It's winter in Alaska, and that means my bike is sitting idle for another two months, or so. I have decided to take advantage of the down time to perform some needed maintenance: installing SW-Motech crash bars, adding an auxiliary power bus to the electrical system, changing the oil and oil filter, and changing the air filter.
I bought the bike 11 months ago, and have racked up 5800 miles since then, so it's definitely time to put a new filter in. However, I have to admit, I didn't know how to get access to the air box :( Notes I found on-line suggest that the air box is under the gas tank and that you need to remove both the fairing and the tank to perform the procedure. Since I don't have a Suzuki Maintenance Manual ($$$), and there doesn't seem to be a Clymer manual for my bike yet, I turned to Google (the parts drawings on Bike Bandit are also a great resource).
That's how I found this blog post which describes the procedure, albeit on an '04 model. I will try his instructions, and if I run across any differences between his '04 model and my '09, or if I find anything that needs more explanation, I'll post either supplementary notes or an entire procedure here.
Edit (04/17/2011): Well, it took me longer to get around to doing the air filter change than I intended, but I finally did it. The deus ex machina write-up was very good, and the procedure was not at all difficult, once you get past the mental block of having to remove the gas tank and take apart half of the fairing. That sounds like a real pain in the backside, but actually, it was a remarkably simple procedure. If you've been putting off an air filter change in your Strom because it sounds like more work than you want to take on, take my advice: just go do it. You'll be fine, I promise :) and your bike will be happy now that it can finally breathe easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment