FJRiders.com

You are a good man my large friend. Nurse maid, father, builder and also put up with my smart-ass shit. You will figure that McCruise out.

f@$k!

Tonight's chapter of winter wrenching included:

- installed new front brake pads.
- drained coolant
- removed thermostat housing & inspected.
- spare thermostat housing ready for install.

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Winter Wrenching Episode 3.

Disassembled the leaking thermostat housing. Lots of corrosion around the outer rim of the metal side of the housing. I have been smelling coolant after longer rides through last year, but could never find a leak. It appears that coolant was seeping out of that seem and dropping down onto the hot coolant tube and burning off - thus the smell but no puddle.

I inspected the spare - it was spotless inside and has been installed now. The leaky one will be cleaned up and stored as a spare.

Coolant has been filled and pending 'burb' once gas tank is back on.

Stay tuned...



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If I can get 90K (and counting) miles out of my FJR, Wayne should get a half a million!

Well done, sir!!

If you've ever witness how I abuse this particular example of the FJR platform - you may say the opposite - if one can survive 90k+ miles of abuse from me, then one living a more normal existence should get twice that...

Hppants wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:18 am If I can get 90K (and counting) miles out of my FJR, Wayne should get a half a million!

Well done, sir!!

Lol.

extrememarine wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:25 pm If you've ever witness how I abuse this particular example of the FJR platform - you may say the opposite - if one can survive 90k+ miles of abuse from me, then one living a more normal existence should get twice that...

Hppants wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:18 am If I can get 90K (and counting) miles out of my FJR, Wayne should get a half a million!

Well done, sir!!

Taken TIC as intended, but on a serious note - it's pretty hard to "abuse" an FJR. Proper care and feeding and they do seem to last forever.

Duplicate.

Rode it partway to the office. Felt something funny, gunned for the shoulder, and was at zero psi (rear), by the time I came to a stop.

3/4” circular piece of metal like a sharpened quarter, probably from a blade of some sort, almost all the way inside the tire. Dug it out with a knife. No plugging that.

Watched the Geico app as tow service after tow service declined a bike tow. A friend switched to his trailer and picked me up. Total lifesaver.

So, my still-very-new Road 6GT is toast. Trying to decide between an RS3, or a 4GT/5GT. (The 6GT is great, but I don’t find it to justify the stratospheric price).

The RS4 is priced similarly to the good stuff. If I’m spending top dollar, I’m going with the sticky stuff from Michelin.

The RS3 is far cheaper than any of the others. Shitty in the wet, but I’m tempted to get one and just thrash it. I’ll decide tomorrow a.m.

Hit 84 degF here yesterday so I dusted off the '13. Rode about 180 miles in all including some high speed interstate slalom. Then got my state inspection done and renewed my registration.

extrememarine wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:04 pm Winter Wrenching Episode 3.

Disassembled the leaking thermostat housing. Lots of corrosion around the outer rim of the metal side of the housing. I have been smelling coolant after longer rides through last year, but could never find a leak. It appears that coolant was seeping out of that seem and dropping down onto the hot coolant tube and burning off - thus the smell but no puddle.

I inspected the spare - it was spotless inside and has been installed now. The leaky one will be cleaned up and stored as a spare.

Coolant has been filled and pending 'burb' once gas tank is back on.

Stay tuned...



Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

I had the same leaky thermostat problem at 114000 miles. Bought a used one off ebay and then tested the two thermostats per the manual, and put the best one in. 8000 miles later it was leaking again, so I bought a new thermostat and put that in. With the new thermostat you get a new seal due to it being integral to the new thermostat. No leaks since.

One half of the thermostat housing is plastic, the other aluminum. I wonder why.

I’ve never had a leaky thermostat, but I had one stop working properly, on my 2014. Interesting surgery on yours.

extrememarine wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:04 pm Winter Wrenching Episode 3.

Disassembled the leaking thermostat housing. Lots of corrosion around the outer rim of the metal side of the housing. I have been smelling coolant after longer rides through last year, but could never find a leak. It appears that coolant was seeping out of that seem and dropping down onto the hot coolant tube and burning off - thus the smell but no puddle.

I inspected the spare - it was spotless inside and has been installed now. The leaky one will be cleaned up and stored as a spare.

Coolant has been filled and pending 'burb' once gas tank is back on.

Stay tuned...



Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Installed MV Motorrad riser plate. Once I had a socket big enough to remove the POs aftermarket steering head nut and replace it with a factory one, it was MOSTLY straightforward. However, I don’t know how mechanics with giant meat hooks for hands do it. I was barely able to get a couple of steps done that involved reaching between the forks and cowling but just barely. Did it mostly by feel.

But, all done! And loving the new arm position.

Griff helped train me into doing my own valve checks. He specifically left out one step just to see if I'd notice.

More training time needed. Got rest of the valve shim work to install

Installed my heated gear lead and took it for a test ride. It wasn't super cold, just in the low 50's, so not a great test, but it sure was nice to ride again, and to be toasty while doing it was even better.

Walked past it in the garage for the 96th day in a row. The one rideable day we had since late November (February 16), I elected to take the F700GS because it is more tolerant of salt.
Waiting for spring...

Winter Wrenching Episode 4 (extended version Friday & Sunday sessions)

I made good progress today - parts and pieces are migrating back onto the FJR - an indication that we are more than half way through it.

Friday evening, I installed grip heaters and ran wiring down and under the tank area. I tidied up the cable routing and consolidated the ziptie points. I reinstalled the gas tank (temporarily) in preparation for TB clean and adjustment.

Sunday afternoon.
- Throttle body sync and ran it long enough to let the cooling fans turn on to ensure coolant was circulating; no leak from the thermostat housing (win).
- Removed tank and reinstalled heat barrier, t-bar, etc.
- Drained oil, changed oil filter, reinstalled oil drain plug and torq'd (NOT) to 37ft/lbs ( ).
- refilled oil
- Reinstalled side panels, tucked wiring in as needed.
- Reinstalled front fender
- Checked all front end fasteners (brake calipers, caliper pad pins, axle nut, axle pinch bolts, fork pinch bolts, etc...) with torque wrench.
- Tail Section details - cleaned up accessory wiring; removed redundant fuses ( I have a fuse block with 3 circuts in the tail; from that, I had leads for the rear 12v outlet in my Givi, and 2 heated gear plugs. The heated gear plugs had built in fuse holders in their wire harness. I removed the extra fuses in each circuit).

Not much left - heated grip controller arrives Monday - will not get to install that until Tuesday (Monday is 4H horse committe meeting...)



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I like the magnetic tool dish on the foot pad. It almost looks like you are trying to wash thst thing.

Oil and filter change. Also bought used Russell Day Long rider and passenger seats. Now I can play with the big boys!

Temperature in the high 60's today. Going for a nice long ride.