Getting creative to get clean.

Well. What can I say? Since I have been busy coping with world events, just like everyone else, it has been a good few weeks since my last post. In that relatively short bit of time, the world has flipped up on its head and life as we knew it has changed quite dramatically. Like everyone else, I and my family are working on coming to terms with life in this new normal. In an effort to wrest back some form of control, I looked at the list of stuff I need to do on the XJR400 and decided to find a way to get the work done. Here is my take on quarantine maintenance when I can't just run out to the store for the right tools and supplies. Enjoy!

Despite the inability to travel freely, there is some beauty to be had. Spring in Japan is signaled by the Cherry blossom. Here is a shot of a nice Cherry tree outside my office. The weather has been great for riding. It is still cool, but I haven't needed my heated gloves more than once or twice. I have been riding to work since traffic to the base has been much lighter lately. On the way home I might take a slightly longer set of roads to get a few more kms under my belt. The roads are clean and dry most of the time and the bike runs great when the outside air temps are in the 50's and 60's. It also doesn't take as long to warm up as it does when the overnight low gets into the 30's. Being an air cooled, inline, four cylinder engine, the bike needs some heat to run smoothly.

Just prior to delivering my bike, the dealer said he did a quick service. While I appreciate it, I am kind of particular about some of the products I use. Once of them is chain cleaner and lube. For cleaner I usually just use WD-40. It takes care of the grunge and is safe for o-rings on o-ring chains. It is cheap and readily available almost everywhere. For my chain lube, I like a light lube that isn't tacky or sticky. I'd rather have to re-lube a chain more often so that I don't have to scrub it at cleaning time. Whatever was used to lube the chain on the XJR was very sticky. I have only put 850 kms or so on the bike since purchase (about 530 miles), but the chain looked like I haven't cleaned it in years. Not only was it dirty, but the gunk was hard to wipe off and smeared on my fingers like grease.

This was going to be tough. I didn't bring a rear stand to Japan. I have been on the lookout for one, but the lockdown has curbed my shopping. I needed to find a way to get the back tire off the ground to rotate the rear wheel. I have seen a product called a Snapjack. It lifts the right side of the bike's swingarm against the kickstand to get the rear wheel just off the ground enough that the wheel can rotate. Since I wanted to clean my chain today and not after a week of waiting for the mail, I decided to use my bike jack to do the same thing. I can't use the jack under the engine. The custom exhaust pipe hangs too low for the jack to properly engage with the frame rails of the bike. All of the bike's weight would rest on the on the header, potentially causing it to crush or deform. I rolled the bike back so that the rear wheel fit into a decorative groove in my driveway. I then positioned the jack so that it would lift the swingarm by the rear brake caliper. I only had to lift it a few millimeters to be able to get the tire to rotate by hand enough to clean the chain from all sides. Perfect!

Now that the conditions were set, there was nothing to it, but to do it. I grabbed a cold beer, threw in my headphones and proceeded to use most of a can of brake cleaner to get the cleaning started. It wasn't great. The brake cleaner required a ton of spraying and scrubbing. My old grunge brush is worn out and gooped up from a couple of years of use. The rag you see in this picture was much whiter than it shows here when I started. After a good hour I managed to get most of the chain cleaned up. My wife went shopping that evening a was able to find a nice kitchen brush and a Japanese WD-40 equivalent at the grocery store that came in handy the next day when I went back at it to finish the job. With a better brush and the right cleaner, I finally got the job done to my satisfaction.

Here is a good shot to really show the extent of the work I had to do. This is my chain guard. The fuzz you can see in the left picture was about 3mm deep or about 1/8". I had to mechanically scrape the gunk first, then use my cleaner. The countershaft area of the engine case has a custom cover in place of the OEM one. It is a nice looking aluminum piece, but it exposes the countershaft to the elements. It is an area where chain lube likes to collect and my bike is no exception. There is a good 1/4" or 6mm worth of nasty build up in that area. I'll clean that later. My plan is to work on one area of the bike at a time, from front to back, until I clean the whole thing. Just like getting the rear wheel off the ground, I'll have to get creative with some of that other work to make up for a missing tool or other lack.

Here are the results of my work. Compared to my first pic of the chain, it is light years better. There is still some buildup on the inside of the links.  I'll get to those some other time. That would require me to use a bottle brush in every link to get cleaned up. I might also get a clip style master link so that I can split the chain and soak it in some kerosene. That would be the best and would make future cleanings much easier.

This was a rather enjoyable bit of maintenance that I have been slacking on. It felt good to get it done. It also gives me some motivation to get another couple of projects checked off my list. Hopefully you are making the most of any extra time available to treat your bike to a bit of work. If you are able to get out and ride, then please ride safe! Catch you later.

Old Blue