Hey guys! I have a couple important things to add to the list here! First I want to thank everyone for all the support and great comments! #1. Change the chain immediately if you plan on riding the bike moderate or aggressively. Mine broke right away on a trail ride and busted the motor case. There are stories of people riding these bikes with the factory chain for thousands of miles. Again this all depends on your riding style. #2. Put some dielectric grease on all of the light bulb sockets, forgot to do that on my bike and they have almost rusted away! #3. Put some grease or corrosion x in the high/low beam headlight switch. Check out the electrical problems video on the hawk playlist if you don’t know what I’m talking about here. #4. If your going to be riding in wet conditions or busting through creeks, some air box modification is recommended to keep water out of your engine. Video will be on the hawk playlist ASAP. Thanks for watching!
Bro!!😀😀 just received my Hawk-250 last Wednesday. I'm awaiting Nibbi performance carburetor as I'm typing this comment to your you tube page😂😂 but in all seriousness thank you for the info. I've only been mechanically inclined with dirtbike world for about 8 months now but I've really feel in love with riding them and building them and upgrading them lol😂😅😂🎉😢.. I'm a full time maintenance manager for two complex and a Father of 6 so my time is rather taken up All the time but I've found the for this hobby and I'm praying that Tomorrow March 23,2023 will be her 'debut'😁!! Keep up the good work and please feel free to hit me up as well I would love to pick your Brain 😂... Peace and Blessings
Bro I love the videos!!! I'm about to pickup my first hawk on Tuesday I paid 1400$ for it. It has 16 miles on it, im gonna do the heat cycles till about 300 miles, swap out the oil every 100 miles. Thanks for the checklist and everything you went thru it helped alot!
Check list is great and very informative.. Maybe go through all the nuts and bolts and tell us which ones to put 'Lock Tite' on and which ones we need to put 'Anti-seize' on 🤷♂️😄😉 Someone needs to do a video on the Electronic Fuel injection.. Is there a way to improve it? And also, how to properly increase the power supply to run more electronic gadgets. ? 🤷♂️😄😉 We love our toys..
That would be a great idea, honestly the bike was so new in this video that I wasn’t 100% sure or not if I needed Loctite. Long story short I never put Loctite on a single bolt on this bike. I’ve had very good luck, literally I’ve only lost two or three bolts. Just goes to show if you tighten the hardware down correctly it’s not going to go anywhere LOL. As for the electronics stuff, I can’t really help you there LOL. Thanks for watching!
No problem! Hey couple things that need added to this list. 1. Change the chain ASAP, mine broke when trail riding and busted the motor case. 2. Put some dielectric grease in/on all of the lightbulb sockets (turn signals, headlight, running light, and rear light.) those are the only two things I’d add on to the list. Otherwise your going to have a bike that’s setup for the long run!! Thanks for watching!
My Hawk 250 fuel injection broke down after a month. I did run it on the highway pegged out for 20 min at a time. I don't think it's designed to go 60mph for 20 min straight. The wiring harness melted. Just to let everyone know.
Sorry to hear about that, They definitely are not meant for highway use. Couple helpful tips for anyone riding a hawk of any kind: 1 - GEARING GEARING GEARING, you need some very tall gears to cruise at 60+ (17 40 gearing) 2 - check the harness, make sure it’s not on the exhaust, make sure it’s routed properly before the first ride. 3 - these are Chinese bikes, you are going to have problems with them, they are priced low for a reason! Sorry to hear about your bike man, thanks for watching!
So I just adjusted my valves to the following: Intake: .004” Exhaust: .005 Is that too much? What are your valves set at? Because obviously your bike has lasted a while
That should be fine, these bikes are not very picky. At first my valves were at .002 and .015 honestly can’t remember which was exhaust and which was intake, ran the valves like that for 3500 miles. Man they really needed adjusted at 3500, there was a 1/8” gap between the valve and rocker😂. So Now I am running .002 on intake and exhaust, there are lots of opinions out there on the internet, BUT the manual specifies .002 for intake and exhaust. I Can’t really argue with that lol. Iv put another 800 miles on since valve adjustment and the bike is doing great! Hopefully this helps! Thanks for watching!
I got lucky enough to have bare plastic on my bike, I chose to not put any stickers on it, I thought it looked way better without stickers too lol. I would recommend a decal remover that fits in a drill and some gasoline or solvent to remove the sticky from the plastic. Thanks for watching!
My cable broke due to it constantly getting caught on the horn. long story short the cable is too long from the factory. I have a video on this exact subject, it goes over where to get a new shorter cable and how to properly install it. It’s on my hawk 250 playlist here on RU-vid if your interested. Thanks for watching!
Hi good man thanks for your advice My problem is when I'm in 5th gear there seems to be tension on the chain I took it in for my garentee they told me my chain is loose but it is still got that sound please advise me
So unfortunately it’s very hard to diagnose, over RU-vid, lol. If your chain is loose and making a lot of noise chances are it’s skipping. My hawk has issues with the chain skipping quite a bit with brand new chain and sprockets. The solution to this is to tighten the chain up a little bit. I run roughly half an inch to quarter inch of up-and-down slack in the chain. You can check this by grabbing the chain in the middle between the front and rear sprocket and push up and down on the chain. However much the chain moves up and down is your measurement of slack. Again I run half an inch to quarter inch of slack, that’s where I recommend running the chain. It skips a lot less. Also another tip, once your chain and sprockets get broken in, probably over a period of 200 to 800 miles, the chain will not skip quite as much. If your chain is too tight, it will also make noise. Does not sound like that’s the case here though however. As I said hard to diagnose over RU-vid without seeing or hearing issue. As far as the tension in fifth gear, I’m not sure exactly what you’re meaning by that. If the bike is bogging down like it’s got a hung up brake there could be an issue with bearings the chain being too tight or anything along those lines. If you’re meaning the tension or tightness on the chain is tight in fifth gear, the chain should be tight or have too much tension in every gear, not just fifth gear. If your chain truly has too much tension, you may want to put some more slack in the chain. As you can tell it’s hard to diagnose on RU-vid here, but hopefully these couple ideas and tips will help you out. If you can make a video of the issue and link it here I can give you a better idea of what might be wrong with your bike. Hopefully this helps, thanks for watching!
You hit the nail on the head, these bikes run funny, doesn’t matter if you jet them correctly or not LOL. In my experience it takes several minutes to get them warmed up and running on their own LOL. Just a quirky part of the bike. Really in all honesty it’s a quirky part of carbureted bikes. I remember having carbureted Honda four wheeler‘s dirt bikes and everything in between. Before fuel injection, anything that had a carburetor ran rough when it was cold LOL even a Honda. Thanks for watching!
Did you have any troubles getting into neutral? Me and my brother just got brand new hawks and we noticed that it’s very difficult to get into neutral, if not impossible, with the engine running. I would assume that it’s the clutch adjustment, and that we are not fully disengaging the clutch. Did you run into this problem? Thank you for all this information and support, your channel is up there with MotoCheez!
That was one of the biggest problems I noticed with my bike right out of the gate. They never want to go into neutral, and it’s just a common thing even if you have the clutch adjusted right, the bike does not want to go into neutral! (Of corse having the clutch adjusted right helps). Unfortunately it’s not a matter of miles. I have 4000 miles on my bike and you still have to pretty much shut the bike off to put it in neutral. If you really sweet talk it, you can find neutral but it’s still very difficult LOL. Thanks! I appreciate all the compliments 😎
I just bought a hawk and put 300 miles on it. I didn't do the maintenance like you. Do you think I damage already? Bike runs great so far. Want to do full maintenance by spring.
Luckily these bikes aren’t too picky, that being said there are a few basic things that have to be done, I’d recommend at least jetting the carburetor, adjust the valves and dielectric grease the electrical connectors (ASAP). These couple things alone take care of a lot of problems and are probably the most important things to do right out of the gate. At 300 miles hopefully no wires have been burnt on the exhaust(which you will know pretty quickly if they have lol) and the chain has probably already loosened itself too. Hopefully this helps, I know a lot of people swear by setting the bike up from the get go, in my experience and opinion I’d would have to agree. Setting the bike up from the get go or As soon as possible is the best way to make your bike last. Thanks for the great question(s)!
@@goodolboys713 thanks man. I need to do asap. I'm going to leave the carb and gears stock. It seems when people change too much they dont know where to start when problems occur.
Jason Delgado all good! We all have to start somewhere lol. First loosen the main axle, then loosen the chain adjusters, they are on the very back of the swing arm. Hopefully this helps. Thanks for watching!
I give it extra gas and slowly let the clutch out, don’t fully let the clutch out until the bike is up to speed (5mph or so) hopefully this helps, thanks for watching!
@@robertmayberry5184 Sounds like it could be a lot of things, I’m not 100% sure without looking at the bike. Have you rejetted the carburetor? The carburetor comes lean from the factory and does not want to run. Another couple simple possibilities, your fuel cap may not be venting. Just depends on what fuel cap you have. If you have the chrome fuel cap, sometimes they don’t vent correctly. An issue I had on my bike is the fuel line folded over, it would only drive for a couple miles before shutting off. Your issues almost sounds like you need a carburetor clean, again, not 100% sure without looking at the bike. Hopefully this helps, thanks for watching!
It comes with a small tool kit that you can do 90% of basic things with, HOWEVER, it’s highly recommend to get a small tool kit to work on your bike. A good old Craftsman tool kit is more than plenty. Matter of fact I use a $3 tool kit that I got at a flea market many years ago, it’s allied brand (a brand Iv never heard of, and I’m familiar with tools). You don’t need anything special. A general tool kit with several different kinds of tools will work just fine. Mostly you need a comprehensive socket set and ratchet, some spanner wrenches, crescent wrench, screw drivers. That’s about it, there are hundreds of kits out there that come with all this stuff combined. My $3 kit has all this stuff and more. As you can see it doesn’t cost much to get a comprehensive tool kit. Hope this helps, thanks for watching!
Honestly not sure if your messing around or if this is a legit question.. BUT to be honest I already have several Honda’s, and Iv had several Honda crf250l bikes (all sold now). One was a 2016 and one was a 2017. I loved them both BUT at the end of the day I always felt like I had too much money tied up in them(the 250l bikes), and they were always too perty to get in the mud! The hawk on the other hand is a lot less $$$$ and Iv never had a problem getting the hawk dirty! In all honesty l can truly say that Iv had a lot more fun with the hawk compared to the Honda 250l. I do want to mention that I actually grew up on Honda’s, had a couple Honda ranchers that saw thousands and thousands of miles, and really the hawk and 250l bikes for me really are just extra (I ride the hawk and used to ride the 250l’s in the fall and when I don’t have anything else to do) point is me and my family mostly trail ride fourwheelers and the enduros are just a side hobby. Thanks for watching and commenting!!
These china online shops job is to make the experience look easy, Further from the truth. Buyer beware. The thing is, the parts are very poor quality and have a short life, especially from the smaller brand china companies. There is missing hardware and damage as well as defective parts at times. Not as easy as he shares. My time is more valuable then messing around with a few hours of assembly and down time which includes DMV title and registration that you have to do. Rather buy one from a legit dealer turn the key , plug and play with all the Docs. done. Appreciate the vid
Totally understand your point of view! We have more than a couple Japanese bikes and we love them! They are definitely more easy to get into than the Chinese bikes for sure; however, we do all of our maintenance ourselves, weather it’s Chinese or Japanese the take the same amount of work to fix. It really didn’t bother me too much to go through the bike and put it together.. Although I definitely agree with you on parts support, that’s the one thing I am worried about with my hawk 250.. otherwise it has been an excellent reliable bike for 1200 miles! Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@goodolboys713 I was thinking about buying one until I found out they did not self certify FVMSS so the VIN in my state comes back as a full dirtbike no plate in RI good luck with it I hope it holds up
Mors FPV sorry to hear about that! Really too bad more states don’t allow you to *street legalize* off-road machines! Iv heard Iowa will legalize anything with turn signals! If I had a street legal fourwheeler or side by side I’d ride it to work every day of the week!!