A friend bought a K75C some time ago and I coached her on what parts to buy to bring it back to life. She sold the bike before we could do much of the work and I inherited the parts (including a breather hose and clamps...) So this afternoon I was going through my parts bin and decided that even though it was supposedly just changed 12k miles ago, it is such an easy job I might as well knock it out. I grabbed my tools, aka a long shank flat head screwdriver, and headed out to the bike.

It looked great, maybe a little dry rotted around the neck but nothing to worry about, here is a pic of it removed, as it looked on the bike:



I loosed up the hose clamps and popped off the old one, and was pretty surprised at this:



Yup - that harmless and very minor dry rot was actually a tear going about 2/3 around the entire neck. I popped the new one on (making sure to orient it correctly and load the hose clamps first) and screwed it in. Planning on a ride tomorrow morning, hoping it will ride even nicer

So, moral of the story, spend the $20 and replace yours next time you are working on the bike - takes all of three minutes!