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Service Intervals.......... Service Intervals..........
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  #1  
Old 19 May 2005
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Service Intervals..........
What intervals are you all servicing your 640's at. I know it says 3000 (miles)..... but my guessing is that this may bit a bit much....

As usual your thoughts are appreciated...

Dave
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Old 19 May 2005
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With full synthetic oil,I have the oil changed at roughly 5,000 mile intervals(assuming normal usage).This is much longer than the factory recommended intervals.You can also increase the mileage between valve adjustments by using a larger gap at the exhaust valve(0.20mm,instead of 0.15mm).The exhaust valves see more thermal stress than the intake valves.The factory recommended service intervals are for abusive racing conditions,and not real world travelling.I've heard of travellers who have gone 10,000 miles without servicing their KTM 640's.Obviuosly this is excessive,but I see no reason why you cannot increase the mileage intervals(assuming a well broken in engine).The warranty on my bike has long ago expired,but you might want to consider this when modifying the manufacture's recommendations.The LC4 engine is a very reliable engine with basic care.
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Old 19 May 2005
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I've gone way beyond the 3000 miles between the service intervals, say 5000 miles, on rough going. I also refilled with semi-synthetic car engine oil (the best I could get at the time). This was from a well known brand (Total I think) so it had quite a high quality rating (SG?).

No apparent ill-effects from this.

If you're off to NW Africa, it might be worth knowing that I found suitable oil almost impossible to find in Western Sahara and southern Algeria. On the other hand, I've found it in Senegal and Niger.

I'm still playing with the idea of fitting a third oil filter as on the rally LC4s but I'm not sure it would help much.
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Old 20 May 2005
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I've never seen my valves vary by more than .02mm or so, and I have 55,000 km on it now. This is miniscule, and won't affect anything no matter what direction it goes. I've checked and adjusted the valves all of 4 times. If you leave the exhaust valves at .2mm like BMBaxter suggests, you wont really hurt anything, but I think you'll hear the tappets pretty loudly at that stage. I think .15mm is quite a safe number that KTM gives and even if it tightens to .1 you should be fine...

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Old 21 May 2005
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Hi,

Whilst performing my own services (now too busy/lack of tools) I always changed the oil around 5000K's, but would not check the vales for 10,000K's. I have to say at that point the bike was struggling with backfires/etc and the tappets were quite noisy - I was desparate to get the valves checked.

As the effort in checking the valves is (virtually) the same for a service - I just be done with it and get them done. I always used a good branded semi-synthetic oil.

I'm sure you can go longer, and it depends on the conditions really - I would be more prone to service in a city than on the open road.

My local KTM garage always swears by the 5K rule - but KTM garage services are very expensive. mmmm.

Regards
James

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KTM LC4 640 Adventure-R 2001

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Kawazaki ZX-6R 1998
BMW F650 1996
+ others...
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