James recently wrote to me asking what maintenance issues I have encountered with my PC800 Honda Pacific Coast over the last decade of ownership. That got me to thinking a bit about what I’ve done to keep my beloved PC on the road and what I recall seeing others report. Here is a list in descending order of likelihood of need for the average PC800 that someone is buying:
- Change the oil and replace the filter (every 3-5k miles if you are proactive… or every 10-15k miles if you’re like me)
- Replace the tires (every 5-15k miles depending on brand)
- Replace the air filter (every few oil changes or sooner if it’s dusty where you are)
- Replace the battery (every few years… you get more life if you keep the bike on a battery tender when not in use)
- Replace the final drive gear oil (every 20k miles or so)
- Rebuild the master and slave cyliders on the brakes and clutch. Also replace the seal on the water pump while you’re working on the clutch slave cylinder.
- Replace the fuel vacuum petcock with a brass T or rebuild it — these go bad over time and cut off your fuel supply
- Put in new cam plug seals (only if yours are weeping. Do it once and never have to do it again!)
- Replace the spark plugs (every 50k miles? I’ve never heard of someone NEEDING to replace theirs)
- Rebuild the front forks (replace the fork seals, replace the fork oil — really only needed if your forks are weeping oil from the seals)
- Replace the brake pads (front/rear) every 15-50k miles depending on your riding style
- Replace the regulator/rectifier (R/R) — really only need to do this if the voltage is too high or too low
- Replace the stator — this is a rare need but very occasionally one burns out and you need a new one on a bike
- Replace the coolant hoses (haven’t heard of a failure yet put people seem to do it about once every 10-20 years)
- Replace the carb insulator boots — you only need to do this if your boots get “crunchy” and you can’t get the carb on/off successfully
- Replace the carb float valves — they can get gummed up from sitting for long periods of time with ethanol in them
- Rebuild the carb — if it sits for a long time, everything gets gummed up with ethanol and a big shot of seafoam won’t fix the issue
- Patch a hole in the inner trunk liner on 1989 model year bikes — the trunk liner was a wee bit too narrow for some of the tires and it rubbed through. Almost every bike with this problem already had the holes patched.
- Replace a front wheel bearing — I had to do this recently but it’s pretty rare.
- Replace the rings on a piston — VERY rare but I saw one case of it.
- Replace the head gasket — also VERY rare and usually because the bike overheated somehow (very hard to do!)
- Replace the engine — this happens after 200,000+ miles of riding
- Replace the drive shaft u-joint — some high mileage bikes have needed U-joints but it’s also very rare
- Replace front wheel bearing
- Replace the carb insulator boots
- Rebuild the carb float valves
- Replace the fuel vacuum petcock with a brass T (some people rebuild it rather than replace it — up to you)
- Replace the regulator/rectifier (preventative)
- Patch a hole in the inner trunk liner (only impacted 1989 bikes and mine was actually patched by a previous owner — very rare to have a problem now)
