Freebird Posted August 31, 2006 Share #1 Posted August 31, 2006 (edited) Desiccant Canister The following E-Mail was was written to Bench Wrench (Fred Vogt) when he was writing that column for the VTS Motorcycle Roads and gives the answer to how to refresh the desiccant in the canister attached to the Class air pump. Fred: Thank you for answering my inquiry so quickly. You were concerned about my reason for being in my bike's desiccant canister. Well like I said I just recently purchased this machine and have no maintenance history on it. Being mechanically inclined I bought a service manual, micro fiche, and have been on line trying to find out as much as I can while performing the initial maintenance on it. Both the owners manual and service manual tell me to replace the desiccant every two years or sooner if used in areas of high humidity. Wanting to do a thorough job I opened the canister and found the BB sized silica gel colored a very light color blue. I thought that odd because the service manual mentioned colorless when new, and turning pink when time to replace - no mention of blue. Naturally I was stumped when they turned dark blue upon heating them up. That's when I made my inquiry. I have since learned something about silica gel desiccant, it can be regenerated with heat. Furthermore the beads I had in my bike were of the indicating type, they were made with a "0.4 TO 0.5% cobaltious chloride" content. In translation, blue is dry, dark blue is very dry. They turn pink when saturated and can be baked blue over and over again. Sounds to me like Yamaha really wants my money at $48 a pop. Needless to say I just baked my beads in the oven at 250 degrees for two hours till they were nice and blue then poured them back into the canister for another two years. Amazing what a little information can do for ya! Again many thanks for maintaining the bench Wrench site, I've learned quite a bit, web page helped tip the balance in favor of my getting this bike. After having worked on my machine these past few weeks I can say I am not disappointed! Thanks, Broderick J. Maher NOTE: I received this tip from another member here. "I came across the mention of refreshing the desiccant for the Class and the high cost for the stuff from Yamaha, and I wanted to mention that you can get it relatively cheap from any place that sells dryer for hearing aids. It is the same stuff and you can get a whole can of it for under $10." He told me that he found it at Walgreen's. Edited July 27, 2010 by Freebird Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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