News

My Royal Enfield Continental GT535: 7 years & 29000 km update

13th December 2021, 11:05 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

Though the motorcycle was recently serviced, I wanted to get a couple of things looked at before I started packing for the road trip.

BHPian neil.jericho recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

The Continental GT 535 finally hit the 29K mark on the odometer today! Thanks to the last 5 months of continuous monsoon rains and the second motorbike in my garage, there weren't any recent rides of note. But all that is set to change with the plans for an upcoming ride to one of my favourite parts of the country. Though the bike was recently serviced, I wanted to get a couple of things looked at before I started packing for the trip. Somehow the front end didn't feel perfect and on further analysis, I narrowed it down to:

the front suspension has a bit of dive.
the front brakes not being as sharp as they were.
the steering feel was not as solid as I liked it to be.

I booked an appointment with Sanju from F Motors and below is a short update of everything that was done.

Slight play in the right handlebar

Before we could get started, Sanju noticed that there was a slight play in the right handlebar. I had incorrectly assumed that one of the bolts needed to be tightened and had put it off for later. After some poking and prodding, Sanju discovered that one of the screws wasn't sitting flush with the handlebar. We removed it and fixed it back tightly. I will need to get it replaced with a new one soon.

Brake fluid replacement

F Motors has this nifty Brake Liquid Tester that basically checks the percentage of water content in the brake fluid. I had replaced the front brake fluid less than a year ago but I didn't have the same confidence in the feel of the front brake, as I did a few months ago. The tester said that the water percentage was more than 4% and that was enough for us to change the existing brake fluid to Bosch DOT 4 brake fluid.

Old brake fluid - doesn't look too bad

The tester disagreed with my assessment

The bike scored the highest 4% and above for both front and rear

Bosch DOT4 brake fluid to the rescue

Aah, clean brake fluid!

The old brake fluid at the rear

All set now

Cone set tightening

There was a hint of free play in the steering, so I asked for it to be tightened. I need to ride it a bit to see if I am happy with the current setup.

Motorcycle footpeg feeler delete

I only recently noticed that the OEM left footpeg still had the long feeler on it while the right one, which was replaced at some point in time, didn't have the feeler. Sitting on the bike and moving it around in the parking lot is a lot easier without the feelers, so we got the one on the left footpeg removed.

Suspension sag adjustment

First things first, here are the current baseline settings:

Rider Weight - 86 - 87 kgs
Fork Oil - Liqui Moly 5W Lite
Age of Fork Oil - 11 months and 1,800 km
Preload settings on Marsh Auto adjusters - 6 visible rings above the triple clamp (i.e. base setting with no preload is dialled in)
Threads visible on the rear suspension - 8 threads

The final row in the table below, taken from this post in August, is the setting that we had finalized. At that time, the sag was 28mm at the front.

Now, the front suspension had noticeably more dive than before and we suspected that the fork oil was wearing out a bit faster than we had anticipated. We decided to check the sag and work with the Marsh preload adjusters to eliminate it. Do note that this time we used a dial-type vernier caliper and not a tape, so the accuracy will be higher with this method. On the flip side, I have to be conservative with the force I use for L3, as the vernier caliper gives very exact readings. Now to do some real-world testing on some of my regular roads to see how this fares.

As always, it was another excellent experience working with Sanju and the bike feels like it is in top nick and is all set for the upcoming ride. Meanwhile, I am checking the weather sites to see if there is a possibility of rain!

Signing off with a picture of the Continental GT 535, because this thread can never have enough pictures.