How to preserve a motorcycle for the winter?
To prevent cold weather from causing problems, you need to properly prepare your motorcycle for winter. Car services offer the service of storing a motorcycle in winter; their prices range from 1,500 to 5,000 rubles per month, but if you wish, you can preserve your motorcycle for the winter on your own.
- How to preserve a motorcycle for the winter? First, you need to wash and dry it, making sure that no water gets into the bearings or electrical connectors.
- We further prepare the motorcycle for winter - we treat rubber parts and tires using silicone spray or tire polish. We lower the wheels to approximately one atmosphere.
- Before long-term storage, it is necessary to add a fuel stabilizer to the tank. Famous brands - Liqui Moly, MOTOREX, MOTUL. Their prices start from 400 rubles.
- Preparing a motorcycle for winter requires taking care of the exhaust pipe - sealing it so that moisture does not get inside. You can plug the pipe with a rag, but it is better to seal it with oiled paper.
- Remove the battery and take it home, remembering to periodically check its charge.
Stages of preparing a motorcycle for winter
The motorcycle must be washed, cleaned of dirt, wiped dry, preferably treated with a wax polish appropriate for the type of surface. Treat all parts with moisture-repellent compounds.
It is advisable to change the engine oil, but if it is not very old and dirty, you can postpone the replacement procedure until spring. Ideally, the oil is changed twice, before preservation and at the beginning of the new season, but this is expensive; you can use cheaper oil on the same basis for the winter.
If the oil is changed for the winter, before preservation, the engine is briefly started at idle so that an oil film forms from the inside.
Unscrew the spark plugs, drop a couple of drops of the same oil into the cylinders, put the spark plugs in place and turn the crankshaft a couple of times. You can remove and clean the candles for the winter, and plug the holes under them with an oiled rag.
For a two-stroke engine, this procedure will not be enough; it is advisable to disconnect the air cleaner pipe from the carburetor, clean the carburetor of dirt, start the engine and inject oil directly into the diffuser.
Fill the tank to the top with gasoline to protect the walls from corrosion and add a fuel stabilizer to it to prevent gasoline stratification, let the engine run a little so that all the lines are filled with fuel.
Seal the muffler exhaust system with oiled rags to protect against moisture penetration.
Remove the battery and take it to a moderately cool place; heat and frost have equally unfavorable effects on the electrolyte. It is advisable to fully charge it and periodically recharge it during storage to compensate for self-discharge.
Ideally, place the motorcycle on a central support and install a trolley under the front wheel. If it is possible to hang the motorcycle, you need to deflate the tires by about half the usual volume of air (up to 1 atm), if you cannot unload the wheels, they need to be inflated more tightly, to 2.5-3 atm.
Wash, clean and lubricate the chain, clean the brake discs, rinse the air filter if it is foam.
Cover the upper part of the motorcycle with a cover, but make sure that it does not reach the ground, ensuring air circulation.
How to start a motorcycle correctly after winter?
1. If the motorcycle has been in storage since the fall, then in the spring it may not start due to expired gasoline, which can be stored in the tank for no more than two weeks , after which its octane number decreases . Therefore, before storing your motorcycle for the winter, drain the fuel from the tank. This can be done in a simple way, based on the laws of physics.
Read other motorcycle reviews How to buy a motorcycle cheaply at an auction in Japan. Instructions.
- Take a canister and a hose, which you need to drown as much as possible in the tank.
- Then you need to carefully squeeze it there, and then pull out the pinched part below the tank level and release it. Gasoline will flow into the canister.
- You can also purchase a special hose with a device for pumping out gasoline.
2. Check the ignition system , perhaps the battery has stopped doing its job. Then it needs to be charged.
3. Perhaps the problem lies in the spark plugs , you need to inspect them, check for signs of breakdowns and, if necessary, replace them.
4. If we start the motorcycle after winter, this is done without using the throttle, press the starter .
5. The last way is to start the motorcycle “ from the pusher ,” but if this does not produce results, then it’s time for service.
Read other motorcycle reviews How to buy a motorcycle cheaply at an auction in Japan. Instructions.
How to store a motorcycle in winter: secrets of proper preservation
A motorcycle is a seasonal vehicle, so in winter it needs to be parked somewhere. And not just, but so that in the spring you don’t have to waste time queuing at the service center, trying to wake up your “sleeping beauty.” In this article we will tell you everything about proper wintering!
Dmitry Fedotov
The first thing you need to do is decide on a place. It’s good when you have your own warm garage or secure parking space. And if not? Obviously, you can’t leave your bike on the street, and wintering in an apartment is the lot of extreme sports enthusiasts and romantics who are not bothered by the persistent smell of gasoline and rubber.
The easiest way is to give the motorcycle for winter storage. This service is offered by many services and costs about 1.5 thousand per month, decreasing and increasing depending on the size of the motorcycle. This cost usually includes not only a place in a warm box, but also monthly battery recharging, and scheduled maintenance can be done without rushing, bypassing the spring rush.
It is better to trust storage to old and well-known motorcycle services that have been operating on the market for a long time. They usually charge more for their services, but if problems arise, you won’t have to argue for a long time about compensation. Agree, no one wants to find out that his motorcycle burned down in a fire, and the company that vouched for it went bankrupt and disappeared.
In any case, winter storage is not a cheap pleasure. You can save money by renting a warm garage with a group of like-minded people - winter comes at the same time for everyone, so in thematic public pages you can find a couple of motorcyclists in the neighborhood with the same problem and rent a box together.
But location is only half the battle! You can stop there, however, it is not a fact that the motorcycle will readily start working in the spring. In order for the coming season to start calmly, the device needs to be mothballed. Of course, you shouldn’t follow in the footsteps of your grandfathers and expose the device to bricks so that the “suspension can breathe,” but there are still several mandatory procedures.
First, the motorcycle needs to be washed thoroughly. It just seems that chrome and aluminum are not afraid of corrosion. In fact, just one trip in late autumn, on roads treated with a reagent, is enough to discover oxides and rust in the most unexpected places in the spring. The motorcycle must be absolutely clean, even if it is parked in a warm garage.
Don’t try to blast the sink into particularly dirty places; water that gets under the seals can do a lot of damage over the winter. This especially applies to fork boots, wheel bearing seals and pendulum axles. It is better to reapply shampoo and scrub with a sponge or brush, rinsing off the foam, keeping the washing gun at a distance.
A good wash will be enough, but to be sure, especially if the motorcycle is in a cold garage, you need to fill everything with a preservative. There are special protective compounds for aluminum and chrome on sale, however, even the most budget silicone grease will do a good job. It is not aggressive, so it can be safely applied without fear of ruining the paint and plastic.
In addition to aluminum and chrome surfaces, attention should be paid to all rubber seals, oil seals and boots. The only places where it is better not to pour it are brake discs and tires. Otherwise, before the first trip in the spring, such a preservative will have to be washed off with a degreaser.
Secondly, the tank needs to be topped up. If this is not done, then when temperature changes in the air, condensation will form, and this, in turn, will accumulate at the bottom in the form of water. Removing rust from a tank will not be easy. It’s worth refueling even if the tank is plastic – the fuel filter doesn’t need excess moisture either.
Finally, you need to remove the battery and take it home. The batteries of modern motorcycles do not like cold and complete discharge, so it is much easier to keep it vigorous by observing storage conditions. It’s good if you find time to charge it during the winter, but even without this, the battery will most likely remain in good condition.
These simple procedures will be enough to start the season without problems. But it’s not worth plugging the muffler with a rag, pouring oil into the cylinders and remembering other life-kicks of the 50s; modern motorcycles will not appreciate such care, and the benefits of it are not obvious. Here, as in any other matter, a sense of proportion is important!
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Preparing for winter
Storing a motorcycle in a cold garage in winter is quite possible. All that remains is to double-check the order of work so as not to forget or confuse anything. So, the following preparatory work should be done:
- Remove the battery and wash the motorcycle.
- Place it on a stand and/or make wooden rolls and inflate all the inner tubes in the wheels.
- Treat all rubber with silicone and all chrome parts with special lubricant.
- Pour engine oil into all cylinders and return the spark plugs to their place.
- It is good to treat the entire chain system with grease or other similar lubricant.
- Fill the tank with gasoline, start the engine, warm it up and honk the horn.
- Turn off the engine.
After complete preparation for wintering, it is advisable to cover the motorcycle with a special breathable, but dust-retaining cover. At the same time, you didn’t spend much time on conservation.
