The Africa Twin CRF1000L Owners' Thread

I installed the entire set of Outback Motortek crash bars and Outback Motortek skidplates on my 2016 AT. Also the Alt Rider headlight guard, Camel ADV high fender kit and the deluxe camel brace from Camel ADV under the right side foot peg mount. All very high quality stuff-- fits great- install was an entire weekend.

Of all the protection I've put on the bike over the years, Barkbusters gets my vote.

Lubed the chain. Looked over the AT. Got suited-up. Pushed the bike out of the garage. Closed the door. Hopped on the bike. Hit the start button and...wha, wha, wha, clickkkkkkkkkk!


Welp, that was it for today. Committed the day to getting a replacement battery. Ready to go for the next time.

The battery is over three years old and always on a tender.

To the previous posters, thanks a lot for your input on the bars. I'll be purchasing the lowers in the next few weeks for sure!

I have another question, you can see I'm full of them since I just got my new bike...

I'm at 531 miles on the Odom. Would it be premature to do the 600 mile oil change that early? Let me know what you guys think. Just got home and it's 6:30 PM over here, this is the most free time I'll get to be able to do the oil change in the next week. Almost a now or never kind of deal haha! If not, I will only get to ride the next 70 miles. I'll stop riding to and from work and wait till I can do the oil change if so.

You'll be fine if you don't perform the oil change right at 600 miles. Back in my shop days, air-cooled Yamahas scheduled their first oil change at 1,000 miles.

Went for my annual Black Friday ride today. Beautiful weather, if a bit chilly. Never saw higher than 47°. Great ride though. Did about 200 miles, only about 50 on tarmac. My suspension upgrades made a huge difference in the handling. So much better.

Exact symptoms I had with mine before replacing the starter switch.

Don't worry about the wandering idle just yet, but monitor it. The engine is freshly built and a bit tight. My mileage improved as the engine wore in, up to about 8000 miles, so things do take a bit to settle in (Like you, I kept it below 4000 for the first 1K or so, for no other reason than it gave me peace of mind.) I only remember idle speed problems (and a few start/stall events) just before I changed my air filters, then that went away. Might just have been bad gas, who knows?

I have a full OM set on my '17 as well, with the pannier racks that hold my Kriega bags. I bought some early production DCT bars and they could have been a bit better, maybe the later ones are. The right side engine bar was touching the case and with a bit of shimming I now can get a matchbook cover through there, but not a wooden match. I had to relieve a bit of weld inside the skid plate that was rubbing my exhaust header. Again, that was early production stuff.

I've only had one slow left side tipover on a dirt road and things survived, though the powder coat came right off. If you watch the video of Mr Outback Motortek throwing his AT down a hill repeatedly you'll notice it always lands on the left side, and he has Barkbusters on it.

Hey man, thanks for that insight. Makes me feel better. Yeah, I do it just for the reason of peace of mind too haha! Funny.

Your words are reassuring, you make great points about it being a new engine with a few quirks at the beginning. Thank you.

Should I change the air filter with the oil at 600? Would that be a bit over the top? I don't recall reading that in the owners manual. I also have been running 97 octane so far, I hear your suppose to do 87. I'll do that from now on too.

Even though you didn't ask, a little more info on the fuel: higher octane fuel is less volatile, and has less combustible energy in it. The higher the number, the less likely the fuel is to detonate/ignite in the cylinder from pressure alone. This can happen before the sprak plug goes off, and also before the piston reaches the top of the stroke. This is usually usually referred to as "knocking". If your engine experiences knocking, you will know it and feel it.
The higher the compression ratio, the more likely an engine is to experience knocking because the fuel/air mixture is compressed more. Sorta like a diesel engine that ignites from pressure and heat alone without a spark. The only real reason for high octane fuel is if you have high compression in your engine and are concerned about knocking. The Africa Twin has a low compression ratio of 10:1 (compared to 13:1 for the KTM adv bikes), so knocking is not a concern and lower octane rating fuel actually has more energy in it and is better to be used. This is separate from the ethanol issue. This is also quite debatable and if you ask 5 people you will get 5 answers. Generally though regular fuel is fine. Premium is a waste of money for these engines.

For the air filter: if you have been riding in anything other than a massive, thick cloud of thick dust, you definitely don't need to change your air filter. The life of those will be based on the terrain you ride but I find the AT air filters have a lot of surface area and last quite long before being clogged up. Maybe have a look at it when you reach 3000 miles if you ride mostly pavement. If you're ever unsure, it is a fun exercise to take all the plastic off to get to check the filters .

And my friend's KLX351S. For years it was always a difficult bike to start until one day at a gas station his starter button fell apart. Replaced it and now it'll start immediately every time in any temp.

I'm going to put my two cents in on some of the recent topics.
Oil; Oil is cheep engines are not. I bought my '17 June of last year with 914 miles on the clock. I'm now up to 19711. I change the oil and filter every 4500 miles on average using Lucas 10W50 synthetic and do an oil analysis every time. My latest sample report is attached below. In my opinion oil analysis is the best way to know the health of your engine and can help catch problems before they become major.

Bike protection; I have Altrider upper bars and a B&B Off Road Dakar bash plate. I dropped the bike three times yesterday with no damage. That bash plate is as stout as they come. I also installed Camel ADV's windscreen brace to mount my gps. Nice bit of kit.

Fuel; I have been running 92 octane non ethanol with a 12000 mile average of 45 mpg. 87 clear isn't available here unless I buy it in 5 gallon cans from the local race fuel distributor. I'm going to switch to regular pump gas for a while and see how the mileage does.

Here’s another quick shot from yesterday’s ride.
It is winter here in the PNW after all.

Oh hell no! Not only are the two air filters $40 each but the amount of labor involved in getting at them is ridiculous. Mine were reasonably clean looking when I pulled them out at 12,000 miles but after all that I wasn't going to not replace them. (Reminds me I gotta order a new pair for next time.)

If you're planning to add any dashboard switches or do any wiring under the fairings you might want to do that when the filter service is due, it's a deep dive.

Here's what your bike will look like when you go to change the air filters. Actually this is a couple steps before you get to the filters. In this case all it was was that I pushed one of the little rubber nubbins that the windshield mounts to down into the headlight. Don't do that. It took a few hours to get it back.



See this little bastard? Don't shove it into the fairing. In fact, I think I might order a spare or two of them, too.

Wow! You went a little further than you needed to to change the air filters. All you really need to remove is the side panels. Of course, to remove the side panels you need to remove the seat, the lower finish panels on the tank and the upper tank closeout panel. Once the side panels are off you can remove the four screws securing the air filter covers and work them out of the bike. BTW, at my last filter change I installed Twin Air oiled foam filters. We'll see if that was a mistake when I get the oil analysis back from my next oil change. Watch this space for a report. I recommend buying a supply of 6mm plastic push rivets for the panels.

Plus one on the spare plastic push rivets. I haven't lost one yet but I'm still trying.

You're right about that being more plastic removed than necessary for an air filter change, but it's a good example of how involved the job is. I was actually removing the front fascia to get the little widget back. To mis-quote Charles Darwin, "I hate a widget as no man ever did before..."

my air filters were still clean at 10k. about 1k is dusty or dirt. at 22k, not too bad but anyhow i replaced them with oem $$.

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Outback Motortek: Yep, High quality stuff. Install took all day. No regrets

Anyone done up a super low windscreen on their older AT similar to how the newest 2020 is
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