Prepare motorbike for new season | Touratech Tips & Tricks
The sun is gaining strength. Your throttle hand itches and your stomach tingles. Time to finally get back on your bike and feel the good vibrations. This guide shows you how to wake up your motorbike from hibernation and prepare it for the new season.
Those who have parked their motorcycle at a street light over the winter now have rather greater challenges to master. What is needed to get such a motorbike running safely and in a visually acceptable condition after the winter break would fill entire books. However, anyone who has carefully prepared their motorbike for winter storage in the garage is faced with a manageable task, especially if high-quality care products and lubricants such as those from the MOTOREX range are part of the workshop equipment.
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When higher temperatures slowly herald the new motorbike season, quite optimistic contemporaries hope that their machine will simply start up again just as they left it - without any preparations. That can work, but it doesn't have to. And it is certainly not good to neglect the care of your bike in this way.
In order to be able to start the new season safely with your motorbike, some work needs to be done after the winter and a standstill period of several months. If you have carefully mothballed your bike, you will be through with the preparations pretty quickly. If you were a little careless during winter storage, you should allow a little more time. In addition, winterising offers an ideal opportunity to take a closer look at the bike in order to identify and rectify possible defects in good time.
Battery check and oil change
The first thing on the agenda is the battery. In the case of accumulators that are not maintenance-free, first check the fluid level and, if necessary, fill the cells with distilled water to the maximum level. If the battery has been connected to a freshener or has been charged regularly, it should be ready for use immediately. Otherwise, it is advisable to charge it now. When installing, check that the connections are clean and rust-free and spray both terminals with MOTOREX ACCU PROTECT Spray (not in the Touratech range). This prevents corrosion and establishes permanent, reliable electrical contact. When connecting the battery, the positive terminal should be connected first.
The oil should always be changed before the winter break so that the used oil does not lead to corrosion in the engine. If you have neglected to change the lubricant, you can do so now, including changing the oil filter.
And a few tips for the oil change:
The chain needs to be cared for
The same applies to the chain. MOTOREX CHAIN CLEAN DEGREASER is ideal for cleaning. The grease remover is sprayed onto the chain, chainring and sprocket, and after a short reaction time, old chain grease residues and the dirt bound in them can be wiped off with a cloth. If necessary, you can help with a brush.
Then spray the chain with a chain spray such as CHAIN LUBE OFF ROAD (off-road motorbikes), CHAIN LUBE ROAD STRONG (road motorbikes) or CHAIN LUBE RACING (sport motorbikes) from MOTOREX. When doing so, make sure that you do not spray the tyres, brakes or other components.
Checking the fork and suspension struts
It is also worthwhile to take a close look at the forks and shock absorbers. If you notice oil leaks, you should not take it lightly. On the one hand, leaking oil could get onto brakes and tyres, on the other hand, a fork without oil does not dampen, but only springs, and a strongly varying amount of oil in the fork tubes does not exactly have a positive effect on the handling.
Cleaning made easy
Particularly meticulous motorcyclists have treated the paint, chrome and metal parts of the clean machine with a care and protection spray such as MOTO PROTECT before winter. The slightly oily protective film of the spray must now come off. Of course, you can now wash the motorbike intensively. But if it has been standing well covered in the garage, this is much easier and quicker and even requires no water! MOTOREX QUICK CLEANER is the magic ingredient. Simply spray the cold motorbike, let it work for a few minutes and then wipe it off with a dry, soft cloth: The oil film is gone, the surfaces shine and water rolls off. QUICK CLEANER is also suitable for helmet visors and removes dust and dirt as well as stubborn insect remains.
Since it is almost impossible to prevent a light oily spray from reaching parts such as the brake discs when spraying on MOTO PROTECT, these should now also be cleaned. The standard agent for this is called POWER BRAKE CLEAN. Spray the brake cleaner on a segment of the brake disc and immediately rub it off thoroughly with a cloth or paper towels, as the agent evaporates very quickly. Components other than brakes or rims should not come into contact with the cleaner.
Are the tyres still OK?
When you are working on the brakes, you can also quickly inspect the tyres and forks. Is there enough air in the tyres, are they not cracked or damaged, and what about the tread? The law prescribes a minimum tread depth of 1.6 millimetres at all points. This can be checked with a simple tread depth gauge, which is nothing more than a caliper.
The so-called Tread Wear Indicators TWI are not a good indication of the actual tread depth. These are small bumps in the tread grooves, but they are usually only 0.8 to 1.0 millimetres high. If they are already scratched or flush with the positive tread, a tyre change is in any case called for.
Lubricate moving parts and joints
If everything is OK, you can now start lubricating moving parts and joints. Various products are recommended for this purpose. MOTOREX JOKER 440 SYNTHETIC universal spray, for example, lubricates, eliminates squeaking and protects against corrosion.
MOTOREX SILICONE SPRAY leaves a less moist and barely visible lubricating film and is water-repellent. It can be used, for example, to keep the joints of brake and clutch levers running smoothly. It is also suitable for lubricating all locks and for the care and protection of all rubber, plastic and metal parts that can tolerate a slightly oily surface, i.e. do not spray on handles or seats.
The dry-lubricating and adhesive MOTOREX SPRAY WITH PTFE (Teflon) is particularly temperature-stable and chemically resistant. It does not leave any oily traces and is particularly suitable for mechanically highly stressed moving parts such as the main stand and side stand.
Timely precaution pays off now
Prepared in this way, the last thing to hope for is that the machine will start. Motorbikes with fuel injection are certainly the less problematic candidates. With carburettor machines, the situation is somewhat different. If you filled up your tank on the last trip before winter and added MOTOREX FUEL STABILIZER to the petrol, you still have a good chance that the engine will start after a few revolutions. Those who have not done so must now get to work.
As the easily combustible components of the petrol volatilise first, especially in smaller quantities such as in the carburettor, you should drain the fuel from the float chambers with the petrol tap closed and then run fresh petrol in. If this does not help either, then MOTOREX MOTORSTART comes into play. The starting aid is sprayed into the air filter with the throttle valve open and the starter motor turning to help the engine get going. However, the jump-start spray only makes sense for carburettor engines. In the case of injectors that do not start, troubleshooting would now be the order of the day.
Ready for the first ride into the new season
When the engine is running, the first step is to take the freshly prepared bike to the petrol station to check the air pressure. If you increased the tyre pressure before winterising, you should still have enough pressure in the tyres to ride safely to the petrol station. Now the bike is ready for its maiden voyage in the new season. It is hard to expect that the first kilometres after the winter break will go as smoothly and easily as they do. After a long period of abstinence, you should have a little patience with yourself and not try to force anything, then it will flow as if by itself, because all that is missing is a little practice. This is how you can get off to a safe and perfect start in the new season.
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