serviced the Honda; new oil in Suzuki

I was able to service the CBR250RR with Chiev's help on Friday night. We changed the oil, changed the spark plugs, changed the coolant, bled the brakes and put in new brake fluid. We couldn't change the oil filter because the bolt holding it in was rounded. Even if we could get it off, we probably couldn't get the plug back on afterwards. I did not like the prospect of fuel leaking onto the rear tyre will riding.

Most of the work was fairly straight-forward. Take the side fairings off and all the plugs are pretty much at hand; except the spark plugs. They are right in the bowels of the bike (under the radiator). Curiously, and annoyingly, the spark plug arrangement is grouped by sparks 1-2-3 and the 4th spark is on its own. The number 3 spark plug is a bastard to get to. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something dividing spark 3 and 4, so the only way to get to spark 3 is to reach right in from the spark 1 side. Given that there's not much space, it's quite a challenge undoing the spark with 5/8th spark plug socket, socket extender and ratchet. Let's not forget that you still have put the new spark plug in. After the service, I took the bike for a quick spin around Chiev's area. The gearbox felt a lot smoother than before. I'm not sure if the engine revved smoother (it felt like it did), and the brakes felt about the same. On the whole, it was a good exercise and I learnt a lot from it.

I bought all the gear during on the Friday (while I was at work) from Peter Stevens in the city. The gear included 2x 4l bottles of Motul 5100 10w-40 semi-synthetic oil, 2x 500ml bottles of DOT5.1 Motul brake fluid, 4x NGK spark plugs, an oil filter for the 250RR (which we didn't use), and Motul Inugel Ultra coolant (also didn't use, as I forgot to buy distilled water).

On the Saturday, I changed the oil out of my 600. I bought a Suzuki OEM filter from Peter Stevens the day before, and used the left-over Motul oil to do the service. Let me say, this was far more nerve-wracking than working on the Honda as the bike is only 3 weeks old and the last thing I wanted is to scratch-up the fairings. Thankfully I got some help from Chiev (again), Adrian and Jack. The left side fairing proved to be a difficult one to get off. There was one fastener that just wouldn't budge, but somehow Adrian managed to pop it off.

Before I got started, I dropped into Bunnings and bought myself a nice 43 piece Kincrome socket set to do this work with. Sure, I only needed the 17mm socket, extender and ratchet; but it's nice to have a good complement of tools, and I'll look to do more of the work myself in the future. I'll need an oil filter wrench eventually, as I had to get Chiev to get the oil filter off with his own home-made 'seat-belt' contraption. I also dropped into SupaCheap Autos and picked up a oil pan and some funnels.

So we drained the oil, changed the oil filter, tipped in new oil, put the bike back together and fired it up. After firing-up the bike a couple of times to check the oil level, I decided to jump on the bike and take it for a quick spin around my area. The gearbox felt a little smoother but I think the engine might have idled a little better. Could be placebo. But I think it was worth changing the oil, even though it's only 550km till my first service. I'll bet the old oil had been sitting in the bike for ages before I bought it.