After the restoration: 19,200 Mile Service

No change. The head will have to come off. I hate working on two bikes at the same time and the GS is already apart due to the shock rebuild and I need to pull its FD to get a cracked wheel flange replaced. The R69S will have to wait.

Today I turned the bike around in the garage to to get access to the left side. The GS is still waiting for parts and is a bit hard to move with a missing rear wheel. The goal is to pull the head and see what might be wrong.

I dressed the head and found a slightly used gasket that was too good to throw away in my parts drawer. I think I’ll give it a try. If it wasn’t for the slight bubble around the void near the oil return you wouldn’t know that the gasket wasn’t brand new.

I re-installed the head, torqued it down, re-adjusted the valves, hooked up the exhauts, and stuck the compression tester in the spark plug hole. Yes! Back to normal compression for this bike. Time to put everything else back together.

I see that I forgot to add carb-head gaskets to my need-to-order list after my last service. It’s just about time for new tires, too.

These are Heidenau K34 tires that I picked up today from Moto Amore in Santa Clara. They look right and are in the correct size 3.50x18. I’ll thought I’d give them a try. The question is how well they’ll handle on rain grooves.

Today I took off the rear wheel to mount one of the tires I picked up yesterday. I had to loosen the left shock mount to make room to remove the rear wheel. This should be the last time I have to do that.

I don’t know that the rust on the valve stem is a problem, but since I got a new tube why take chances. A little talc, a little air, and the the new tire went on the rim about as easy as the old tire came off. The only issue is one of tire direction. There are no difference probably doesn’t mean much. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Balance time brought up the only issue: I didn’t realize I was out of new wheel weights. Hmmm, I’ve heard of others using some RTV to stick old weights on. Only down side I can see is that I have to wait until it sets. I cleaned the back of the weights and the mounting location with some denatured alcohol then put a thick bead of clear RTV on the back of the weights and pressed them into place, wiping up the excess RTV.

About 3 hours later I figured the RTV was set enough to put the wheel back on the bike. First I put some moly paste on the wheel splines and then I put the the left shock mounting bolt nut back on the bolt and torqued it down. As expected, a 3.50 x 18 tire fits with the shock bolt and nut in place so I put it back before mounting the wheel.

I put the wheel back on the bike then installed the cleaned and lightly greased axle. Axle tightened, then pinch bolt, then the fender. The bike is ready to ride… but tomorrow is a Mid Week Ride where I’ll be on the GS. And maybe Friday I’ll put the front tire on the bike.

The bike was stable enough with the jack where it was to remove the front wheel. As is normal it took a few love taps with the dead blow hammer to free the brake hub from its slot in the frame.

No fancy tools needed to break the bead on these tubed tires. The tire irons (cheap clones of the 16 inch motion pro irons) are all that is needed.

I levered the tire over the rim on both sides. This lets me push the wheel into the tire to get at the tube. Once the tube is out the tire pulls off the rim with little effort. I dont even have to use any tire lube.

Before mounting the new tire I clean up the inside of the rim. Then I stick the valve stem back in the tube, lightly inflate it, and stick it inside the new tire after dusting with talc (baby powder).

The new tire goes on easy. The hardest part was getting the valve stem through the rim far enough to start the nut on the threads.

30 PSI and the tire is ready to move from wheel stand to balance stand. I checked with the old weights. No go. I remove them and did some more general rim cleaning before finding out I needed 2 oz of weights.

As with the rear tire, I stuck the weights on with a bead of clear RTV. While that was curing I notices some rust on the edges of the brake drum. A bit of rubbing with emery cloth got rid of that. I alse cleaned the brake surface with brake cleaner, and took the brake hub outside to spray with the same.

I put the wheel back on the bike and cleaned, greased, and re-connected the front brake cable. The bike is ready for its test ride. That will happen tomorrow on the way to Joe’s. If the weather isn’t too bad I’ll take the bike on some grooved highway to see what it feels like after brunch.

This picture shows the one question I have about the new tires. You can see that there is a slight pattern to the tread. I haven’t a clue if it makes any difference which way the tires are mounted. For what it’s worth I mounted the rear one way and the front the other.

I’m one hour and 27 miles early for the next service. Close enough. The “one hour” part is based upon past experience. Seems like it typically takes about 30 hours of run time for me to put on the 1,200 miles between service. Perhaps I had more freeway miles this service interval.

I also found some leakage around the left cylinder base.
Not sure, it might be coming from the pushrod tube seals. I checked the base nuts. They are tight. New oil added after replacing the oil drain with a new crush ring.

The air filter had to come off to get to the battery.
While off the bike I checked that is it is still OK. It and the housing gasket are fine. I also cleaned up the housing while it was off the bike.

The front tire was down a few pounds; not unexpected. The rear, on the other hand, was less than half what is should have been.
I’ll need to keep a close eye on that is it is a new tube, replaced just a few months ago. There are no obvious nails, etc., in the rear tire.

It’s been about 350 miles since I replaced the head gasket on the left side, past time to do a re-torque. With the ending at a compression stroke TDC for the left I retorqued the six head screws one at a time.

I did not check the valve settings prior to re-torquing the head. After the re-torque the intake was the correct .006 inch. The exhaust was a touch tight and needed some tweaking. When done I buttoned up the left side.

Once the right side was buttoned up I dumped the small amount of oil that drained from the cylinder heads into the waste containier and started putting tools away.