We have been learning a lot of things on the road about our motorcycles. Some is basic mechanic stuff some is hard job… Everything is so new for us because we never ride motorcycle before start our world trip. 🙂
Must check one thing after change/repair your tire.
We change tire many times but we didn’t know one detail for control until have problem.
I had flat tire again in Mozambique and we repaired it. It was look like everything fine but when started to ride the feeling was no balance at all. It was hard to ride slow and I had hard time on the sand. Therefore we checked again to find the problem and we saw that tire didn’t fit well.
We tried to get air out and put back again in a petrol station but didn’t work. So, we took out the tire, got air out and got the wheel lose of the tire, use a little WD40 after then gave air again.
So, if you change your tire first time you should keep in your mind to look this detail. 😉
Motorcycle was working automatically without use start button
I turn on the engine and started to ride. It was rain and Ferry said that my in front light didn’t work. Must be a problem with the bulb or a fuse. After a while we had a break and than when I turn on my engine motorcycle work without using the start button. Still my light wasn’t working.
Rain was like shower so we couldn’t do anything. Next day, the problem kept continue. The light didn’t work and motorcycle started before push the start button.
We saw that a little stone got stuck in the start button. The button takes all electricity from the motorcycle when the engine goes on. So, if the button stuck the motorcycle can work automatically and still takes all power from the motorcycle. Of course, no electricity. We got out the stone and everything turned back normal.
Now. After all gravel, sand, dirt..etc. road we always check the start button to make sure nothing stuck and sometime we use WD40 to make sure.
Our air filter, we can’t clean it but we couldn’t find the same as our motorcycle air filter.
Our motorcycle (Honda CRF 250L) air filter needs to change every 24.000 km. We changed first time when the motorcycle was 29.000 km. The air filter was clean so we wanted to use long because we were in Africa.
After Congo, DRC, Gabon and Namibia We wanted to check the air filter. It was only 12.000 km but air filter was dirty. No way to put back like that but it was hard to find as well. We went to a mechanic service and use their brake cleaner to clean the filter. After it got dry we put it back again.
When you start the motorcycle engine you need to open gas more and listen to the sound. Because in the beginning the sound is like somebody coughs.
We heard from some people who use OMO to clean their air filter. We haven’t done that but keeping it in our mind if necessary we can do it.
No chain oil and chain cleaner in West Africa 🙁
When we were starting to our journey we had two chain oils and one chain cleaner. We were thinking to easy find this kind of stuff in Africa. But we didn’t. When we were in Senegal we found small chain oil that was so expensive. Can’t be like that we have no option to travel without oil the chain.
We bought truck oil, which is thick, and not keeping dust. Just need a teeth brusher to put it on the chain 😉
Sometimes, we must clean the chain of course. Can’t find chain cleaner but find break fluid everywhere. So we bought one small and clean the chain with it. It is really so easy to clean. 😉
…will continue 🙂
What we have been learning on the road we always like to share. You can find playlist to watch from our maintenance here :
