RiderX

This weekend was mostly a maintenance weekend.  Sunday was spent at the CPOSC, which was quite good.  I was getting anxious that the BMW and Husky were ready for an oil change.  I’d initially planned on going up to Port Clinton on Saturday Morning to fetch an oil filter for the BMW.  It occured to me that there are a variety of options available at local auto parts stores.  I wound up with a WIX filter which was an equivilant of one listed here. Subsequently, the IBMWR is a rockin site. I was lucky enough to find the filters at Rogers Auto Parts. I prefer to buy at local/ indepent businesses.  But I was somewhat frustrated because I just went to Pep Boys for a case of 20W50.  I’d been to Rogers loking for it before, but they tried to set me up with 15W40.  I mentioned that they didn’t have 20W50 when I was last in and the guy insisted that they _always_ carry 20W50.   If you’ve got a BMW of any kind consider getting on one of their lists.  I’m on the tech list, though I’m not a regular poster.

At the end of the day, the R1100RS has fresh oil and filter as well as another run at syncing of the throttle bodies.  This is the second run at syncing recently.  I attempted a week or so back for the first time.  I used a MotionPro SyncPro, which I’d ordered a few weeks back. The first sync went well.  The R11 ran far better after.  Idle smoother, launching from a stop improved greatly, and fuel economy increased to about 40MPG.  I’m not satisfied with that, I should get 50 based on past experience.  This round of syncing went well, and the bike runs even better.  I’ve not put on enough miles yet to determine if the economy is back where it should be.

As for the SyncPro…  It’s not bad.  The most frustrating thing about it is that it requires that it be stored at temperatures above freezing.  My garage is not heated so this means the SyncPro will wind up living in the house.  My nature is to be tidy and keep tools in the garage.  So I’ve got to find a good place in the house for it.  Since I live in a Bi-level home, I don’t have a proper basement.  I’ll probably hang it in a closet.  But WTF.  Coulnt’d they mix some propylene glycol in it to keep it from freezing?  There are two other things that frustrate me about it also.  The first is that it didn’t come with enough rubber tubing.  It should have come with at least 50% more.  It’d be nice to have the hoses a little longer.

I also changed the oil in the Husky.  The spec calls for 10W60.  I found some references on ThumperTalk (sorry, I’m too lazy to dig up exact references), and Supermoto Junkie suggesting that it’s okay to vary the oil a bit.  So I wound up using Agip 20W50 4T that I’d bought for the Laverda 750S a few years back.  I split a case with a buddy and then wound up letting the Laverda sit the last few years.   I’m going to increase the oil change frequency on it now, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be okay.  Rather than changing the oil filter I just cleaned it.  Carb cleaner, blasted it with compressed air…