First Service

While I was at my folk’s house over Memorial Day weekend, my brother and I performed the first service on the bike. I know many disagree with this, stating that the dealership should perform it to ensure that the warranty is not voided.  However, it is my understanding that unless you blatantly do something wrong that causes a malfunction, they cannot void the warranty just for choosing to do your own service, even the first one.

With that in mind, before I left I picked up 3 quarts of HD 20W50 oil, 1 quart HD Transmission/Primary fluid and a black oil filter.  I also picked up the service manual for the bike, which cost $60, but has been well worth it already.  It has very good detail and very good step-by-step instructions on everything from checking brake fluid levels to rebuilding the engine.

We changed the oil, the primary/tranny fluid and such after I had ridden the bike to warm it up good. It is really a simple process.  The main thing to do was to ensure that there were no abnormal metal pieces in the primary drainage and on the magnetic plug, as well as the oil.  After we inspected this, we found that all seemed normal, topped the fluids off.  I took it for a short drive to warm it up and took it back to check for leaks.