Checking Tire Pressure, Brakes & Chains on Motorcycles

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Chris Kelley and I’m speaking on behalf of Expert Village. I am a stunt man and I’m going to give you some tips today. Time to work on the bike. So proper maintenance on your motorcycle is key to your success, you want to be happy, you don’t want to come home with a broken bike or a broken body. Maintenance schedule, you want to change your oil on a regular basis as you would with any mechanical bike. You want to go through a check list, you want to make sure your levers all work, things are straight, your tires are in good condition, check your air pressure. Most dirt bikes run about 12 to 16 pounds of air in the front tire, depending on what you’re running on and in the rear it’s going to be around 10 to about the same 16 pounds, depending on the surface. If you’re running on a harder surface, you want your tires a little bit harder, or on a softer surface you’re going to have to adjust that way. Basically check everything. One key that gets overlooked quite a bit are the moving parts in the chain. The chain here, first of all, you want to make sure you have some good chain tension, there’s not a whole lot of slack, you want between one inch to two and a half inches of play in the chain, if you get more than that, it’s going to be too sloppy and your chain has a chance of coming off. You also want to get a good chain lube and you want to make sure that it’s properly lubed, you want to clean the chain first, you can use a mild detergent, clean it maybe let it out in the sun dry off, then you’re going to want to lube the points of the chain as it comes along. You’re going to want to try to add a little squirt on each little ring, the roller bearing in the center here, you don’t need to spray it all on the outside, it needs to get right on the inner part that runs on here up by the edge where it can seep in and do the proper good. I’m only going to do a little bit here, so we can move on. You also want to check your brakes, brakes are vital, you want to look at your brake disc make sure that it’s not worn, there are not grooves dug inside of it or around it, you want to look at your pads. If the pads are worn or broken, you need to replace them. If you have a good amount of pad left and your disc looks to be in good shape, then you’re okay. "