First "Break in" Maintanance

[Fretboy]

I just bought my 06' Kat 600, I broke it in right, under 5500 for the first 500, under 8500, for the first 1000. But I'm wondering about the first oil change. I know I should have gotten my oil changed at 500 miles, but you know how it is... I want to know if I should take it in, or is it something i can do myself? I pretty sure I could change the oil, and check the breaks, but is there something else the dealer does that I don't know about? And is the savings of me doing it myself significant? Thanx for the future comments...

Nate

[woobie]

Normally the first service is an oil change, a vavle adjustment and checking the torque on all the nuts and bolts.

Some dealers do the valve adjustment at the 2nd service but most do it as required by the manual at the first service.

[rwcreigh]

i have 5800 miles on mine.it never been to the shop.BUT i change the oil on time.i sync the carbs tighten all bolts.i do it allthe valves are next month.if i had the money i would take it to the shop but i cannot afford the 350.00.i am not sure but i would think it voids the warrenty.but i am not sure

[woobie]

For $50 or so you can get a factory service manual, well worth the money. Or search and find the link to download one .

The valve adjustment isn't a hard job and the tools needed are pretty basic.

[The CyberPoet]

The oil change is much more critical than the valve adjustment, IMHO. So critical, in fact, that I do multiple changes on new engines before they ever reach the 600 mile mark...

Think about it this way:
When the engine is bedding in, small pieces of metal are being sheared off all sorts of surfaces (edges of rings, cylinder walls, gear faces, bearing races, etc). That metal is now floating around in your batch of very fast moving oil and the particles that are small enough not to drop out immediately are being recirculated through your engine, scratching up whatever they come into contact with. Some of the oil passes through the oil filter, but the oil filter is not designed in such a way that every drop of oil passes through it each time it goes around the engine. Some of the metal will stick to the magnet in the drain plug, but lots of the metal that is circulating is not ferrous (magentically attractable) because many of the components are aluminum and/or hardened-silica (nikasil equivilent).
Thus, the faster you can get the particles out of the engine, the less damage they can do to the other components. Such differences at break-in can often spell the differences between an engine that lasts 30k miles vs. one that lasts 100k miles.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet