Caring for the bike that will rarely be ridden

[Pete Logan]

Trips to the grocery don't hurt it either because that always seems to take an hour on a bike - 15 minutes in a truck

Hear you on that. My local market is 3 kilometres there.

Usually about 83 back :-D:-D:-D

 

[Steve]

Oh man, I'm getting old.

Can't argue that, I have never met you. 8-[

I have no idea why anyone would want to drain the carbs. Petrol evaporates. The carbs will be empty soon enough if you just leave them alone. That's why the damn bike don't start after a couple weeks FFS.

That is exactly why people drain them. When the petrol evaporates it leaves a gummy residue. When the carbs are intentionally drained, the potential for gummy residue formation is greatly minimized. However, there are other issues caused by dry o-rings and gaskets.

Flat spots on the tires happened on the old stuff - cross plys - doesn't happen with radials, but whatever floats your boat.

Flat spots can happen with bias-ply tires or radials, but stock GSs don't wear radials, and that's not the purpose of lifting the bike. The purpose is to isolate the tires from constant contact with the concrete, which can leech chemicals into the rubber.


And yeah, I'm getting old, too.


.

 

[Guest]

That is exactly why people drain them. When the petrol evaporates it leaves a gummy residue. When the carbs are intentionally drained, the potential for gummy residue formation is greatly minimized. However, there are other issues caused by dry o-rings and gaskets.

Flat spots can happen with bias-ply tires or radials, but stock GSs don't wear radials, and that's not the purpose of lifting the bike. The purpose is to isolate the tires from constant contact with the concrete, which can leech chemicals into the rubber.

Flat spots have nothing to do with radial vs. bias ply. Flat spotting comes with nylon body ply cord. Nylon used to be the common body ply cord because it was one of the first plastics that could be woven into fine threads. Nowdays, almost all tires use polyester body ply cord, which doesn't flat spot. There's nothing in cured concrete that can leach into cured rubber. I was a tire chemist for a long time, and I'm not guessing about this stuff.

You can probably get by fine if you only ride once every two or three weeks, as long as you use a battery tender. 99% (a guess) of gasoline evaporates with time. That means that 1% doesn't evaporate. When the 99% evaporates, the 1% is left and eventually dries into a resin. Carbs have tiny passages, and the resin will eventually plug those passages. Gas stabiliizers can do some good, but they won't prevent this residue from gumming up carbs.

Simply put, you shoud burn up a tank of gas at least every couple of months. The longer it takes, the faster resins will crud up carburetor passages. Then you get poor performance, and have to remove the carbs, disassemble, clean, reassemble, adjust and synchronize.

I had my GS650G for 11 midwestern winters. During those winters, I wouldn't ride for about 4 months in a row. Snow and ice on roads don't mix well with motorcycles. I'd usually start it about once a month, on a warmer day, and usually I didn't need to recharge the battery. But if I went much longer, the battery would need to be charged. If it didn't fire within a few seconds, I'd turn the petcock to 'prime' and come back five or ten minutes later. The bike would usually start in about 15 seconds. I'd run it until the choke wasn't needed, and then about 15 minutes more. Then I'd shut if off. When a crash took the bike from me, it still ran hard, and the carbs had never been touched.

Keeping a gas tank full reduces the amount of air in it. When the temperature drops at night, sometimes it goes below the dew point. Water in air settles out. In a gas tank, that means that water condenses and goes to the lowest point. You know the consequences of water in gas.

 

[Pete Logan]

See - that's the nice thing about this forum.

If the rest of us talk rubbish for long enough, sooner or later, someone who actually knows what they are talking about chips in :-D:-D:-D