Address – Servicing

Oops.  Over the Covid and Christmas I had brain fade and, in my ancient befuddled mind, the 1000Km service became a 1000 mile service. And even that had to wait for a convenient time.  I decided to do it myself to familiarise myself with the procedure.

Changing the oil and filter was quite easy, the old oil was only slightly darker than when it went in and the old filter looked much cleaner than on mech it better’s video. (servicing your scooter above).But I changed it anyway. I bought 4 Hiflo Filtro HF973s  on eBay for £6.91 and filled up with Tesco part synthetic 10:40 motor oil.  The manual says 700cc.  Mech it better say just under 875.  It depends on where you want the level to be.  700cc is half way between min and max.  870cc takes it to the max.

The tappets were a pain, especially the exhaust one.  Clearance are .04-.08mm inlet, and 0.12-0.16mm exhaust.  Both were tight.  I set the inlet to 0.06mm. and the exhaust to 0.15mm. The latter was simply because it was easier (not easy, just not as hard) to fit in a single 0.15mm feeler gauge rather than 0.08 and o.06 together.  The rocker cover’s gasket seems to be fixed at one point to the cylinder head, although it fits into a groove in the cover.  This is a really stupid idea, and makes putting the cover on at least 10 time more difficult than it should be.
It is also really awkward to see the indicators for setting the engine to TDC.

The manual also suggests checking exhaust bolts for tightness – they were fine.  So was the brake fluid level.

I am glad I did it.  It is such a fiddly job to check and adjust the tappets I suspect a garage may not have done it. (It takes 10-15 minutes on the BMW). It would have been a lot easier if the bike was on a bench. The next service should be 2500 miles, but this one is late, so I could do it at 3000 miles, but I’ll go for 2500 and get in sync.

The speedo read 50mph while the GPS said 47mph, so the speedo is around 6% high. I can usually reach 60mph on the clock or 56-57mph real on the flat, but I tend to keep it to around 55 on the clock to avoid over revving.  As an experiment I have had it up to over 70mph on the clock on slight downhill roads.

I found I had slow puncture in the rear tyre. The tyre was almost flat after a drive home on 13th.  I blew it up but found it was losing about a psi per day. I could not find it and doubted my ability to fix it anyway so I contacted a garage to take it in. 
But first I needed to take the wheel off. I checked up on Mech it Better (See changing the rear brake shoes video above) and it seemed a simple job. Yes, there are two nuts and two bolts to remove to get the exhaust off, but John didn’t mention the two plastic grips holding the the lambda sensor wire out of the way of the hot exhaust.  Nor did he mention how to release the lambda sensor cable connector. All of these items are really difficult to reach. Sorting them doubled the time to get the exhaust off.
So for reference:-

The top clip can be lifted open with a long screw drive and the cable removed from the side.

For all of these tasks, three hands about the size of an otter’s or squirrel’s would be an advantage, but once you know, it’s not too hard

As expected, when the garage found the puncture it was outside of the repairable area, so I ordered a new tyre for HiQ in Bodmin.  I went for a 100/90 Michelin Citygrip 2 costing £88.  It is 3% bigger in circumference than the original, so the speedo which was reading 6% high will now be only 3% high, and the odometer which was 3% optimistic should now be spot on.

Then, on the same day I was to collect the wheel and tyre, a “last chance” letter arrived saying my road tax was out of date.  Tax on line? No!! Now it needs a bloody MOT.  Wheel back on on Monday; knowing how the plastic clips work made it quite simple to re-assemble. MOT’d and taxed on Tuesday. 

The odometer now is 1.8% optimistic and the speedo 4-5% optimistic.

I keep looking at other scooters, but they are all too heavy, too big, or the seat is too high or too wide, or the passenger needs 40″ inside leg and extra knee joints (that’s Vespas for you!).  There are no motorways and precious few dual carriageways in Cornwall.  So usually the speed limit is 60mph, and the safe speed is much lower (especially on single track roads with passing places and grass growing down the middle). Nothing suits the local roads and me like the Address!