Servicing a Honda Varadero Motorbike

Hello, welcome back to the Mobile Motorbike Mechanic channel. I'm Steve. Today we're heading off to a little village just on the Warwickshire-Oxfordshire boundary to work on a Honda Varadero XL1000. Chuck wants a service doing on it and he also wants the brakes bleeding. So we'll see you when we get there. All right folks, here we are. Honda Varadero XL1000. So we're doing a service on this one today. So oil filter, air filter, spark plugs. We're also going to be doing the brakes, bleed the brakes through front and rear. I'll just give it a general check over. As you can see, it's a bit dusty. It's just come out of the barn. Chap hasn't ridden it this year. He's had it on a trickle charger. So we'll just make sure it's all tickety-boo. We'll do tyre pressures, check the chain and everything like that. So first things first, normally I would start the bike off and get it warm. But on this one, I'm going to change the front plug. And the reason why I'm going to change the front plug first is because access is a bit tight. You've got to get your hand around the exhaust pipe. Once you've got it all warm and you've dropped the oil, it's going to be bloody hot and I'm going to burn my hand. So first things first, get the front plug changed. So front plug is down at the front of the motor here. It's quite easily accessible, but it's just a bit of a pain. And by the time all this is hot, you can get it to burn yourself. So just need to release the HD lead. And then the plug is way, way, way, way, way, way down in there. So 18 mil, right down to it and release it. Like I say, you can do this with the engine warm, but seeing as the engine's cold, we may as well do it with a cold engine to start with. And then we just get a magnet on a stick and we can pull the plug out. Right. So just check. IJR 8B9. Yep, exactly the same plug. Cool. Good stuff. Old one in the box, brand new one. This is actually the same if you've got a VTR 1000. Because I think they're the same motors. Here we go, all the way down inside. Like I say, it's quite a way in. You do need an extension on your socket. That's tight. Pull him out. And then HD lead back on until you hear a nice click. Beautiful. Right. So with that one changed out, we can now see if the bike's going to start. I haven't even switched the bloody thing on yet. Right, we're on. Let's see if we're going to start. Beautiful. Right, we'll let that warm up. Come back to the cinema. Right, engine's warming up. Whilst it's warming up, we may as well take some panels off. So under the sump guard is where your, what was I going to say? Under the sump guard is where your oil filter is. And also, this is your engine drain bolt here, just at the back. But to get to the oil filter, it's underneath here. So just a couple of fasteners on that one. But there are a couple around the other side and a couple at the front here. I'm being lazy. Oil drain plug is at the back of the sump here. So what we'll do, pop him off. Get your drain pan ready to go. Red, lovely. And we need to replace the old washer. Looks no different, but that is a new sump plug washer on there. That is the old one. So get rid of that one. Actually, new one on there. Ready to go back in. What we can do is we can undo the oil filter. Need to get the seat off, get the tank off to get to the air filter and the rear plug. So seat off, reasonably straight forward. That's the seat gone. The key's back in so we don't lose them. Right, now this panel's got to come off, which is a couple of fixings there. Same on the other side. And then we can start to look at getting the tank off. All right, so fuel tank. There's actually a fixing into the fuel tank on this one, on both sides, but we need to undo those. Oh, that's not good. All right, that's one done. Gonna have trouble with this one because it's chewed out of it. If you come and have a look, it's all a bit slack in there. That's going to cause us a problem. Okay, let's see if I've got a different fitting. Let's see if that's going to do it or not. I don't think it is. That was lucky, because they can be a right bugger to get out. There we go. It doesn't take much to wallow them out, but as soon as they go, they can be a bit of a bugger. Now we can undo these two at the back here, and the tank should start to move. Oh, before we move it though, I've almost forgotten. Down in the corner here, you'll see there is a fuel tap. We need to turn that to the off position. Why don't I just get that panel out? Let me get a pick. Stupid bloody fixings. Right, with that panel out of the way, you can see this fuel tap a lot more clearly now. So there's a fuel tap there. So that's off, that's on. So remember to turn it off before you disconnect the fuel pipe or else fuel everywhere. So there's also one exactly the same on the other side, apart from the one on the other side is turned 90 degrees, I think. So you've got to get this panel off to get your hand into it. Let's go around there and have a look. Right, to get this panel off, we've just got one of these silly bloody fasteners where you've got to undo it but not put any pressure on it. That's where a pick comes in handy, and you can just get behind it and relieve it. There we go. Right, so what you'll find up on the rear, this is the other fuel tap. Okay, you can't really see it that well. Let me get a 5mm and I'll release that. I know how to do it, but I want to show you guys. All right, so underneath that panel, just here is the fuel tap, okay? And what you've got to do is you've got to turn that fuel tap to the 90 degree position. I don't know if you saw that all that well, but you might. I'm doing it by feel, but that's both fuel taps turned off. So you've got to do that before you release the fuel hoses. There's one there and then there's one on the other side. You will get fuel out of it. There we go. You'll get a lot more than that if you don't turn the tap off. Right, get the back of the tank undone, get the tank out of there. Two fixings up the front as well. And now we can start getting the tank removed. However, you do have a bit of wiring to contend with. So down under this corner again is the fuel gauge, which you can't really see, you've just got to feel for. There's two wires you need to pull off in this bottom right hand corner. It should just start coming away. Come on, you big bugger. That's all I see, this is heavy. Just got to reach up here and get the hose off. That's it. It is a big, heavy tank. Right, I don't know if you noticed whilst we were filming because I ran out of hands, but basically you have to do the return off the fuel injection system. Is that the return off the fuel injection system? No, that's not the return off the fuel injection system. You know everything I've just said. Anyway, we have to get these hoses off. One, two, three. Anyway, with the tank out of the way, we can get to the air filter, which is nice and easy, nice and straightforward, and we can get to the rear cylinder, which is just there. So, rear plug, we can now do the rear plug. So, nice and straightforward, same as the front one really. You just want to release the HT lead and we can get straight to the plug. Brand new plug, come down in there. Beautiful. HT lead back on again. Right, let me grab a screwdriver, we'll get the air filter done. Spider infestation on this bike, I don't like spiders. We've got some weird pipe going on. I don't understand why that is going through there. There we go, that's got it. Now we can take the air filter off, or the air filter. Right, underneath this, there are these two little sub filters. There's one there and one there, but they look in good condition. So, no need to change them. Brand new high float, still in the packet. Brand, brand new. And just drops in like so. Awkward moment. Those two front ones in first, so we don't lose them. All done, right. Time to get that bloody heavy tank back on again. It weighs a ton. Just putting the last of the pipes on under the tank. I can't really film it, but there are a couple of pipes under here that need to go on. There we go, that's it. One, two, three, yep, okay. Don't want to trap this guy's extra wire in, so we'll get all that moved as well. It's awkward. Right, let's get this top tank bolt in, and that'll stop the tank sliding back down. There we go, right, now we can come back to the back here and try and lift all that wiring out the way. There we go, much better. All right, that's the fuel back on again. Now we've got to do this fuel line here, which is there. Pop him back on, and they clip. Now I'm not going to turn that tap on until I've connected the other side. Tap on, both taps on. Drop the tank down, making sure that's on. Yeah, that's on. Okay, get those back two bolts in. One, two, all done, haven't trapped any wire in. They're glad, very glad about. Yeah, that's not going to trap under there, that's fine. He took another tank there, that's out the way. That's all tucked out the way. Right, get the side panels back on again, get it all back together again. Get some oil in it. Right, old, I'm not going to turn it upside down because oil will come out of it, but HF204 oil filter. Right, Brian, new HF204 oil filter. Let me turn that one up a bit. So, brand new one, going on the bike, in the pot. So, got a sump plug with the new washer on as well. So, let's go and get these fitted. That is all good. As you can see, these come pre-greased, so they're all good. And then we just spin it on until it sits there. Right, let's spin it on until it just touches, and then you want one complete, one complete turn. Seven to eight, seven to eight, done. Wipe off any excess oil. Beautiful. And then we can get the sump plug fitted at the same time. There you go. All right, let's just grab a 12mm, we'll do that one up. Right, right, so oil filter's done, sump plug's in. We can get some oil in it now. So, let's get this topped up with oil. 1040 on this one, pretty standard on bikes in our climate. Anyway, if you're watching in other parts of the world, it might be slightly different, but... Right, we'll start off with about three litres on a 1000cc bike, and then we'll give it a run, fill the oil filter up and see where we're at. Right, so we've filled it up until it's completely full in the side bus. We've put three and a half litres of oil in it. Yes, you're going to say, oh, you've overfilled it. Yeah, I have, because I haven't filled the oil filter up or anything yet. So, let's go for a start and we'll see what happens. All right, that's 10 seconds of running. As you can see, all the oil's disappeared. So, we'll give it five minutes, wait for that to settle, and then do a final top up. In the meantime, let me start getting all these panels back on again. Which will give us something to do. Right, so it's been a couple of minutes. I've got the panels back on at the front there now. And as you can see, the level has returned to just below maximum. So, we'll just top it off and then that will be done. Right, so that's us up to the full line there. Spot on. So, it's done. Top that one up. I'm not going to top that one all the way up, because we haven't replaced the brake pads. So, there's enough room in there to allow the expansion of the piston when the brake pads get replaced. Right, get the cap for that. Do that one and then we'll do the fronts. Okay, so that's this one all done. So, plugs, air filter, oil filter, oil, and the brakes all sorted on this one. So, oh yeah, and we just need to check the tyre pressures to finish it off, but we'll do that off camera. 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