mpgmotors.com Blog

Winterization

November 29, 2007 on 8:40 pm | In Maintenance |

Folks,

If you are done riding for the year in the Greater Philadelphia area you just about *have to* do the following:

1. Treat the fuel. Get some Stabil or other brand of fuel stabilizer. We sell Stabil but so do many other places. One ounce of Stabil will treat 2.5 gallons of gas. Pour in the Stabil, fill up the gas tank and go ride it for 20 minutes. This will make sure that you have burned out the untreated gas in the carburetors. If it turns warm and you decide to ride, just replace the treated gas with more when you are done - Add more gas to top off and some Stabil. You want to have the gas tank full. The more air at the top of the tank allows that much more moist air that will result in surface rusting of the inside of your metal tanks.

The gasoline formulations in the Philadelphia area have apparently had fuel stabilizers removed or fundamentally changed some time ago and we are seeing low speed jet clogging in as few as four weeks. The low speed jets are the smallest and clog the easiest. “Running the bike hard” after clogging rarely clears them out. There isn’t enough vacuum to do it. This will be the traditional “it runs on the choke but won’t idle” scenario.

This does not appear to be a brand specific problem and we are seeing this on a number of manufacturer’s bikes. IOW, it seems to be the gas not the bikes. The ethanol (alcohol) is apparently also bringing in moisture from the ambient air and this is causing problems with some float needles. Some have corroded in place in the float seats and we had to pull some needles out with tools to free them. That is pretty serious for your average float needle! Stabil or some other stabilizer is the best action we can recommend.

2. Charge the battery once a month and don’t let it freeze. Consider purchasing a Battery Tender and use it. The Battery Tenders are “smart chargers” and do not constantly charge the battery. They are designed not to boil off the water and overcharge the battery. When connected they do, however, constantly monitor the state of the battery and top it off when needed. They then go back to monitor mode until the battery sinks down enough to require a light charge again. They charge at a very low amperage but they have nothing else but time so the rate of charge doesn’t really matter.

3. Starting the bike up every so often is ok, but run it long enough to warm up the oil throughly. If you are not using a battery tender starting,  but not running, will really take the battery down. Batteries will charge at idle on most bikes but starting will take quite a bit of energy out of the battery in the winter. If you do start your bike ride it if you can or run it for a while.

Please do these things at least (call us if you want to discuss other things to do) so we don’t have to see you right away in the spring!