While my 300E is off the road with a broken windscreen wiper mechanism, I'm using my bike everyday. I have noticed that the temp and fuel gauge seem to thrash around much less now than they did before. The fuel gauge also seems to be more precise and the temp is shown slightly lower than it had been.

Could this be due to regular usage or am I just imagining things

The bike is also running so smoothly that despite having a 145 KM round trip to work, I took the long way home yesterday and put on another 30 odd Ks. These bikes are really a joy to ride, only marred the mild vibration around 3,500 rpm. On the motorway I cruise at 4,500 - 5,500 rpm giving me 70-80 mph. I gave up at 90 mph one day, I don't need a fast bike and don't want to force the old lady either.

In Brazil, many people are surprised by the age of the bike and the level of technology. Even now the original K-bikes are still quite modern.

Martin K100RS wrote:While my 300E is off the road with a broken windscreen wiper mechanism, I'm using my bike everyday. I have noticed that the temp and fuel gauge seem to thrash around much less now than they did before. The fuel gauge also seems to be more precise and the temp is shown slightly lower than it had been.

Could this be due to regular usage or am I just imagining things

I don't think it is your imagination. I had my bike apart earlier this year and experienced "wild gauge syndrom" when I put things back together again. The fuel gauge fluctuated wildly and the temperture gauge would randomly peg to the right. I wiggled the wires and reseated connectors at the gauges and the problems disappeared. Your symptoms could be mild corrosion on the connectors.

We have a holiday weekend down here so I just might put one of the days to good use and have a look at the connections. I may even try to get the electrician to fit the aux. fan switch on the same day.

Hi Martin,
Electrical connections and earths are the biggest problem on the whole for these bikes because generally 20 + years has gone by and many plugs and sockets have not been apart and been cleaned. It is the same on cars of the same vintage. They also have far more of their electrics in a covered in location than our K's do.

That is the reason for taking every plug and socket apart and cleaning them with DeoxIT and then applying DeoxIT Shield to the connection. That should ensure another 20 plus years of trouble free connection. Same treatment is a good thing on all of the tiny connections inside the instrument cluster and that is worth doing when changing the lamps for LED's plus sealing all the possible points where water could get in.
Regards,
K-BIKE

Hi,
I spent a few hours this weekend playing with the bike and cleaning up the electrical connnections and plugs, now my front brake light switch comes on every time, the fuel gauge and the temp gauge no longer thrash about wildly. In fact the temp gauge is far more stable, still wobbles a bit, but does indicate temps lower than before!

It's funny how you can fix a few simple things and it feels like a different bike!

Well done.

blakey wrote:It's funny how you can fix a few simple things and it feels like a different bike!

Well done.

Absolutely true, in fact my next item is to replace the screen as the top lug on the right side is broken. I must say though, I am really enjoying the bike even after the initial false start we had. This Sunday, I was on a run out with some motorcycle people I took the old lady up to around 110 mph on the motorway. I was even more surprised by the fact she was more stable at that speed with the sidecases and topbox than she was at 90 mph without them!