Any of you change your plugs through the front? By that I mean the method involving dropping the radiator a bit and going in after the plugs over the radiator?
Reason I ask, I just did my plugs, and in my case I was changing the tank anyway, so I did the air filter too. So lifting the air box was easy - and after doing the plugs from the top like that, I was looking at the whole thing and wondering why anybody would go through the front - it looks almost impossible, yet that's the way the manual recommends.

And BTW - was that ever worth the work! This is my first bike, and I was riding around with Densos with 9500 miles on them, and they were pretty eroded, at least the ground electrode was. Buy as my first bike I didn't know any better as far as how much power it should be putting out - it felt fine to me.
So then I slap in a fresh filter and new NGK's - LOOK OUT!! I couldn't believe the difference it made.

Now I'm the last thing you want to see - a stupid old man with WAY too much power!!

Six

 

i'm currently changing the plugs in my bike and i dont see anyway one could do it from the front. maybe i'm just incompetent, but it's enough of a pain doing it with the tank off. also, with all the thousands of dollars in tools i have, i had to use the bikes tool kit spark plug wrench. haha! good luck

 

Yeah, I used a standard spark plug socket - 5/8 - stepped down to a quarter inch drive, with a 4 inch extension and a quarter inch drive ratchet. The rubber boot inside the socket was shot ( that would normally hold on to the spark plug ) so I had to use some small rubber tubing to set the new plugs in there. Not a hard job, really. Always takes longer the first time you do it. But man was it worth it.

 

Well, I just changed my plugs for the 2nd time. The first time I followed the manual instructions and the most difficult part with doing this aside from dropping the radiator is getting enough force to get the coils disconnected from the plugs and reconnecting them when finished as well as trying to snake them and the plugs out from the side. This time I pulled the air box off and it was A LOT easier to do it. Since plug changes occur relatively close to air filter changes based on the dirt in my area it works out good.

The only reasons that I could see the manual not suggesting the air box method would be how easy it would be for someone to possibly drop a screw down the air intake. The other issue would be the safety of trying to lift and prop up a full gas tank if someone didn't use common sense and run the bike to almost empty before lifting it. I ran my bike about and extra 30 miles to get as much out of the tank as possible so that a bungee cord stretched between my tank and my open rear seat would hold it up for me.

 

Yeah I've done that. Works good.

For the plug change, I had it even better in my case cause I was changing the tank, so it was completely out of the way. Pic attached...



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