Here is the only bike issue we had.
This episode has reinforced my conviction of only touring on high volume popular motorcycles that are not first year out of the box. There are tons of after market parts and forum posts to solve discovered known issues.
This was my first fuel filter cleaning. We were about 50 miles south of Carlsbad. Duke is about a mile behind me and calls.
He said his motor is cutting out at 6200 RPM. I knew the cause immediately.
I told him “your fuel filter is clogged with paint chips. Let’s pull over and turn the bike off to release the fuel pressure. This will get you another 20 miles. “
Sure enough we got about another 20 miles, stopped and repeat.
I sent a text out to our riding buddies, because the closest Honda dealer was 100 miles away in Roswell. I asked them to find a mechanic in Carlsbad. They found Alan’s auto and cycle parts.
I called and spoke to the mechanic, Austin. Austin said he had never heard of an Africa Twin[emoji51]
I said no problem, we just need a shop, I have all the tools but we can’t dump gas on the ground. He told us to pull around back when we got to town.
The 2018 Africa twin Adventure sports has a known issue of some of the paint chipping off the inside welds and clogging fuel filter. I have heard of a couple of 2019 ATAS also.
Duke had about 10k miles on his bike. I though about pulling it a couple of weeks ago when we installed the cruise control to inspect. Didn’t do it, but should have. Most of the problem tanks happened before 3000 miles.
In route I also called DFW Honda, he will have a new fuel pump on Thursday so it doesn’t mess up our Idaho BDR trip June 12th. I also suggested he order a guglatech filter to solve the problem for good.
Here is the filter we are going to install:
When we pulled behind the parts store, there is a shop. With some street and motocross bikes.
View attachment 264579
Here is the video I found for Austin the mechanic to take apart the fuel filter.
View attachment 264580
Bottom line, Adventure touring on a motorcycle is a lot less stressful if you know your bike and some of the potential issues.
This episode was a pain. but it is very satisfying when a problem erupts and you have the ability and good fortune to solve the problem.
Saturday morning, Steve, Dave and I hit the BDR. I told Duke he was good for about another 4000 miles.
But Duke was not comfortable knowing this problem did not have permanent fix yet. I think that was a great decision on Duke’s part. After all the shaking, rock and rut hitting we did, it could have easily caused more paint to flake off.
Duke made it home Saturday evening with no problems.