We rolled up 25,500 miles on the RX3s last week, and we’re learning a lot more about these bikes. The feedback we’ve received from our riders has been overwhelmingly positive and, like me, you folks love your new RX3 motorcycles.
As is the case on any new motorcycle, there are a few areas where the fasteners have a tendency to loosen, and I want to bring these to your attention. I’m not making excuses…these kinds of things happen on all bikes and they happen on ours. My Triumph Tiger’s instrument cluster started moving around on my first trip to Baja with it. My KLR’s windshield fell off on the way home from the dealer. My Harley lost one of its very expensive leather saddlebags somewhere on the 210 freeway.
Our recent Baja ride was a good test run…it included high speed freeway riding, lots of twisties, dirt roads, lots of miles, and lots of fun. In short, it had all the stuff necessary to start the fastener loosening process. Based on what we found, this blog addresses the fasteners we recommend you check. My advice is to remove each one, add a dab of Loctite, and then reinstall them.
The first fasteners are the muffler mounting bolts. These are the only ones that are a bit difficult to get to, but it’s not too bad. I found that you can remove the front and rear seats, loosen the rear luggage frame mounting bolt on the right side (the one that goes through the rear rack, and you don’t need to take it out), and then remove the Phillips head screws that attach the right rear body panel and the black panel just forward of it. If you remove the black panel (the one that runs along the lower edge of the fuel tank), you get enough wiggle room in the right rear body panel to get access to the muffler mounting Allen bolts. You can get a 6mm Allen socket on these to tighten them, as you see in the photo below.
The next ones are the exhaust pipe fasteners (both at the cylinder head and at the exhaust pipe-to-muffler clamp). While you’re at it, it would be a good idea to tighten the exhaust pipe heat shield Phillips head screws.
The exhaust system heats up and cools every time you run your bike, and that means the metals in it expand and contract. It’s a formula for loosening fasteners, so it’s always a good idea to check these nuts, bolts, and screws.
We had a couple of front caliper bolts loosen (these are the bolts that secure the front caliper to the fork leg). You can see these denoted by the red arrows in the photo below. My advice is to put a socket on these bolts and snug them up after you’ve added a dab of blue Loctite.
It’s usually a good idea to periodically go over your entire motorcycle to check every fastener for tightness. Sometimes you can just grab things on your bike and feel them move slightly when you know that they should be snug. It’s part of the ownership experience.
And folks, that’s about it for now. As we find more things to check on the RX3, you can bet we’ll keep you posted. I just checked these things on my bike, and even though it’s Mother’s Day, Sue told me I could go for a short motorcycle ride…to Costco to get the stuff I’ll need to barbeque dinner tonight!
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