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I wouldn't accuse Honda of using "such a poor steel" because they rust quickly in air/water, that's what most steel does, particularly certain steels with higher physical properties and especially if you've just rubbed them with abrasive. In the environment inside the engine it won't, in fact it's often bad practice to electroplate things used inside engines (potential embrittlement effects), and high spec fasteners like con-rod bolts or main bearing bolts are usually phosphated or similar. You may find the blackish colour of the plates is a surface treatment like phosphate etc. Oil specs

Thanks for all the help on this - i finally got the seals installed last weekend - unfortunately I had a number of issues and had to rope my wife in to help so no pictures.... My experience however is : getting the forks out was easy - one tip was I needed to use a low profile 6mm hex socket and my smallest toque wrench to do back up due to the space issue on the top fork holder. Separating the tubes - one separated relevantly ok, however the other was pig..., due to the bearing ring not wanting to budget inside. by pulling the forks apart it pulls the slider bush against the

My personal experience went like this: Bought after market seals from a well known brand. Installed* the seals only to find they were so tight they actually locked the suspension. I called a friend of mine (an American moto-journalist) whom admonished, "michael. always, always, always buy factory oil seals. the tolerances are much better than any aftermarket units." So I ended up buying 2 sets. The aftermarkets and the "gulp priced," Honda Parts. The Honda parts were easier to install and worked like a charm. * Install. The only issue I had was during the removal

No problem talking in litres, that's what we measure in Canada, along with kilometres. I was trying to convert to gallons for all my new U.K friends!

I would check for sticky brake pistons , which my bike at least is prone to ,especially the front and always needs a thorough annual strip down and clean and much pushing in and out of the pistons before they really free up and double check there's no resting on the rear brake pedal . I ride mine pretty hard, and find avoiding hard braking into corners makes quite a difference to economy, but then I like hard braking as the bike brakes like a super bike . But its cost me a new rear brake disc at 54000 miles ,and probably the front too if it wasn't replaced with warranty at 24000 miles, and th

Exactly. I'm not sure I would be happy with that. It's a much more modern design than the old KZ650, designed with economy in mind and should do way more.

42.5 mpg?! That's disappointing.

I usually get between 192-198 miles out of approximately 11 litres when a I fill it back up. A mix of country roads, motorways and London filtering make up my commute. And I don't really tootle along at a sedate pace 👹

Do them as a pair. In my experience if one side leaks the other side may well be not far behind, you'd kick yourself if you end up having to go through the process a second time. As Steve says, remove mudguard, caliper & wheel. Crack the damper retainer bolt (20) in the bottom of the fork leg, slacken the top yoke pinch so it isn't gripping the stanchion, then slacken the top cap while the bottom yoke still grips it. Note that when you then slacken the bottom yoke pinch bolt the leg will drop, so keep hold of it at this stage. It's not usually difficult to prise the dust seal o

Swap the plugs around, does it still do it on the same cylinder?