Sound advice, all of it. Just to clarify, I live in central Canada where winter is cold, dry and harsh. Snow piles up quickly and temperatures sometimes plunge to -40 degrees celsius. It's deadly cold, but I'm storing my bike indoors, so it's not a major concern. Having read each and every post in this thread, and with my KLX being relatively new, I'll probably do the following:

1. Before storage, I'll take a 30-minute ride, then go to the gas station, add fuel stabilizer to the tank and fill up the tank with premium. I'll leave gas tank full over winter.
2. Change the oil with cheap oil (any recommendations?)
3. Spray fogging oil, or WD40, into the cylinders.
4. Put the bike into first gear and rotate the rear wheel to rotate and lubricated cylinders.
5. Lastly, remove some tire pressure, place a bag over the muffler and that's it. Won't bother touching the air cleaner.

Just have a few questions for the seasoned, again.

1. Should all gasoline be drained from the bike before storage?
2. Instead of using expensive mineral oil for the last oil change of the season, what's my alternative? Knowing that I'm going to drain it first thing next season, what's a good cheap oil that costs less than M4 mineral oil?
3. Since I don't have a stand, I'm putting a piece of wood underneath the kickstand to keep the bike level over winter. Is this a big deal, and should I even bother removing pressure from the tires?

As always, any more advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

By all means... SKIP the WD-40!!! It is a Water Displacer, *NOT* a lubricant. I used to soak my sled skids in WD-40 every spring, but I always found the clips coated with rust the next fall. WD-40 dried things fine, but didn't prevent them from rusting.

I have used regular 30 weight motor oil in my cylinders for as long as I can remember... turn the engine over a few times to coat the cylinders.

 

The reason to put the bike on a stand is to not flat spot the tires, more important on a street bike than a klx. I wouldn't flatten them and let it sit as that would be dumb.

 

1. if you have stabilizer in the gasoline...sounds like NOT draining any is preferred. I'd use non-ethanol fuel if available.
2. cheap oil from the auto parts store
3. a 5-gallon bucket or cinder block works as an inexpensive stand
4. your winters sound like they suck. hang in there!

Wintertime is when I like to tear the bike apart for inspection and grease all the lubeable parts (swing arm, linkage, steering head, wheels).

 

Agreed! Plus you sometimes have sludge (if you havnt changed yer oil in a long time) That sludge will settle into the bottom of yer motor. Just nasty! I would change it before storage. When we winterize 4stroke jet ski's, they get fresh oil for storage since they are usually stored longer than bikes.

 

Battery tender is a great idea, i always charge up all my vehicle/play toy batteries when stored. Of course i always keep my bikes/atvs inside during the winter when not using so its warm. My stuff is spoiled rotten ahaha. Plus I put 91 octane in all my stuff since it will last longer than 87octane just in case I dont start them once a month or so.

 

Hey Ron...your pic looks eeriely like mine here in December during storage.

 

here was mine in storage January. The bike was all frost covered in the morning before we headed out for a ride.

 

Thanks for this thread... There frost on the my car windshield this morning so I took the bike and got a pair of snow mobile gloves this afternoon.... I can't bear the thought of not riding again until may next year so dragging this whole "storage" thing as long as I can....

 

I think we use the same storage facility!

Ron