There is an easy way to winterize your bike (my favorite way), take it to your dealership or if you don’t know where to take it you can call Ducati Bellevue (425-882-4300) and get an estimate on what it would cost to winterize your bike and have them do it for you! However, if you wish to get your hands dirty and really get to know your bike or if you have a friend, relative, significant other, etc who is mechanically inclined and wants to help you, then here are the steps. If you know someone who owns a bike and could use this blog, you can also send them a copy of this post for their reference on how to do it properly, this applies to every type of bike and was prepared by David Rookaird, Service Manager of Bellevue Ducati.
- Add fuel stabilizer
- Change your oil and filter
- Charge your battery and have battery charger leads installed
- Tire pressures and tires inspected
- Lube all pivots/ chain
- Clean
Add fuel stabilizer to a tank of gas at least a half or more full, then run it up to the service station (yes, with it in your bike) and fill up the rest of the tank. Run home and begin the process of changing your oil and filter. (Reason for changing oil when hot; all the contaminants are now suspended in the hot oil and will mostly come out with the oil change). Add oil and run the bike for a few moments and then let sit and recheck the oil level and top off as necessary. If your bike is a carbureted bike, then the next step is to be done regardless of how long you are going to let it sit. Drain the carburetors, at the bottom of each carb is a drain screw, open this and let drain into a old rag. (Be careful gas is highly volatile and will ignite into a big “OH S**T” :0 moment!) If you truly have a modern bike with fuel injection then the fuel and tank system is done.
Clean your bike and remove the seat to clean under that too. While cleaning make notes of how things look under the seat. (this is important since some areas have issues with mice or rats and they like to hide and chew things up under and around seats, you want to be able to see if these issue’s are occurring and take care of them before it’s too late). Now, you should have a battery tender, some newer bikes have leads installed others require installation, ask if you are unsure. The best charger I have found is the C-tek charger and is available at most motorcycle stores or Amazon. It will come with different hooks ups to charge your battery properly. Keep it on the charger all the time it won’t cook the battery. If you choose to ride occasionally then you still want the battery on a tender/charger leads. One of the biggest misconceptions of winterizing the bikes is to run them every week for brief periods to keep the juices flowing, this in fact can be bad for the motor and electrics. This is particularly bad for the motor if you don’t run the bike up to operating temp’s properly, then condensation will occur inside. In addition, what can happen is that the battery will get discharged and never really become recharged properly during that brief run time.
Now is a good time to walk around the bike and look for any issues. Reason? So when the weather does become nice and you want to ride, your ride will be ready for you… Clean and lube the chain, clean the bike in general, you would be surprised that when cleaning the stuff you can find wrong. Fill the tires up to normal pressures recommended by the dealer and in today’s times with radial tires it is not necessary to lift the wheels or bike off the ground. In the old days and with bikes that use bia-ply tires, this becomes a issue. The weight of the bike will sometimes flat spot the tires and cause a slight out of round issue but typically will go away with a few minutes of riding. Clean and lube all pivots, clutch and brake levers, switches and side stand and center stand if so equipped. Lube all the locks. Clean again. Take a old rag and dab it with WD-40 and wipe the fork tubes down, be careful not to get WD-40 on the brakes and tires.
Your bike is now ready for a hibernation period that can last anywhere from 1 week to a couple years, just depends on how the weather is and how much you want to ride in the colder temperatures.
Carol T. Carpenter
