Posted by Peter the blacksmith on November 19, 2000 at 19:29:21:
In Reply to: I use the lazy man's way posted by Hogryder on November 19, 2000 at 18:36:41:
Yes, I do bother to take out the battery and let it hibernate somewhere inside (that's under my bed but don't tell my wife) and in spring I check the fluid level and charge it and put it back into the bike. Not much problems with batteries, nay ! The "stabilizing" of the fuel is something new to me, never heared of that...What most people I know do is to start the bike, disconnect the petrol pipe while bike is idling. It will shortly stop. We then prefere to think the carb is empty (it might not be on most bikes), we take out the sparkplug, put in a spoonful of oil, and turn the engine around a couple of times. This so that the oil will spread inside the cylinder and nothing will get stuck under winter. This is not necessary, I believe, if you store your bike in a warm garage. We put the plug back in, then, to prevent any dust or mouse-poop getting into the cylinder. In spring before starting I always throw the old plug away and put in a new one. Yes, one thing that is good to do if you store your bike in a shed with temps under freezing point is to put a plastic bag around the end of the muffler to prevent moisture to get in there...
If you store your bike in a place like the one mentioned above, and you do not want condens of air moisture (=rust) in your tank the best way is to take the tank off and let it spend the winter in a warm place.
My opinions are certainly not the best in the world, but they make sense, don't they ? Well, about idling for 20 minutes...not a good idea. Besides the over-heating-risk Polar Pilot mentioned,your plug will get full of soot and you'll have starting problems later if you don't remember to clean it or change plug.
We had a second attempt by father Frost to cover this land (Finland) in his white stuff, but we only got 6 inches (12,5cm), that will be gone the day after tomorrow... Sigh! Longing for an early warm spring..
All good things. Peter.