Hi everyone.  Been awhile since I've been back on here (been having a blast on my bike).
Winter is coming and I'm looking for any advice on storing my bike for the winter. 
Currently its garage kept but has to be on side stand. Will this cause oil to get in engine?
Thanks!

Hi Kdawg,alot depends on the weather in your part of the world,and if you can get dry heat in the garage,Oil will seap across but wont do any harm,When you come to start it up leave on centre stand for a couple of hours or wear a gasmask until the smoke clears Also i remove the battery and keep it safe from frost (KITCHEN IS GOOD)

Change the engine oil and filter before winterizing.  

You will  need to keep the tires off the floor to prevent getting a flat spot.  Since you're going to use a side stand, then keep rotating the wheels periodically so that they present a new contact patch on the pavement.

Run the engine with fuel stabiliser or Seafoam in the gas before winterizing.  What I do is remove the tank and empty it of all gas so that it is kept dry during the winter.  That's just me and not a necessity.  

Take out the battery and keep it in the garage.  I've found they last longer if kept cool.  Make sure to recharge it occasionally during the winter.

Wash the bike before covering it up.

What I do for six months winter storage. This year it was put up November 11.

Fill the fuel tank and treat the fuel with Sta-Bil fuel conditioner then run the engine before storing the moto. I could drain the tank, remove the fuel pump fuse and run out the remaining fuel, but I don’t. I believe in the healing power of moistness. 

Verify the coolant is in good condition, the coolant reservoir is at the correct level and ratio of coolant to distilled water is appropriate. I'll usually know all that before fall if i haven't been dozing.

Drain the engine oil when the engine is warm then replace it.

Disconnect the battery ground strap from the transmission after a long ride then leave the battery in the moto. It likes to be cold. It's from Vermont. It only gets down to -10ºF in the shop ocassionaly. It’ll start up fine in spring. 

There's plenty of leeway for you between methods here so you're unlikely to go wrong. 

Here's my routine that seems to work pretty well where winter can last up to 5 months:

Get rid of the regular ethanol fuel and fill the tank with non-ethanol mixed with Stabil and Seafoam.  Run the engine until warm to circulate the fuel.

Do an oil and filter change.  If you can still work in the garage, do the rest of the fluids(trans, FD, coolant and brakes).  

Jack the bike up and put it on blocks under the engine.  Better yet, get a center stand and put it on the bike for the winter.  With the bike up, lube the drive shaft.  The bike will now be pretty much ready to ride next year.  

If you will be parking a salty car near the bike get a can of the fogging oil that's used for boat engines and give the lower part of the bike a light coat of oil to protect it(avoid the brake rotors and tires).  Put a cover on it.  You are pretty much done.

Get a trickle charger/ battery maintainer and once or twice a month hook it up for a day, but no more.  

I like to go out and start up my bikes every 3-4 weeks and let them idle in first gear until the engine gets warm enough to start the fan.  That will help cook off any condensation in the oil and fuel, circulate the oil and work the fuel injectors with the Seafoam.  It also keeps the battery charged.

If the weather is good get out for a ride.  Last winter in Western New York, I was able to ride almost 1500 miles between January 1st and the end of March.

K-dawg wrote:Hi everyone.  Been awhile since I've been back on here (been having a blast on my bike).
Winter is coming and I'm looking for any advice on storing my bike for the winter. 
Currently its garage kept but has to be on side stand. Will this cause oil to get in engine?
Thanks!

As you have by now read, there are very many ways and  a slight variation of ideas to keep a bike in deep sleep over Winter. If you keep your K on the side stand most of the oil will stay in the engine, where you want it, and some will likely creep past the rings into the combustion chamber. It'll only be a short start-up cloud in Springtime, but if you're in Ohio the mozzies might be out by then and this might help clear the air of them as you let it warm up. 

As for winterising a K, what I do is to add Sta-Bil like product to a full tank of fuel, in a warmed engine which I've recently changed the oil and oil filter in, tyres aired to slightly higher than their usual road pressure, and a 'smart' battery charger connected - earth strap disconnected. I have seen more than a few of five to ten year old Battery Tender brand chargers which have 'cooked' batteries within a few months so be sure it's functioning properly if it's a gen-u-wine maintenance charger. I drape a cover over stored bikes and sometimes spray a fog of light oil over parts that have a tendency to corrode, as well. A good, soapy wash come Springtime brings them back into right good nick.

I leave an RS in Australia for a year and up to three years between uses and she's always ready to go when I return. I do not always leave the battery in the bike in longer term storage. Given that typical yearly sub-tropical SE Queensland weather is not Ohio mid-Winter deep freeze, your situation may vary, but everything else is copacetic with the motorbike upon my return to the Lucky Country. When I lived in Vermont and Massachusetts ages ago I did the very same thing to all of my bikes over the years.

I have around 20 bikes, and 7 K (75, 100, 1100).
I leave in a place where winter can be hard, my location is called "La Blangelée", that's for something (today's pic):

The first snow that fell 2 days ago will melt in April.
So, even if I still ride daily some of them during winter, others remain stored for 4 months, mostly to preserve them from salted and icy roads.

What do I do?
A battery charge once a month.

That's all.
I never had any problem when spring is coming.
I don't bother with magic additives in fuel, and I prefer changing the oil when I start again the bike at spring, with a full check.

jbt wrote:I don't bother with magic additives in fuel . . .

There's nothing magic about fuel stabilizers in the land of E10. They inhibit fuel separation.

jbt wrote:
I don't bother with magic additives in fuel, and I prefer changing the oil when I start again the bike at spring, with a full check.

If stale fuel didn't cause problems, there would be no need for the services of injector cleaners to get them working after being idle.

As far as oil changes, the combustion process in a running engine creates acids and other nasty byproducts that get past the rings and into the oil. Personally, I would rather get that crap out of the engine before letting it sit for 5 months doing who-knows-what to the metal parts of the engine. It has to be done, so why not do it on a cold, wet day in the late Fall rather than the first really nice day in the Spring when I want to be out riding.

My old granddad told me, with a quick cuff round the earlobe, to get the season's accumulated crap out of the engine before you store it away for the Winter. I didn't question him but grumbled a bit. Later on I learnt, after reading about the acid-effect on internal engine parts of old oil full of contaminants, that he knew what he was talking about. Wisdom is the not the prerogative of youth.

Id love to be able to store it upright.
Not sure if the picture helps describe my situation.  But I'm able to squeeze it in using the doly. I'd love to make a doly that can sit it upright. I have space to do maintenance so I'm thinking over winter to do alot more on her ( note I just bought her February and have no clue what maintenance other than what I've done has been done)
I changed the oil and filter 2weeks ago.
I haven't taken the battery off or put a charger on it yet. Tank right now is empty

Hi Mate,from the photo the Lean on the Mean Machine is negligible, having done oil/filter your well on top of things.Happy Days

Put a short chunk of a 2x4 under the side stand. That will get it a bit more vertical.

If it were mine I would assume that everything needs service. It's a good way to get familiar with it, and it sets a maintenance baseline that resets all the maintenance intervals to zero.

Point-Seven-five wrote:Put a short chunk of a 2x4 under the side stand.  That will get it a bit more vertical.  

If it were mine I would assume that everything needs service.  It's a good way to get familiar with it, and it sets a maintenance baseline that resets all the maintenance intervals to 

Putting a block under that stand is a great idea! Thank you.

As far as assuming what maintenance was done...yep, I completely agree to assume nothing was done. I did some basic Maintenance when I first got it. Now I want to take a deeper dive on many things. I understand the spline is critical to check, so I plan to get in that.
To be honest I'm debating, put the bike away till after Christmas then kick of the deep dive in Jan or Feb. So the storage will only be maybe a month.