My new purchase
 

Hi guys, just brought myself a '89 XT600Z Tenere....what a way to end / start the year;

Anyway a few questions, whats the correct fuel for the bike ? what Ltrs per 100 should I expect for road use, servicing intervals, best tyres for road / light off road use and lastly how the hell do heated grips work ??

BTW looking to buy manuals / repair books etc for the above.

Many thanks in advance Matt

Congratulations Weirdo,

if you don't get 5 l. per 100 kms. you should do something about it [the bike]. And 4 l. is possible too.
I would change oil and filter every 7000-10.000 kms. and change spark plug every 20.000. Clean the air filter. Make sure you grease the pivot points of the rear suspension link and the steering bearings. And take the rear swingarm shaft out to grease the needle bearings and put the rubber seals back in place.
Do yourself a favour and buy progressive front fork springs and change the fork oil.
Lube the clutch cable with silicones. And the drive chain with oil. Check if the front sprocket nut is tight.
Michelin Anakee are good and Dunlop Trailmax too [not the 604, which is only for dry and warm conditions].
About the heated grips, I suppose there's amn electrical heating element in them and when you supply current, they heat up the inside of your hands. That is when they are on the grips.

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Fred, XTZ660, Holland.

Thanks Fred for your reply, I'll keep the points mentioned in mind.....

For the tank, they say its 23ltrs is that including the reserve ? how much is the reserve. As you see I need to buy myself a manual

Hi

If you drop me a mail I will send you a pdf owners manual and wiring diagram for a aj3z

Cheers

Charlie

Matt

I think Fred's oil change intervals are too long for our XT600's.

My Clymer manual recommends 4000 mile ( about 6000 Km) intervals.
As the bikes mileage increases, to say beyond 20 000 miles I personally would reduce the interval to every 3000 miles, using mid priced semi-synthetic oil.
You could possibly extend the interval by using fully synthetic oil, but I'm not convinced that the shearing action of the gearbox on the oil doesn't reduce it's viscosity just the same.

Something else worth mentioning is how to check the oil level if you're not familiar with the quirks of dry sump engines.
You need to check the level on the dip stick which is part of the oil tank filler cap when the bike has been running for at least 5 minutes, and been idling of a minute, and you need to check it within a minute of switching the engine off, so remove the side panel before turning it off.

Yamaha say you can check it much sooner, and some people say that if the level drops after the engine is switched off the oil pump is worn badly, but the level on my bike continued to drop after the engine had been turned off after I had fitted a new oil pump.
If you don't do this it appears that the level is too low, mine sometimes won't even reach the bottom of the dip stick even if I screw the filler cap back down. Initially I was topping it up only to have oil come out of the oil tank breather a few miles later!

Also be sure to carefully measure the quantity of oil you refill with after an oil change, to the nearest 0.1 litre, as the dip stick won't till you when you have the correct quantity for a few miles !

Good luck and have fun

Mark