what did you wrench on today??

[GS1150Pilot]

Ordered suspension bits for the Sportster yesterday. Slightly longer, heavy duty rear shocks, monotube kit for the front.

[pete]

Started the first service on the Kat yesterday, 1071 kms done already, the go fast!

[cowboyup3371]

More work in my other shop:

Clock top by Scott Baker, on Flickr

Hopefully I get the word that I can start walking around without the fracture boot on Friday which means I can start getting ready to ride again.

[GS1150Pilot]

Heal up, cowboy.

[pete]

That's no good Scott but glad it sounds like you're on the mend, heal up!

[Grimly]

Made up an air linkage and top-up with gauge for the front forks.
Depending on how it goes, I might stick with this or swap out for some straight springs. It's bloody annoying that the original 850 manual pre-load adjustment fork caps have a different thread to the 1000 air fork tops, else I'd have simply fitted those and left it as is. However, having been landed with an entirely unintentional set of air forks, I intend to make the best of them.


So far, it's holding pressure nicely at 20.5psi. I'll see how it goes over the hours into tomorrow.

[pete]

Luggage isn't exciting for most people I guess, but for me it means no more need to use a tank bag! Scored a Hallmark brand bag and rack off Gumtree which has a Ventura like system whereby you can take the rack off when not in use, leaving just the L brackets. Received it yesterday and installed it last night.

Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr


Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr

[GS1150Pilot]

Awesome score, Pete!

Your Kat looks great!

[pete]

Cheers mate! Definitely happy with the bag/rack and absolutely stoked with the Kat result and can't stop riding it now either

[Redman]

I did not do the wrenching.
But, I provided the special wrenching tool required for the job.
Well, okay, a guy on the BMWST forum loaned me the tool.

So, I suppose, I should say: I trailered the BMW RT to Valparaiso, and I watched two fine GSR members do the wrenching.
I didnt do any wrenching.
Yah, on the hottest most humid day of the year, these guys wanted to do this.
Mostly because are great guys, and cuz they wanted to see first hand what this BMW final drive failure is all about that have been hearing about - repeatedly - for nearly 20 years.
Many of you know Brian and Tim.

Mostly what I did was to use my one arm to keep a finger in the Clymer manual, and annoy these two guys by reading the next step.
I would be reading the next step and they are saying "yah, yah, this is just like the ujoint on a blah blah" or "yep, just like a yaddii yaddii on a HofferWaffer" or "yah, we already did that".

Was 80 and humid at 9am and well into the 90s by noon.

In addition to wrenching, there was some torching. Had to heat up some lock nuts and pivot set screws to break the treadlocker.

Spent a good amount of time trying to heat the first locknut. My 1500 watt industrial heat gun just wasnt getting it up to the required tempature. Tim had a plumbing torch, and that got things back underway.

Got my final drive off in about an hour.


Greased up the replacement final drive I got, and took a bit of fiddling to get the shafts and splines and what not to line back up.


Then the other fiddley task, the one that requires the special tool.
THe specail tool is a 30mm socket with a portion of the side cut out so can get a 12mm allen wrench inside it. Need to torque the pivot set screw (12mm) to a low torque (5 FtLbs), then hold it in place and tighten the lock nut (30mm) to a high torque (118) while holding the pivot set screw from turning -- and do all this before the red threadlocker sets.


Then finish the other stuff like rear wheel and brake caliper and sensors and stuff.

THen for extra fun, disassemble the original final drive to see what this BMW final drive failure is all about that has been an ongoing story for a couple decades.



THe main gears are fine (so is a candidate for being rebuilt). The bearing that fails is behind (behind in this pic, inboard toward wheel on the bike) the main ring gear, and all that stuff is press fit into the cover (right in pic).

CAn turn that main ring gear, but takes some effort, and can feel some grunching.

Was some talk about "Gee, Suzuki has been making these for since 1978 with no such problem."
But those have an axle thru them. These BMW's are a single sided swing arm.
Yah, good, so that makes it easier to remove the rear wheel and the final drive . . . . when the bearing fails.

THen time for test rides.
I told them they cant ride mo'cykls for decades and not experience a bike shaking sideways when cranking the starter, and not experience a bike that wants to tilt sideways when blip the throttle. And have to experience the over-powerfull brakes. And have to experience all this complexity for not much acceleration. And need to evaluate if sounds more like a 1960 Vee-Dub bug or what.


All done, loaded back up on trailer and out to lunch before 1pm.

Thanks guys. I greatly appreciate the help, and the friendship, and the adventure after being fairly inactive for 4 weeks. Now bike will be ready when I am.

[Baatfam]

Great couple of guys....

[cowboyup3371]

That had to be the highlight of your month Dave. They are some great friends that's for sure

[alke46]

Agree with the two previous posts, you are very fortunate to have a couple of caring buds to get that thing ready for the next owner. Now get back to the healing process so you can do more picture taking on the GK.

Maybe your next contribution to the pic of the week thread would be finding a cliff to push that Euro trash over.


Just messin' with you Dave.

[johnod]

Luggage isn't exciting for most people I guess, but for me it means no more need to use a tank bag! Scored a Hallmark brand bag and rack off Gumtree which has a Ventura like system whereby you can take the rack off when not in use, leaving just the L brackets. Received it yesterday and installed it last night.

Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr


Untitled by starpoint73, on Flickr

Giant bags on a Kat? Sacrilege.

[bwringer]

...THen time for test rides.
I told them they cant ride mo'cykls for decades and not experience a bike shaking sideways when cranking the starter, and not experience a bike that wants to tilt sideways when blip the throttle. And have to experience the over-powerfull brakes. And have to experience all this complexity for not much acceleration. And need to evaluate if sounds more like a 1960 Vee-Dub bug or what.


All done, loaded back up on trailer and out to lunch before 1pm.

Thanks guys. I greatly appreciate the help, and the friendship, and the adventure after being fairly inactive for 4 weeks. Now bike will be ready when I am.

It was great to see you, Dave, and good to see you're on the mend.

And thanks for the opportunity to experience the Bavarian life from the saddle. (I mean, we had to test ride to make sure the repair was good, right?) I've ridden an RS from about the same era, but never an RT.

Ze Germans do know wind management; I personally don't like fairings and windshields, but this one is very effective if that sort of thing is the sort of thing you like. Way TOO effective with temps in the 90s, to be honest.

The brakes are, well, let's just say they're a little TOO interesting. Ze Germans love to over-complicate things, and several BMW models around that time used a power brake system with some... interesting quirks. Dave warned me the brakes were grabby, but once underway they seemed on par with any other modern bike with decent brakes. (My V-Strom in the background is modern-ish, but they're certainly not known for stellar brakes.) I'd say the RT's power brakes are on par with an FJR, Tiger, etc.

The problem with the brakes is that when you start the bike, the power brake system doesn't come online until the ABS system is online. And if you start the bike with a hand or foot on the brake, you get an ABS error message. And the ABS system only goes online after at least a couple of wheel rotations. So basically you have very little braking for about 15 feet after starting or with the engine off. This makes driveway maneuvering extra-interesting, and if you're parked on a slight slope (Tim's driveway gets fairly steep about 20 feet from the garage) I don't know what you're supposed to do, exactly. Knowing BMW, they probably just tell you on page 428 in the manual not to park or start the bike on a slope and that's that; no one would EVER need to do something that's prohibited in the manual, would they?

Not a huuuuge amount of "punch you in the back" horsepower, but very torquey. Gear selection doesn't matter much. A very serene ride; behind that fairing you have to look at the speedo to see how fast you're going.



Here I will confess to an evil, evil thought: I stopped after a few miles to make sure the replacement rear end was OK, and I strongly considered hiding just around the corner then calling Tim and Dave to tell them I was broken down about ten miles away with gear oil absolutely everywhere.

In the end I decided not to kick an injured man while he was down, but damn that could have been hilarious.