Odeen12]

Originally Posted by winsto_keny

But I doubt if the fork seal covers will look good on sports bikes. Leave a review if someone used it and is using it on how it looks on the bike and how it helps.

Beautiful bike <3. The mighty R1.

Works absolutely fine! And i think even looks ok. Had them on my GSX-R and now on this RSV4.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by winsto_keny

Busted fork seals, one annoying thing to look at. It gets worse when the oil starts flowing on to the brake disc and calipers, use fork seal covers to prevent some oil reaching the brakes. But I doubt if the fork seal covers will look good on sports bikes. Leave a review if someone used it and is using it on how it looks on the bike and how it helps.

Have heard from a few people who have been using them for a while that it's worth it. Might as well test it once is what I am thinking.

Originally Posted by winsto_keny

Beautiful bike <3. The mighty R1.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Odeen12

Works absolutely fine! And i think even looks ok. Had them on my GSX-R and now on this RSV4.

Attachment 2448669

Congrats on the RSV4 Odeen, hope we get to see a thread on this beauty soon.

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Update time. So after all it was not (just?) a bad pothole that took out the seal on the left fork. Karthick called me a few days back and delivered the bad news, there was damage found on the left stanchion. A small dent seemingly is the reason why the fork was leaking oil (@VW2010 You called it right). But it's a tiny issue as of now and will only grow/ cause leaks more often for sure. So a new set of seals was ordered and was replaced.

I will be getting a pair of the Kreiga fork covers to make sure I can extend the fork seal life. Will have to figure out something more permanent soon.

Before the gunk was cleaned out to unclog the overflow/drain hole

While at it we addressed the fuel tank vapor lock issue. As expected it was the overflow drain hose that had clogged. A healthy dose of degreaser and some compressed air did the trick.

Changed the fork oil this time. Last time I had gone with the Maxima fork oil, but this time chose to go with the Liqui Moly fork oil, which is seemingly heavier oil than the one we used by Maxima, but I can't recollect and I can't be bothered to go back and check so taking it as it is.

Collected the bike yesterday and set on a 250ish km long trip around the outskirts of Bangalore with fellow bhpian @wolfy but this time on his ZX10R a.k.a Miss. Isle (you can find his ownership review thread).

Hope the pics give an idea of the fun we had riding early morning.

Ending the post with a customary ODO meter shot after today's ride.

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Small update

37,000km has rolled onto the odo.

The bike has been running fine post the fork seal replacement. No further leaks from the fork so far. Hopefully, it'll remain like that in the future. Wishful thinking

Not getting a lot of seat time over the past few weeks, mainly because of travel commitments to which I cant take the R1, Hopefully, I can put on more miles in the future.

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Not a lot of riding is going on. Constant and hectic travel schedule has been the main reason. Might have added approx 150 kms or so over the last 2 months.

The R1 resting easy in the capable hands of @wolfy and had plenty of good company in his garage

As far as updates on the bike go, the fork seals seem to be holding up well, with no seeping when the bike is sitting idle, and in the almost 500kms since the seal change no leaks have been observed.

Second, Had an in-city meetup with fellow Tbhpian Wolfy and spent a few hours talking about bikes.

Thirdly, the front brake pads were approaching the end of their life so got them swapped with the EBC double-sintered pads a few days back when I dropped off the bike with Karthick at Highlander,

Along with that I also tasked him to try and find a solution for the front number plate holder for the R1, it was not really a necessity, I am yet to face any issues from cops regarding this but trying to figure out a front numberplate holder has been something I had been thinking for a while and well Karthick found a solution which is what I'd like to say is a first draft types.

Suggestions are welcome, The numberplate stand without the numberplate mounted looked pretty well, but the moment the numberplate went on I was really in double minds, I almost had the instinct to ask him to remove it immediately because of how badly I felt it spoiled the look of the bike.

But I waited it out and now it feels okish. I'm going to sleep on this for a couple of days, that's why the reg sticker that has been on the bike for the last 3 years is still not removed. Suggestions are welcome.

And lastly, I think the partial hibernation for the R1 will continue for the coming months too, I don't like that it's come to this but such is life.

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Longer rides still remain elusive thanks to more important things taking priority.

So for the past month, I resorted to short rides along the Hosur-Salem Highway.

I went for a short spin of just a little above 100kms spin but as usual once I started riding I did not feel like stopping over to take pics. So all the photos I have are from the exit/entry points of Bangalore.

Here is the customary ODO pic.

As you can see from the last post, the numbers are creeping up at a very glacial pace. Not exactly how I'd like it but still, it's something.

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Minor Update

The R1 developed a sudden coolant leak during one of the regular warmup starts that I do if the bike hasn't been running for over a week. Forgot to take any pictures but this is what happened. The bike hadn't been started in over a week so when I cranked the bike up and waited for the cold start procedure to finish and once the temp hit 60-70 degrees I turned it back off and almost immediately there was a steady drip of coolant onto the floor near the side stand area. If it were from the overflow tube it wouldn't have been something alarming to me, The flashlights came out and I was trying to find the source of the leak/overflow but I could not find it as it required the removal of the sprocket cover, the side fairing and the reservoir cover to be removed but I did not have the tools handy and neither the space and it being a Sunday Karthick was also not available so I decided to see about it the next day.
The next day went and picked up Karthick and came to check on the bike and try and replicate the situation with a cold start but then it did not happen when we tried to recreate it, regardless, for my peace of mind I dropped the R1 off with Karthick and asked him to take a look and possibly recreate the leak with the panels and covers removed, yesterday despite multiple attempts we could not recreate it and neither could we find a trail/residue from the leak previously. I have asked him to try for a few more days and have a look over the samco hoses routing just to be sure.

But during this investigation, we found out another thing, the front sprockets on the R1 had reached the end of their life, while the sprocket tooth was still intact and not chipped or sharp in any way it had started to bend upwards slightly, which suddenly made sense as during the last ride I did feel that there was unusual amount of drive chain noise which I thought was the chain being a bit loose, what didn't occur to me at that time was that it is also a sign that the sprockets are on its way out. While the chain still has enough adjustment life left in it and the rear sprockets are still in good shape, I cannot in good conscience run the bike until I get a new chain sprocket kit installed.

Notice how the sprocket tooth have started to bend upwards

Thankfully I won't have to scramble around to arrange a new kit as I have a brand new OEM chain sprocket kit with me that's awaiting this moment since 2020 when I ordered it along with the purchase of the bike.

The new chain sprocket kit will go in sometime this week, hopefully, I will take a few pics of the installation without bothering Karthick while he works.

But then again, almost 38k km on the factory chain sprocket kit for a bike as mental as the R1 is not bad at all if you ask me

It was a bring you triumph to the service center kind of day yesterday at Highlander

P.S.: The Tiger is also in for a complete coolant refresh owing to 3 years or so with the OEM coolant that's running about in it.

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Finally, after a long break, went for a fulfilling ride last weekend with the R1. This one was a bit different because it was a group ride with a bunch of people I had only known online mostly, It was an awesome ride in a group of like-minded people after many years, I think the last time I rode in a group bigger than 3 bikes was maybe pre-2018.

The bike performed amazingly as usual, the chain slap issue did come back again towards the final few kms of the ride, but nothing to worry the bike is back at Highlander waiting to get the new chain sprocket kit installed.

New Parts Alert!

Always love this part, getting new parts for the R1, be it OEM or upgrades and just anticipatory maintenance parts purchase the feeling remains the same. So one major weak point for the R1 were a good chunk of out-of-commission incidents happened, has to do with the Starter motor and related items, It ranges from Starter motor going kaput, the carbon brushes in the starter wearing down, the starter motor relay giving out. To keep it lightly if you own an R1 you better be prepared to face these issues sometime down the line of ownership. While my story of trying to get these parts from Yamaha India has been documented here well, I still had to prepare for this event, so finally in the end I found a set of carbon brush kits and the starter motor relay for sale at a sensible price from a fellow (ex)R1 owner. Now the starter motor assembly is the only thing that's missing but just can't find it at all from OE shops, and those who have want way too much for it so the hunt continues or I'd have to be satisfied by rebuilding the starter when it eventually does fail.

At the same time here is something I do to extend the life of the starter as much as possible. It is quite simple, try not to switch off the bike for short breaks or at signal lights, There is a reason why I say this, I have already covered the fact that the R1 with its projector headlights puts a huge load on the battery when cranking and the crossplane by itself takes a lot of effort to turn over the engine than conventional i4 engines. So the load on the starter motor is already high, now when you do this while the bike is hot, it puts even more load on the starter as the assembly itself is super hot, and wear and tear increases many folds, so I just avoid situations where I have to turn off the bike where I know it will be just a few minutes stop because as soon as I turn it off the temps shoot upwards of 115 degrees and I have to put a ton of unwanted stress on the starter. That's about it, thank you for listening to my ted talk on starter motors stress

Anyways, as per tradition here is the ODO reading as of now and the Trip meter reading from the previous ride.

38k is almost here

Cheers
Krishna