Himalaya 500km first service
500km has now come and gone and, as the book required, it was first service time.
A bit of a non-event in this case as I had done most of the recommended service work (and more) already. It was, however, time for the first oil and filter change which required me to specially order oil filters as I was advised by my local dealer that they do not carry any Royal Enfield parts in stock due to some drama with their other stocked brands… Never mind, an order was placed and a couple of oil filters arrived some days later. The more cynical among you may be wondering at this point how the dealer envisaged doing the very same service work without an oil filter in stock, but let’s not go there. I might add, however, that this same dealer has still not let me know the valve clearances which I asked for when I bought the bike in July…. (the very helpful folk at BJ’s Bikes & Bits in Brisbane were only too happy to tell me the clearances over the phone and even provided a couple of hints to make it easier – thanks again to BJ’s fantastic staff).
Anyway, with oil and filter changed, it was time for a complete look-over and spanner check and an ideal time to fix a couple of minor irritants from earlier. Firstly, I noticed that the two bolts had leapt to freedom from the right-hand side of the fork brace (the left two were still there and tight - must have been smoko time), so I removed the remaining bolts and replaced all four with the appropriate grade Loctite and tensioned correctly.
Next was to remove the clutch cable completely and re-route the thing through the wire guides provided by the factory. For some bizarre reason I cannot even imagine the cable had been run through the first couple of guides, but then cable-tied to the side of the front frame down-tube – why would they do that???
Never mind, like my former Classic Bike Tune partner and long-term friend says, “forgive them for they know not what they are!”
Service work complete, it’s back to the carburettor jetting, but more on that shortly.
Sorry for the negative tone of the article, but it is factual. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have to fix these things!
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