Colombia AKT TT AdvenTour 250

[rjmorel]

"Does your key fold? The AKT key folds 90 degrees and nobody can tell me why. Any ideas?"

Too keep them from snapping off in the cylinder if accidentally hit ?????? or if you leave them in the cylinder and ride around with the key folded ,nobody will think there's a key in it ?????? Beats me. rj

[Jay In Milpitas]

Originally Posted by DaytonaMike

Does your key fold? The AKT key folds 90 degrees and nobody can tell me why. Any ideas?

You must be in an area subject to direction changing cross winds. The folding portion allows you to use it like an aircraft rudder to cancel out yaw.

[SpudRider]

[adriansk8]

Hello Riders!

I share this little video I made days ago on the weekly meeting of Medellin adventour club.

[DaytonaMike]

I´ll try riding with the key folded today but if my roll, pitch and yaw get screwed up I´m blaming Jay in Milpitas!! and of course messaging Spud for a fix since he has all the correct answers!

Adriansk8 thanks for the videos. I was in Medellin last year for a few days. Loved the weather and the people. Definitely a beautiful area.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by adriansk8

Hello Riders!

I share this little video I made days ago on the weekly meeting of Medellin adventour club.

Thanks for posting the video from Medellin. I counted twenty-seven, Zongshen RX3 bikes in a row.

[DaytonaMike]

Bike has been running great. Actually I am having too much fun but havent really had much chance to get out and ride as much as I have wanted. Now have about 320km on it. I need to hit 500km ASAP so I can have the first service done before my planned trip on the 14th that will put about 1,200km on it. They only allow the first service between 500 and 1000 km to maintain the warranty. Its a big window for normal day to day riding but will miss it if im on my trip. Anyway recently developed an oil leak. It started as a drop or two on the floor after arriving home after work. Now the leak is getting worse. I have been keeping an eye on it and constantly checking the oil level. Also documenting everything with pics for the service center and sending copies to them. Today it seems to be much worse after my 2 hour ride into the mountains. I also had the coolant boiling out of the reservoir near the end of the ride. Rode directly to the service center and dropped the bike off.
I believe the oil leak is coming from a bad/missing gasket/seal at the point noted with the arrow. Not sure about the coolant issue today. The level always has been good and the temperature never went above 3 bars and I never heard/felt the fans kick on. But it was spitting coolant everywhere out of the area around the cap on the reservoir.

[SpudRider]

Thanks for posting the update.

I'm sure the service center will fix the problems. If the gasket is not missing, they might need to tighten the bolts on the stator cover. I believe your bike might have the wrong coolant; I think there was a manufacturer's recall for the coolant in Colombia. If the radiator fans didn't start, you might have a bad thermal switch, et cetera.

It is well you are discovering these problems before you begin your trip.

[DaytonaMike]

Finally was told today that I could pick up the bike. When I arrived at the time they told me the bike was still disassembled. The mechanic started to assemble everything and showed me the old gasket that they had replaced. He also advised that he believed that air trapped in the system caused the coolant issue I had Saturday morning. He assembled the bike and started it up. Immediately oil began to leak from around a bolt head noted in the photo below with the black arrow. The white arrow is the location of the gasket they replaced. He tried tightening the leaking bolt and was not having success. He removed the casing cover with the new gasket so he could get better angle on the leaky bolt. Still no luck. He then noticed what appears to be a crack in the engine block. The hairline crack is about 1 to 1.5 cm long and is directly behind the hose shown with the red arrow. They advised that they would need to call the importer (AKT Motos) in Medellin on Thursday and advise them of the issue. The problem is the block contains the ¨VIN¨number (not sure if its a VIN number or not but it is critically important and I can not even imagine the paperwork nightmare if they had to change the block and issue a new number). As I said before I am just starting a 6 week vacation and now learn that I may be as long as 2 weeks or more without my brand new motorcycle leaves me a little more than pissed off at the situation. I am trying to stay calm and positive about it and will update as soon as I get word about what the head office has to say.

[SpudRider]

I'm sorry to hear about the hairline crack. Apparently the crack is located in the left crankcase half. If so, they will need to tear down the entire engine to replace that part. It would be much easier to install a new engine for you.

The engine doesn't contain the VIN. The VIN is stamped on the right side of the bike's frame, near the triple tree.

[DaytonaMike]

We will see what they decide to do. I hope whatever they decide they do it quickly so I can enjoy some of my vacation. We have a number stamped here on the engine itself. I photoshopped it out but its to the right of the red arrow. That number and the VIN that you describe are documented on all paperwork here. You have to take an imprint of those two numbers to the DMV office when you sell the bike. My new bike actually has the blue ink still on it where they took an imprint, I assume for the documents of ownership. I will keep you posted. For the record, The service center staff has been very helpful and hasnt hesitated to make the needed repairs. That said they are at the mercy of the AKT headquarters as too what they can do under warranty. So I Await their decision.

[SpudRider]

I wish you the best of luck. Please do keep us updated.

[superdude]

From looking at the photo of the crack it looks clearly like a case of that bolt being over-torqued. I've done that myself way more times than I'd like to admit even on a few year old Honda 1100cc motor...probably the most important place on any motorcycle to pay attention to the torque specs IMO because anything over torqued will surely crack the soft aluminum cases. Is that others experience as well? Sorry to hear all the troubles you're going through and hope it gets resolved soon. :/

[adriansk8]

Hello!

I share some pictures I took on a trip made ​​the Eje Cafetero.

Traveled a total of 870 km in 4 days , I was in the following towns , Salento, Finlandia , Armenia, Quimbaya , Montenegro, Calarca , Alcala , Cartago and Pereira.

get a little tired of my ass .
hahahaha

Greetings !

[SpudRider]

Thanks for posting the beautiful photographs from the trip in your lovely country.