RS and "bozos"

["Tom Brown" <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul:

Honestly, I'm not trying to brand the owner as a bozo.   I think a lot of 
owners are not aware of the issue with the oil staying trapped in the oil 
cooler.   It's tricky to get the correct oil level in these bikes.   BMW 
should have figured out a solution to this problem by now.   If it's 
overfilled the oil can foam and create pressures inside the block that the 
sight glass can't handle.

>I can't see the extreme lean condition to be a fact because it
would create a dramatically unbalanced engine surely noted by the rider
/ owner or the shop.

Good point.  I was just looking for causes of burnt valves here.   Lean fuel 
mixture is one.  It's unlikely that both sides would leak at the same time 
in a balanced way unless the brass screws were way loose or the TPS had been 
fiddled with.   Pinging would be a good clue that something is wrong, but it 
can be mistaken for valve ticking or other noises if you don't know what to 
listen for and it usually happens when the bike is really warm, a condition 
most dealers don't encounter on a test ride.

>Let's get real here. This isn't some screen door company that started to
sell bikes. It's an authorizied BMW dealer who would surely figure out
after transmission #? that something is awry and take great care in the
next one. Yet here he goes through 5. There is clearly something wrong
here beyond the transmission installs. BMWNA kept authorizing new ones
and they wouldn't do that if the installs were all wrong. Either that or
they'd insist the dealer's wrenches get retrained.

A mishapen engine casting is a real possibility that I hadn't thought of, 
but a dealer who really measured things before slapping on a new trans would 
have caught something wrong, I'd think.  Again, not the owner's fault. 
Another possibility is that BMW provided 4 bogus rebuilt transmissions. 
Not likely.

If BMW were so terrific, they'd have recalled that bike at about 
transmission #3 to measure it up.   I think you overestimate grossly the 
efficiency of large corporations.   Again, I wonder about the way the dealer 
has handled this whole issue.   5 transmissions is too many without getting 
to the root cause.  This makes me believe they'd install the trans the same 
wrong way each time.

>> Bizzare.  I've heard of a lot of problems with fuel filters, caused by
> overfilling the tanks and having gas back up into the crankase
> ventilation canisters.  The charcoal gets wet with fuel and then the
> fuel comes back with charcoal in it that clogs the filters.  Never
> heard of a fuel pump going, however.

>Again you blame this owner with no evidence whatsoever that he's a bozo.
First he overfills the oil, now the gas or did you just throw this in
for the heck of it since you don't say the over filling causes pump
failures?

I'm not blaming the owner or calling anyone a bozo.   I'm saying that the 
only fuel related failures I've ever heard of on these bikes is either with 
the filters clogging because of bad gas or this charcoal canister issue. 
I've removed my charcoal cannister for just this reason.   I put this in 
because other people reading the post might be interested in this issue. 
Not to blame the owner.   A lot of people want to put as much fuel in their 
tanks as possible to increase range.  I see it all the time.   Not a "bozo" 
thing.   The gas backing into the canister is a "bozo" thing...a quirk of 
this design that not everyone is aware of.

>> and now the
> top end
> problems,
>
> Totally strange.  One other possibility is that you've used nothing
> but really cheap gas in it.


>Now the owner is 4X a bozo.

Cheap gas WILL burn valves and pistions on these bikes.  It will also cause 
fuel filters to clog and might cause pumps to fail as well.  There are no 
knock sensors on 1100s or 1150s and these engines are timed fairly 
agressively with high enough compression for eventual damage with icky gas.

There are internet gurus who've suggested that mid grade gas is just as good 
or better for the bikes and that there's no need for premium.   I disagree. 
Lots of people substitute regular for mid grade in their cars and any owner 
who doesn't know better could think that it might be OK to downgrade a step 
or two.   The late Bob Lentini used mid-grade and holed a piston in his '93 
RS, but only after nearly 90K and many modifications and experiments.

I'm just listening to the symptoms here and coming up with possible causes 
for the trouble.  It could be an unscrupulous gas station.  Maybe this guy 
buys his premium at an off brand station down his street and it screwed up 
his bike.   I don't consider the owner to be a bozo.  I'm just saying that 
bad gas can do the harm that's been done to this guy's bike.   I don't know 
the guy, I don' t know the dealer.

>...if the dealer didn't tighten the locknut, the
valve would loosen and clatter. BMW valves do not tighten in this
situation.

I didn't know and don't know what happens when a lock nut is left loose on 
an oilhead rocker arm.   You say the valve will loosen.  Are you certain 
about that?    Again, not blaming the owner. He says he got dealer to 
service his bike.   I blame dealer.   While they're "factory certified 
dealers" what that really means is that they have to have one factory 
trained mechanic on the premisis.

For things like simple valve adjustments and tune ups, the apprentice 
working part time, making not much more than minimum wage without benefits 
is often the guy who really works on the bike and he's often gets only a 
certain amount of time to do a procedure.   Many of these guys have some 
strange notions about how certain mechanical systems work, or just have 
never thought about them at all.  They sometimes don't see the need for 
torque wrenches, for instance, and don't realy understand what valve lash is 
all about.  A guy like that can make this adjustment "by feel" and some feel 
that "nice and tight" must be good.   Dealers sometimes cut corners to make 
ends meet or find some guy who says he's "works on race bikes" and they just 
give him a work bench and let him pile in his Snap-On tools and with all the 
stickers on his toolbox and let him go to work..  Some dealers, not many, 
are still unscrupulous and play BMW for warranty repair dollars.   I don't 
know the dealer here, so I have no axe to grind.

This is waaay to much trouble to have with one bike in 44K.   Most new BMWs 
will run 44K with just the break-in oil changed out of them and no other 
service.  (Not recommended, but certainly within the realm of probability.)

Overfilling with 20/50 oil and running the bike hard when very cold might 
blow out the site glass.   I've heard of these things blowing out before, 
but I've never seen it happen and it's never happened to me in 130K miles of 
riding BMW oilheads really hard in all kinds of weather.  I've very careful 
about not overfilling the oil and I warm up the bike fully before putting 
the spurs to it.

It seems extremely unlikely that all the things below could happen to one 
bike without some incompetent service or care involved somewhere:

A.  The transmission fails.

B. 3 BMW replacement transmissions fail.

C. The valves burn.

D.  The site glass blows out.

E.  The fuel pump fails.

We've got lots of list members with over 100K on their bikes who have never 
had any of these problems.

It just doesn't wash that all these problems could be manufacturing defects 
on the same bike and that 3 replacement transmissions were also faulty.  On 
the other hand, I'm aware that the alignment of the trans to the block is 
critical on these bikes.   If not done properly, the trans seal fails and 
possibly the bearings.   This points to improper installation or, as you 
point out correctly, a flaw on the engine block.

BMWs have always been "cult" machines.  You have to read up on them. join 
clubs etc. and learn about their care and feeding in order to be happy with 
them.   I'm an ex 2002tii owner (a 1974 model).   It had a similar rocker 
arm design, except it used an eccentric instead of an allen screw to set the 
clearance.  It had many small foibles which required that the owner have 
knowledge of the machine and sometimes take matters into his own hands and 
not simply rely on the factory and the dealer for maintenance.   They were 
very strong machines that offered great fun, longevity and utility with the 
right care.   The cars designs have moved to the mainstream, but the bikes, 
at least the oilheads, still benefit from inside knowledge and that extra 
enthusiast's touch.

2002's all needed new and smaller steering wheels, electronic ignition 
systems, better tires and wheels (we used stock 14" wheels from the 318i 
from the '80s, 19mm sway bars front and rear, new shocks, extra protection 
from rust for the front quarter panels and door seams.  There were a raft of 
other improvements that could be done to make the cars perform better and 
last longer.  The mechanical fuel injection on the tii models were another 
whole subject.  If you gave these cars wonderful care and stayed on top of 
everything, they rewarded like few other cars.

Oilheads are much easier to maintain, but they all need, new saddles, new 
windscreens, very accurate valve adjustments, very accurate throttle synch, 
special care with the oil level, special technique when shifting (especially 
1100s).  1100s almost universally need new shocks, 0=0 procedures, GS intake 
tubes to be at their best.   You can't put synthetic oil in any oilhead 
until at least 12,000 miles if you expect them to ever break in properly. 
There's more, I'm sure, but this message is longe enough.

An issue with the owner is that he's asked us to opine on this deal he's 
been offered and doesn't tell us the model year or history of the bike. 
Did he buy it new from the dealer or used off ebay?  We don't know.   Is it 
an early '93 model or one of the last 1100RS's made in '01?

Paul, I disagree that some bikes are just lemons.  That's tantamount to 
saying that BMW saves these defects up and loads them all onto one bike on 
purpose.   I think it is more true that once an owner/dealer looses patience 
or confidence in a bike, they tend to not care for it as well and other 
things start to go wrong as a result.  Time to change bikes.

I didn't mean to blame the owner for all this trouble.   Sorry if it sounded 
that way to you.

- -TB 

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