Hello all,

Well, today in Philadelphia, we had some really great weather. I took the time to change my oil, wash my bike, clean and lube the chain and of course, I took the bike for a ride.

When I was changing my oil, I noticed there were about three loose rubber hoses and I wonder what the are for and are they supposed to be there.

I have the f4i scanned repair manual in PDF and it was for the 2001-2003 years, but the pictures look exactly the same as with my bike.

Here are some pics:





Also, this was my first time doing any of this work and for my chain, what can you recommend as a good cleaner/degreaser. I have read a lot on the forums about WD-40, Kerosine, paraffin, simple green, brake cleaner (non-clorinated) and various custom methods. I decided to try some A-jax detergent and water. It worked (well, I guess it did, but the chain was tough to clean). I went around to a lot of stores in the past week and couldn't find anything that was a degreaser/cleaner that listed it was safe for o-ring chains or motorcycle chains.

I was wondering if any biodegradable degreaser is good (like krud cutter or other various products found at a Lowes, Walmart, Pepboys, Target, etc) and if so, what would be the recommended dilution? Or what would be a better recomendation for a cleaner/degreaser?

As for my first oil change, I think it went quite well, except for the fact that the oil was black and a fram oil filter was used. I only rode the bike for about 200.00 before winter miles and too bad I let it sit for the winter (well, for two months only) when I should have changed it.

Thanks for any help.

 

the hoses that your wondering about are just vents for the gas tank, radiator and the air box i think so those are fine. as for the chain i always use Kerosine and it works fine for me

 

Hey what part of Philly are you from? lol we should ride sometime. But yeah those are just breather hoses, when i was washing my bike I saw them to and asked my mecahnic about it.

 

The tubes are gas tank breather, gas tank overflow, and coolant overflow.

 

Simple green and a grunge brush , makes chain cleaning a painless process

 

manual recommends a high-flash point solvent, NOT gasoline, kerosene for example makes it easy, very little scrubbin at all and dissolves everything best of all is O-ring safe.

 

burp valve tubes is what i call em. idk what the manual calls em. theyre supposed to be there though. should be a little slot at the bottom of your left fairing they slip into and are held in place (maybe). i use wd-40 to clean and recently switched to some really heavy weight gear oil for chain lube. i used to use wax but another post on this site changed my mind.

 

I'm not too far from Mount-Airy/West Oak Lane section.

As for the grunge brush, what is it. I mean, is it like a detailing brush or is that too hard. I just purchased a scrubbing brush from a Walmart that is used for dishes and it is no harder than a 'hard' rated tooth brush. And for the simple green, do you use full concentration or do you dilute it?.

For kerosene, do you have to remove the chain?

I didn't want to use kerosene because it would be too messy.

Thanks for the info about the rubber hoses.

Also, would non-clorinated brake cleaner be okay? (I saw on a youtube video!)

Thanks.

 

Here's an article on chain maintenance (with WD-40 controversy): LINK
Grunge Brush

 

Thanks Incognito. I've skimmed through that link a couple of times before and must have missed the 'grunge brush' part.

It looks like I may have to buy one of those brushes online because I couldn't find it in any of the stores listed in my above post. Unless the Honda dealership sells them.

Does anyone who own that brush can describe how hard the bristles are?

Any other take on a good degreaser/cleaner. I've considered WD-40, but will wait to see if I can pass with something else.

Thanks for the info.