990 Adventure Rebuild/Refresh Part 2

Well, during this period of self quarantine/social distancing we all should be doing to avoid the current virus crisis, I find myself with a lot of free time. Lots of free time, which makes it easy to get into my workshop and keep this project going. I am super motivated to finish this so that I can actually get out for a second ride at some point. Part of what I am doing is a big service on this bike. You know, checking the valves, changing all filters and fluids as well as measuring/replacing whatever wear parts are past their service life. To do that, there is a ton of disassembly and cleaning that is required before I even start the jobs. As such, I spent a chunk of time today removing the lower half of my airbox and my throttle body assembly for cleaning and in order to get to the valve covers for the service. Easy on paper, much less easy in real life. There are several things that have to be disconnected and removed just to get to the throttle bodies.

This is what the bike looked like when I finished up a couple of days ago...

Now the removal of the airbox and throttle bodies can commence.

First, I removed the top of the airbox and both filters as well as the access panels on the sides of it. This is one of the access panels that allows you to loosen the TB boots. At the bottom center of the picture is the fuel line for the left side tank that needs to be removed to pull the TB's out.

Once the panels and fuel line are removed and the boot screws loosened, the next thing to do is disconnect the TB electrics at this big grey connection...

...but to do that, you have to remove the right side radiator fan (when I did, several rocks fell out of that space in there LOL)...

Than you can get to that plug and disconnect it.

Then you can gently pull everything out. TB's first, then then the lower part of the airbox and see how dirty the top of your engine is. Well, that's the theory, in practice the TB's are really on the boots tight and there is very little room to get leverage (at least when you have giant American hands) and predictably, you will skin your knuckles at some point.

The worst pain isn't skinning them, it's washing them when you are done. Sheesh, worse than Bactine! Anyhow, This was what the bottoms of the TB's looked like.

That's a good bit of grime. I have some work ahead just cleaning these up...

The rest was just as dirty...

I have clean shop rags stuffed into the engine openings to prevent dirt getting into it. That was enough work for today. I will clean the airbox and TB's up next warm day we have here. Then I will seal the engine openings up and wash off the top of my engine. That should put me ready for the actual service. (and it will only have taken me a week! LOL) Speaking of the service, parts are still arriving and it feels like Christmas.

Tires showed up the other day and since then I have gotten oil, filters, turn signal covers, assorted bolts, new hand guards, Valve shims, spark plugs and even a Spot X with Bluetooth so my wife (and anyone else that might be interested) can follow along on my trips and I will be able to call in help from GEOS in case of an emergency. If you are a solo rider, I think it is a smart move to carry something like that. Cell phone coverage is not 100% and it is good to have a way to call in help. If you are interested in a Spot X, the info for how to purchase and what they do can be found here: https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/products-services/spot-x

Still more stuff needs to be ordered. My parts list keeps growing as fast as my to do list. Now though, it's time to go make some steak and drink a beer.