It's amazing what a little maintenance can achieve

[Lutin]

A quite surprising improvement in fuel consumption for a start. After the Pennine Way jaunt I decided to give the Transalp a bit of maintenance - New plugs (old ones were rather sooty - particularly the front ones), new air filter, checked the valve clearances (all fine) and also check the chokes and lube the choke cable. This last job was a real awkward faff! Oh, and I changed the coolant as it is 5 years since it was last done.

Well, after a bit of faffing about (see A Tale of Two Air Filters) and having to replace the rear inlet valve tappet adjuster cover 'O' ring after I found it was leaking, I finally got it back in one piece. I also changed the front brake pads.

So, all this necessitated a couple of runs to check that all was okay. First run found the valve cover oil leak and the second was to bed the brakes in. Fuel consumption over two tank fill-ups is showing 57 MPG! This is on a mix of open 'A' and 'B' roads ('N' and 'R' roads over here) and bimbling along 'Bog' roads (for the view) and getting stuck behind Grockles and Tour Buses. Not too bad considering I was returning about 50 MPG or so over the Pennine Way jaunt. But I suppose that was two up and full luggage as well. So, some more runs are in order to get a fuller picture.

 

[Ian Porter]

I think you need to try at least another 20 tanks full of fuel, just to be sure,

we wouldn't want false statistics just because the sample is too low now would we

 

[Lutin]

I think you need to try at least another 20 tanks full of fuel, just to be sure,

we wouldn't want false statistics just because the sample is too low now would we

Yes, I suppose you're right - the sample size is a tad on the low side.

We'll have to see how the weather holds out for the rest of the week. Mind you, the Mem Sahib is away on field work on Angelesy - so she won't know that I've not got around to the house work yet............

 

[ANDY STANNARD]

My little baby 99, 600 Transalp used to average 52/53 mpg...BRILLIANT...done oil change, air filter, new plugs and now averaging 56 mpg and runs much better " not that is was bad "...MEGA HAPPY...old plugs looked perfectly fine, in shape, colour and gap...didn't know when they were put in ? miles etc..checked them and swopped all 4 for new that I already bought... BUT.. boy did the new ones make a huge, huge difference !