| Author | Message | ||
     Juniorkirk |
Well guys, I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but was always afraid i wouldnt be able to finish without dropping the motor down, but i did it....AND I DOCUMENTED IT WITH PICTURES AND VIDEOS! So without any more hesitation, here it is, the step by step of how change your spark plugs without rotating your engine, ENJOY! (NOTE: For those of you that are reading this and are going to temp to do this yourself, i'm assuming you have a basic knowledge of how to take body work, air box, and inner air box off without any problem, I will go over quickly how to, but not too much)  1.) Start by disconnecting the positive terminal on your battery, you can do the negative, but I like to make sure the main source of power from that positive is gone.  2.) Remove the seat and airbox cover to get to the inner airbox. From left to right, you have the wireharness then the tank vent breather, and then the baro pressure sensor. All of them have to be unhooked from the air box base to remove it.  3.) The tank breather is easy to remove, all i did was just peel it out of its groove and push it to the side. For the harness, it is just hooked on there and can be easily taken off. The baro sensor is clipped on and is also easy to take off  4.) Once all those are off you'll see where the fuel line is hooked onto the air box base as well, be careful when taking this off as you could damage it. It is a little tricky to get off but not too bad.  5.) Remove the air box cover and set it to the side, at front of the air box, there will be 2 T-30 Torx bolts holding the base in place, take those 2 off and then you should be able to wiggle the base off. It might resist somewhat, that is because of the gasket that goes over the throttle bodies to make a good seal.   6.) Take the throttle body gasket off and set it off to the side (or you can put it back onto the base right then, it is explained in the video's how i put the base back on.)    7.) You should see the rear coil now. Go ahead and disconnect the connector to the coil. After that take the T-30 Torx and remove the single bolt that is holding it down.   8.) Remove the coil and set it on a clean rag or somewhere that dirt wont be able to get to it. You should be able to look down the hole and see the rear spark plug.   9.) The tools i used to get the spark plug out is a 5/8" Deep wall socket, U Joint connection, 2" extension, and a socket wrench with a pivoting head. Go ahead and remove the rear spark plug. (If you have a magnetic rod or a telescopic grabber thingy, that would help a lot in removing the spark plugs. I didnt have either, so i used a piece of mesh that i got the spark plug caught in and pulled it out by hand. Crude and simple, but works)  These spark plugs were in great condition for having almost 10,500 miles on them, and they were in NO WAY 'babied' miles, i have fun with this bike all the time. The spark plugs actually have 3,000 stock miles on them, and then 7,500 with the Erik Buell Racing ECM for the Barker pipe. This just shows you the ECM is doing the right thing, not a lot of soot and not a lot of build-up, just right.  I put in these Autolite plugs. The guy at the dealership recommended them since they didnt have any OEM ones in stock. If i dont like them, at least i know i can change them easy enough.  10.) Go ahead and put the new spark plug in and tighten it down where it is just starting to get snug a little bit. Put the coil back on and screw it back down and reconnect the connector and the rear spark plug is done......now for the fun part!  11.) Before you can get at the front plug, you have to remove the snorkel that brings the air up into the air box. There is only one T-30 holding it on and is easy to get at from the front.  Make sure to disconnect the Air Temp Sensor before completely removing the the snorkel otherwise you might cause some damage.  I also disconnected the front header O2 sensor so i didnt 'accidentally' catch it on something and rip it apart.  Here is the snorkel out of the bike  Here is the entire air box assembly (other then the top of the air box.) *MOST OF THESE NEXT STEPS ARE EASIEST TO ACCOMPLISH FROM DOING IT THROUGH THE FRONT OF THE BIKE*  12.) Just like the rear spark plug, you need to remove the T-30 bolt and the connector. Both are easy to get at coming from the front. Also, you only need to use the T-30 that is provided with the bike.  This is the top view of the front coil before i disconnected the connector and completely removed the bolt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBaDhdPYnwE 13.) as you can see in the video, i had to work my hand in the front at the bottom to get the coil out of there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVIZszuIv3E 14.) Take the 5/8" deep wall and connect it to the U-Joint and then the 2" extension. Put that down in the hole and get it over the spark plug. From there, attach the socket wrench (kind of hard to get the damn thing on, took me about 5 minutes each time to get it lined up just right so it snapped on) and start unscrewing the spark plug. 15.) like with the rear, i used the mess stuff and pushed it over the spark plug and pulled it out by hand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhFl-XMr4TQ 16.) After you put the new spark plug in and snugged down LIGHTLY, time to put the coil back in. It is a lot easier to do with 2 hands, one coming from the bottom and the other through the top. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wysRjSqSits A little trick to get the coil in/out, push it to the left while you try to take it out or put it in and it goes a lot smoother. As the video states, The Erik Buell Racing ECM is well worth it. 17.) AFter you screw the coil back down and reconnect the connector, put the snorkel back in and bolt it back up in the same way you took it out. Make sure everything is reconnected and start putting everything back together in the reverse order as you took it apart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2HzDraSUhI These are a few tricks i do to make it easier to put everything back together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJdEB5hM220 And finally, after everything is done and 1 1/2 hours have passed, she is all done and running like a champ. Took it for a ride and it is running great. I hope this helps some of you out there that has been wanting to do the spark plug, but feared it couldnt be done without rotating the motor. I hope that i can make more step-by-steps like this as i need to do more and more work on my bike. If you would like to make suggestions on how to make this process faster and easier, please post, i have a feeling i'm going to be doing this again before this season is over. (Message edited by juniorkirk on July 06, 2011) | ||
| Crmike |
That is awesome! Lord knows how much a dealer or a shop would charge to change the plugs the "rotating the engine" way! Thanks! | ||
| Rogue_biker |
Juniorkirk, you da man! We need to give you a case of beer or a case of whatever is your favorite! Great job. I went through something similar when replacing the spark plugs on my L91 powered C4 Corvette. OMG! What a PITA unless you have all the tools, and know a lot of "tricks" to make it simple. Now I can do it easy. Next up, 1125R sparkplugs! LOL! | ||
| S3t |
how can I download this information to my computer, so i can have it in my garAge with me when I am working on the bike???? JUNIORKIRK - What freeking INCREDIBLE job you did !!!!!!!!!!!!!! S3T | ||
| Sprintst |
Was there a reason to do this early when you are pretty close to needing to do the rotation anyway to check the valves? Great post JK | ||
| Maxime75us |
T30 Holding the snorkel is impossible to remove. well... The bolt is ....glued...geez Any idea?? Thank you |
