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2005 Concours Questions

F

fthoffman1487

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I'm considering purchasing a 2005 Concours with about 35,000 miles on it.

What are some things that I should look for on this bike?
What questions should I ask the current owner?
Are there any routine maintenance requirements that I may want to be concerned about as I put more miles on it?
How often do valves need to be adjusted and how difficult is that?
Are the valves shims or nut & screw type?
What is the hydro lock issue I've heard about?
Are there any modifications that you recommend be done to improve the reliability and longevity?
 
2005 is a C10, so need to move this to that section.

nut and screw for valves, I check mine every 8,000 miles for the first 50,000, and now am up to about 16,000 on the interval.

Search online for the regular factory manual, it is available in pdf, that will give you the routine maintenance.

For the rest, read through the C10 section, a lot of your questions will be answered.

I am considering selling mine as well since some parts are no longer available. There are some after market sites that have them, such as murphs.

I also have a C14 and I am finding that I am riding it more these days.
 
fthoffman1487 said:
I'm considering purchasing a 2005 Concours with about 35,000 miles on it.

What are some things that I should look for on this bike?
What questions should I ask the current owner?
Are there any routine maintenance requirements that I may want to be concerned about as I put more miles on it?
How often do valves need to be adjusted and how difficult is that?
Are the valves shims or nut & screw type?
What is the hydro lock issue I've heard about?
Are there any modifications that you recommend be done to improve the reliability and longevity?
Click to expand...
I just bought a 2002 last fall and am going through it to get on the road this spring (it's low miles, but sat a long time).

Valve adjustment is not that hard if you've done other bikes. If you have a shop manual (Kawasaki or Clymer), and everything ready, you can do it on a Saturday. I had experience on other Kawasakis designed in the same era (EX250, EX500, and ZX600-C) and it was very familiar.

Hydrolock refers to the potential bending a rod on start-up if a cylinder has filled with gas (due to leaky petcock and simultaneously leaky float valve) and it fires up before stalling on that cylinder. The starter isn't powerful enough to bend a rod, but if another cylinder fires before the gas-logged one hits the compression stroke, it can be bad news. The accepted method for checking without engine dissassembly is to measure piston height at TDC and compare between cylinders. I did mine using the approach in Steve in South Florida's Youtube video and it was pretty easy after I already had the tank, hoses, and coils off the top of the motor.

One of the important mods for longevity/peace of mind is carb bowl overflow tubes, which provide a drainage path to dump fuel on the ground instead of into a cylinder if the petcock and a float valve both start leaking. This is a fail-safe to prevent hydrolock.

Other than that, mods are a matter of preference and farkleitis. A relatively affordable and noticeable one is cartridge emulators or damper valves in the forks, which along with stiffer springs really improve the front suspension.
 
The camshaft lobes on very many bikes made after the mid to late 1990s were 'soft.' This became apparent when doing a valve adjustment. Lots of old posts about it if you search. My A17 had such cams. They were replaced shortly before warranty expired 2005. I checked them again 2 years later and they were showing signs of spalling. As the ZG14 was soon to hit the streets, I signed up for one as soon as I could.

For a start: https://forum.concours.org/index.php?threads/cam-lobe-damage-another-perspective-long.30235/
 
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I'm going to take a quick stab at your questions.
NOTE: We don't know you nor your mechanical abilities (??). So when answering your questions about difficulty,,,,, we are assuming you have some experience (??).

What are some things that I should look for on this bike?
Do a general look over to determine if the bike has been taken care of and not left out in the weather or abused.

What questions should I ask the current owner?
Get a feel for the guy. Find out if he has taken care of the bike or just rode the heck out of it.
It sounds like it wasn't rode much nor to great distances.
Ask him if he was a COG member, and find out what maintenance he has done.
Also find out what modifications or special work he had done.
Ask if he is aware of an instance where the engine might have hydrolocked.
& does he know what a hydrolock is.
Lastly, when you look at the bike (before you crank it) do you smell raw gas and/or is there gas present below the engine.

Are there any routine maintenance requirements that I may want to be concerned about as I put more miles on it?
Because the bike is 19 years old you need to look at hoses tires filters etc but generally speaking they should be fine.
Another thought; Look for an oil leak under the left side of the engine.
If there is evidence of oil a seal may need to be replaced in the water pump.
Not a big issue, but something that you would eventually need to do.

How often do valves need to be adjusted and how difficult is that?
8000-10,000 is fine. Not difficult to do if you've done motorcycle maintenance before. (??)
Believe us that after the first time (the learning adjustment), it gets a lot easier.
ie; There are tricks to make it easier that you will learn.

Are the valves shims or nut & screw type?
Screw type.

What is the hydro lock issue I've heard about?
Hydrolock was well explained by Seth so I won't go into it now. But, we can explain further if you need more clarification.
NOTE: Even though we worry a lot about hydrolock, it isn't as commonplace as our discussions make it sound.
But it is something you need to learn about because it could mean a damaged engine.

Are there any modifications that you recommend be done to improve the reliability and longevity?
The best mod for reliability etc is stand tubes in the carburetor bowls. (This simple mod prevents any possibility of hydrolock)
NOTE: The bike your looking at may already have vent tubes installed. Ask the owner if he had carburetor work done by Shoodaben Engineering.
If he has, your golden!
If he doesn't know, look for tubes below the carburetors that are linked together.

Ride safe, Ted
 
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Thanks to all for the good info, especially on the hydro lock issue.
I should have mentioned at first that the bike I’m considering has a Hannigan sidecar attached. I’m an experienced sidecar driver so am not concerned about that. It has an EZ Steer fork system added, but no further suspension mods. The car does have an electric camber adjustment. Are there any other Concours/sidecar owners out there that have any suggestions for me?
 
One of the members here is from France, and he has a sidecar on his C10.

I think just do a search on sidecar and his name as well as his website in France should popup. You need to translate though which isn't hard these days. Running fire fox I have the translation software installed and am able to read what he says.
 
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