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Living with a Yamaha R1; Few updates after weeks of not riding

14th November 2024, 18:13 by Rahul Nagaraj

The ODO rolled over 46,000 km during the ride, & as I was having way too much fun I did not even notice.

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

After a gap of almost 2 weeks of no riding as I was out of town I was looking forward to reaching back and setting up the bike for the weekend and the first thing I notice is the reminiscence of a few drops of something directly underneath the bike.

Initially, I thought it might be the slight leak that's been there from the rear shock (more updates on that soon in a post to come) but the position of that isn't right unless someone moved the bike, I looked at the position of the bike and sure enough it wasn't moved.

So I got to investigating and I ran my fingers under the stator cover and yup there was fresh liquid, it was too thin of a layer but it was also not consistent enough to be oil. So I take a tissue paper and dab the area and the tissue takes a light blue color. So yeah, it's coolant. Now I was surprised as to how coolant is on the bottom of the stator cover, but then I realized it might have leaked from the top and dripped, and gravity drained to the lowest part.

So I set about tracking the leak and it was somewhere behind the reservoir cover as I could see the drip line from the top of the stator cover. A bit more of poking around with a flashlight and I found the source of the leak.

Gotcha!

The thermostat housing is where the leak is coming from. There is a 0-ring in the housing, I guess over time it has finally started to give up. The thermostat housing has been opened only once in the 11 years and that was for the Samco hose upgrade and the O-rin was found to be in good shape then. It's been a couple of years since that so I guess maybe it's shot now.

Anyways, now from the looks of it, I might be taking on the Thermostat replacement job sooner as opposed to the 50k service I was planning it for, thanks to the leak. But my preventative parts procurement habit came in clutch because I already have the O-ring for the thermostat housing ready with me. Just need to dig it out of the parts bin.

Anyway, I did not let the small drop leak stop me from enjoying the bike, it's way too small of a leak to cause any issues, the reservoir level still hadn't dropped even a tiny bit so no refilling was required either.

Getting a full belly of XP100. I cycle a full tank of XP100 in between every few full tanks when I know the I'll use up the full tank of XP100 during the ride which is usually the very next day.

After what seemed like ages, rode again with @wolfy, Ajay, and Anant, while @Xaos636 has been a regular riding buddy during the weekends.

@Xaos636 joins in

The whole group has assembled. Quite a colorful lineup ey?

Ventured about early just before sunrise towards Nandi hills side, stopped for breakfast at Kritunga at Bigbay, which btw is such an overrated place for morning people, nothing is open till late in the morning I guess. Luckily Kritunga was open. The parking facility and restrooms are clean though, which is a huge plus for sure.

Breakfast stop at Bigbay