After the restoration: 7200 Mile Service

I still need to check that the jets are tight, the needle hight is as recommended, and the float levels are correct. Then they can be mounting on the bike.

I came back from a ride on the 3rd with just under 7200 miles on the bike and removed the bags and tank bag in preparation for the bikes 7200 mile service. Early Sunday morning (the 4th) my R1150RT wouldn’t start due to a bad battery so I rode the R69S again. Magnetos don’t care about temperatures in the low thirties. The bike now has 7219 miles.

The tail pipes and rear tire came off next. The picture of the pipe shows the residue of a plastic garbage bag I ran over a week or three ago. I’m hoping I can get rid of the stains without scratching the chrome. I’ll save that for a rainy day.

Before removing the rear end I pull the drain plug. I got close to the 150 ml that should have been there. Alas, I also got lots of metal bits stuck to the magnet in the drain plug. I don’t thing that is normal. I’ll take the rear end and picture of the drain plug into the shop Saturday for other opinions.

Reminder to self: remove brake linkage before attempting to remove rear end. The picture of the bell crank shows the pivot bolt in backwards. The other end of that bolt rubs on the fender. This will be fixed.

With the rear fender raised I notice that the insulation around some of the wiring has split. It looks like the sheath around the wire bundle, not the insulation around a wire. In any case I’ll do something about this before putting things back together.

The rear fendor comes off next. I note that the rack is attached above the shock tower mounting flange. When the fendor comes off I can see the damage done by the bell crank pivot bolt. I’ll clean and touch up the fender. It’s in a hidden position, so an exact paint match is not necessary.

The first picture is the castle nut that was rubbing on the rear fendor. The pivot bolt was supposed to be installed with the nut on the outside. The brake pivot is removed from the swingarm and the swing arm pivots removed. The swing arm comes off.

At breakfast a week or so ago the discussion of where to mount the solo seat came up. I’m looking for a bit more comfort so I moved the seat from the rear-most position (for heavy riders) to the middle position.

The parts I’ve removed so far are stuck in a freezer bag so they don’t get misplaced. Tools are put away while I attend to cleaning things that have come off the bike: the swing arm, the battery tray, the brake rod, etc. When I get to the air cleaner I see that the paint has worn in spots and some rust has formed. I sand it down. I’ll re-paint.

Jeff came over and kibitzed while I cleaned up the rear part of the frame. We pulled the transmission out and set it asside. I attacked the yellow stain on the frame that I think is from hypoid gear oil leaking from the shift lever seal.

I called Jeff to say the weather didn’t look condusive to painting and he replied that the fan in his paint booth went out last night anyway. I’ll take that as a hint that painting is not the thing to do today. Instead I tried removing the baked on plastic from my exhaust pipes. Most of it came off. The pipes polished up quite nice (if you ignore the scratches from where they fell off the bike because some idiot forgot to torque the fasteners :-)

I showed the drain plug picture to Joe this morning and he agreed the the rear end should be opened up. I popped the cover and removed the ring gear to start. Bad wear toward the inside of the gears. The wear is not in the proper place, so re-shiming correctly should be OK.

Ring gear movement gear felt gritty. I pulled the bearing and it feels rough. Joe has a used bearing that feels perfectly smooth. The price is right (free) so I’ll use it. The bad bearing is a no-name made in Turkey. The replacement is an FAG that is thicker than the no-name. Re-shimming calculations will have to start from scratch.

The pinion and pinion bearing look and feel fine. I cleaned the case carefully, making sure no metal bits were inside. Joe is quite busy today, helping Jim with his transmission. We’ll re-shim my rear-end next week.

I enjoy taking the bike apart as it gives me a chance to detail the parts before putting it back together. The exhaust pipes came off so I could get at the burnt on plastic. I also tried to remove the yellow stain on the frame. It seems the stain is in the paint.

I drained the oil from the transmission and then removed the shift lever to get at the old shift lever seal. I’m pretty sure the seal was leaking and that the hypoid gear oil is the primary source of the yellow stain on the frame.

It took a half hour of futzing around to get the old seal out. I had some odd shaped soft metal awls that are now even odder shapes. The new seal went in in about 30 seconds. I installed the shift lever and then cleaned up the case.

The transmission went back into the bike after applying some BMW #10 to the splines. I cleaned and checked the exposed part of the clutch cable. It looks fine. It’s now got a fine coat of the same grease I use for wheel bearings and swing arm bearings, waterproof boat trailer grease.

The swing arm was reinstalled with the bolt holding the brake linkage bell crank inserted the correct way this time. The left shock mount was attached to the swing arm. My silent blocks are loose in the shock eyes. Also, I notice that the washer is smaller than the shock eye. This means the shock could slide off the silent block. I wonder if that is normal.

Maybe I should have skipped working on the bike today. I went to fill the transmission with oil and realized that I didn’t have enough. I was at the store yesterday and forgot to buy some. Then I dropped the rear fendor while trying to install it and put some nice scratches in the paint.

I used lots of anti-sieze when installing the headers and mufflers. The only down side is that once you get some on your fingers it gets all over the bike. After putting the exhaust back together I had to clean it again.

Joe showed me where he hid the shims for the pinion. I measured several and took one from the middle pile as a starting point. The case was heated and the pinion gear dropped in. I figured I’d have to do this more than once. The goal is to get gear contact in the middle with the proper backlash.

The measurement in the shop manual were made to select the shim for ring gear side play. First time the shim was too thick and when I tightened the cover it put pressure on the ring gear removing the backlash and making it quite tight to turn. Second try was much better.

The rear end is back on the bike. I picked up some gear oil and topped off the transmission, filled the rear end, and added about 120 cc to the drive shaft. No leaks, so far.

The drain plug was pulled. It’s free of any metal bits.
Once the oil drained the oil pan was removed and cleaned. The oil screen looks fine so I’m not going to bother removing it for cleaning.

Some paint came off the bottom of the oil pan as I was cleaning it. Since I had the paint out for the air cleaner housing I added a coat to the bottom of the oil pan, too. The paint only looks like fake chrome when wet. It dries to an aluminum colored finish. At least it did last time I used it.

It’s been 36+ hours since I painted the bottom of the oil pan. A new gasket was gooped up with hylomar and the pan installed on the bike. I used 25 in-lbs of torque on the retaining screws. The screws were gooped up with hylomar, too. 2 qts of oil were added and a pan placed under the bike just in case. Tomorrow I’ll know if there are any leaks.

I was thinking about the vacuum take off problem the other day when it came to me that the take offs don’t need to be as long as they are. I pulled them out and cut off about 4.5 mm from each one.
The fit is much better now. I won’t have to loosen the carbs to attach the twin-max.

I removed the hub nut and washed the grease off of the hub cap. A little mothers metal polish made it look good again. The bearing stack was removed and the wheel bearings checked. They are fine.

The bearings were cleaned and then re-packed with fresh boat trailer grease before the stack was put back into the hub. I hit the rim with some polish and checked for any loose spokes. The re-assembled wheel was put back on the bike and the rear brake adjusted. I think I’ll do the front wheel, next.

The plug came out. Looked OK. I checked the head torque. It was fine, too. The exhaust valve checked a little tight. The intake was right on. Not bad as it’s been 2400 miles since the valves were last checked.

The right side was pretty close to a repeat of the left. The only difference was that the right exhaust was still fine; neither intake nor exhaust valves needed adjustment. The valve cover was put back on the bike and both plugs torqued to 10 ft-lbs with a fresh coat of anti-seize.

Jeff came over. We went out to lunch then came back to finish the 7200 mile service. I started by installing the tiny tach to the battery cover with velcro. The first picture also shows my twin max hooked up to the carbs.

I routed the wire from the tiny tach under the tank, through the airway and wrapped it around the left spark plug wire for the recommended 4 turns. The airway cover was replaced with the ground for the tiny tach under the retaining nut.

Better this time, but still not perfect. I gave the bike some RPM to check the advance. It advances. It stops with the F mark in the middle of the window. I needed to use my externally powered timing light to see the F, as the cheap light doesn’t fire at higher RPMs. The good light shows some S jump. Not enough to worry about.

The vibration damper was re-installed and the generator bolt tightened to the recommended 14 ft-lbs. The front cover then went back on the bike. The only thing left to do is tweak the carbs.

The condensor lead was frayed at the solder joint, so I unsoldered the lead and resoldered it after dressing the ends. There was no difference in the way the machine ran. I later swapped condensors. Again, no difference.

I’d been running one of the potted coils since my original coil was suspect. The original was swapped for a rewound coil a while back. I figured now was the time to try the rewound coil. The spark is stronger with the rewind coil, but the bike still has no power after about 50% throttle.

The stronger sparc from the rewound coil did a better job of triggering my timeing light, letting me see that the advance was going beyond the F mark. Time for the Brian Caro stop screw. The screw comes from an old set of points. The advance now stops at the F. There’s still no power after about 50% throttle.

Well… the problem is not fuel. It’s not spark. All that’s left is air. I replaced the air cleaner. That made a big difference in operation. Using the new air cleaner I re-adjusted the carbs and found I’d gone from no power at 50% to a stumble up to about 40%, then plenty of power. Raising the needles one stop cured the low power stumble. The bike is running fine, but I may try 40 idle jets just to see if it makes a difference.