So, decided to change the oil on the 996 on Wednesday as it was 10 degrees as was figuring a warm(er) day made sense. She started first go, ran for 10 mins, dumped the oil, couldn't get the oil filter off. Oil filter removal tool turned up so I swapped the filters today, filled her up, ran for 4 mins, shut her off and topped oil up. All good, however, due to today being much colder a fair amount of smoke(condensation) was coming from the pipes. I thought best to just walk away rather than restarting a third time. I'm now sat here thinking I need to go annoy the neighbours and let her run on tickover for 30 mins to get some temperature in her to clear the condensation. What to do?
I find running at a standstill even for some time doesn't clear the condensation from the inspection window. Firing it up like you have won't do any harm but rather than keep doing it take it out and give it a run when you get a clean dry day. I took mine out the other day. Couldn't give it the beans as the roads were freezing cold. But it came back clean, charged the battery and drove off the moisture. Did me the world of good as well.
don't bother till you can take her out for a run. You won't get the whole system hot enough to burn off any condensation as gimlet says.
The water will get hot just ticking over; hotter than if you took it for a ride... Not sure how hot the oil will get just ticking over, but pretty hot too I'd suggest ?? I'd fire it up and let it tick over for a while...
is not jut engine coolant and oil temp. the exhaust collects condensation which isn't being boiled off as it is on a long ride, and the same goes for moisture in the induction system where on some vehicles it can collect in fuel rails and inlet tracts. (but I think most bikes are pretty safe in that respect). Also on the other side of the coin, people molly coddle their engines far too much these days treating them like porcelain dolls. It and the bike will put up with a lot of shit and temperature/climate/road differences no differently than an old cx500 courier hack if you know how to look after it. Just look at all those couriers hacking about on bikes which were once thought incapable of that sort of work just because they were the hottest race rep of the day. But then again there are members of our fraternity who feel that once the bike's got to more than 1500 miles a year they ought to start looking at changing it as "the mileage is a bit high".
Since I have had my 750SS (six years), I have fired it up every 3 weeks or so in the winter months when it is on a pddock stand and let it get really hot.............I have stuck it in gear and and run it through the gears letting the rear wheel turn for several minutes at high and low revs......... So far so good...........
With my 750 SS, condensation was a real issue as the wet clutch would act like a mixer and whip the oil and any water into thick white mayonnaise and that would lead to clutch slip. To get round this, I used to try and avoid short rides, taking the long way round if necessary and when I got home, I would take the oil filler cap out to allow any steam to escape. Of course you don't want to forget to put it back, so I would flip up the fuel filler cap key-cover and place the oil filler cap there. The other thing I would always do and also do with the 999, is to make sure the fuel tank is full over the winter, to avoid getting condensation and thus rust inside the fuel tank.
