BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

motorcycle_monkey wrote:For those interested, took some pictures on my maiden voyage out of town. Was unseasonably warm here yesterday, so had to take the afternoon off.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/43464382@ ... 7563244164

Nice shots.....Thanks for sharing . All those gravel roads, maybe you should have bought a GS...

ron prior wrote:

motorcycle_monkey wrote:For those interested, took some pictures on my maiden voyage out of town. Was unseasonably warm here yesterday, so had to take the afternoon off.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/43464382@ ... 7563244164

Nice shots.....Thanks for sharing . All those gravel roads, maybe you should have bought a GS...

Thanks! Really was only about 1/4 mile total on gravel... Some were just gravel pull-offs. Would love to have a GS, but even the older ones are a bit out of my price range...

Take a look at re-psycle BMW located outside of Columbus, Ohio. They deal in classic BMWs but often have goodies for "newer" bikes. I have a Cee Bailey on my 04 model about 21 inches above the headlight..it came with the bike when I picked it up a few months back. Too short for me...lots of turbulence...but I am not going long distance so it will have to work for now. Just ordered a new battery...anyone use the Scorpion? Good reviews from various riders and the price was decent. You will love this bike...even at 11 years of age, it is somewhat amazing..

Ok, so after 500 miles in the last 3.5 weeks, a few things I am curious about, aside from my front shock mentioned in a separate thread (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34553). I have a touring windshield on and all my bolts on the front clip are tight at the head, but the headlight bounces a bit when I hit sometimes the most minor feeling bump. Is this normal b/c of how far out the headlight sits on the brackets? Another item of note, occasionally I press down on the shifter to down shift and the shifter almost seems like it doesn't want to move down. I put a little more pressure, and it shifts down. I typically notice between 3rd and 2nd, but, likely because I don't go much over 45mph on my commute. It doesn't happen all the time, but about once per ride. I haven't checked the fluid in the tranny yet, but the previous owner said he had gone through everything right before I bought it. He was a long time beemer rider, so I felt compelled to trust him. But, much like finding first from neutral seems to be a thing with beemer trannies, my R12C took a second sometimes as well as my R1150R seems to, this may be normal. Otherwise, loving this ride! Now have all the big accessories I was needing.

Anyone have thoughts on my items above? Cheers!

All i can say is that after 29k I haven't had any issues with my headlight bouncing. It might be worth taking off the bezel, I believe it was a standard phillips and make sure the retaining clip is still holding the bulb into place. Also our headlights are adjustable depending on if you have luggage. Make sure you can't just push the entire lamp around. You should be able to rotate it up and down but with a decent amount of force. As far as the shifting, I found that putting a slight amount of pressure on the shifter before pulling the clutch works wonders. Normally the weight of my boot is just fine. Although mine is not a huge fan of skipping gears while down shifting. i can get away with 6 to 3 but any lower than that and I'm letting the clutch out to sync everything back up. Oh and if you haven't gotten them yet, I have had great luck with my bark busters. They only attach at the bar ends so you don't have to worry about the clutch/brake reservoir clearances and do a good job breaking the wind.

"Also our headlights are adjustable depending on if you have luggage."

No, you should adjust the rear suspension spring preload to do that.
In fact if your bike (springs/shocks/lights) is set up correctly for solo ride, take it of the centerstand, sit on it barely touching the floor with your toes and use a wall/door or anything to make a mark of the hight of the headlight on that wall/door or whatever. Then, when you go out with a passenger or luggage, take it of the centerstand, sit on it (with passenger/luggage/etc) barely touching the floor with your toes and adjust the rear spring suspension preload so that your headlight is in the same hight on that wall again. Now suspension preload is setup correctly for riding with passenger/luggage/etc. Afterwards it's easy to reset the preload to the original.

My whole headlight assembly bounces, including the blinkers and my windshield. It isn't much, but I notice it, since my gauges don't move. I know all the bolts are tight, as I double checked them when I had my headlight off to reseat the instrument lights and mount my windshield. The 3 bolts on the bracket under the gauges and the two that the windshield mounts go through. This may be normal with the windshield mounted, but, want to be sure.

Cheers!

There is a sanity problem here.The instruments are bolted to the same piece of metal that the headlight and windscreen are. They must move in unison. That is , along with the major part of the bike unless unless a bearing between the steering and the frame has developed excessive play. Did the headlight /screen bouncing get
worse suddenly? My indicators are flexibly mounted and have some wobble.Is the screen fitted and braced correctly ?
A second opinion may be needed as to how bad this bouncing is.
I've ridden two wheelers for around 48 years and expect the headlight to bob a bit over bumps and with vigorous on off throttle. If there is a serious problem do get it checked out.

I think this may be a matter of amount of mass on what is a long lever away from its mounting point. I noticed the bouncing more since fitting my windshield a couple of weeks ago, which, added more weight with the front brackets right under the blinker stalks. The instruments are mounted a little more to the solid part of the bike. The bracket for the headlight comes out under the instruments and attach to the head unit with 2 bolts next to the top of the forks. It's at those bolts that the mounting hardware for the windshield add a sleeve over longer bolts. That seems like it could be part of the problem, since it isn't a flat mounting point. I am no mechanical engineer, but there is a lot of weight on these little brackets hanging off the front of the bike.

So, all that to say, it's probably normal. I haven't had a bike with this kind of headlight mounting, the others were all a bit closer to the head unit.

Just applied a bit of upward manual force to my headlight and yes some movement can be felt as the bracket deforms. The brackets for my flyscreen/sportscreen can also be deformed with manual effort.
The headlight position in the R1150R looks pretty acceptable to me from my over 4 decades in the saddle. Looks much closer to the fork legs than my previous bikes though. Some modern bikes , including the R1200R LC, do indeed look like the headlights have been given a hefty punch by a large boxer (appropriate) to push them further back.

I think I will chalk this up to normal. Thanks for taking a look gregor!

Cheers!

I think I understand your problem with the bouncing headlight. I had the same problem and fixed it. If yours is the same problem, a couple of steel tube spacers, or some stacked nuts used as spacers may solve your problem.

When I removed my sport wind screen and replaced the bolts with which the screen brackets were mounted, I found I had the same trouble you describe - bouncing headlight. What I discovered, after a lot of disassembly, was that the bracket bolts were now too long. They seemed to tighten properly, but in fact they had not. They had just bottomed out. Meanwhile the headlight bracket and associated hardware was just "bobbing" up and down on the length of the bolt.

I solved the problem by putting a "spacer" on the bolts. The spacer was a piece of steel tube the length of the tube on the sport screen bracket through which the bolts had previously passed when the screen was mounted. Voila! No more bouncing headlight.

Hope this might solve the problem for you.

My headlight bracket is mounted entirely separately from my windscreen. But a good point and worth checking.

My windshield is still mounted, and all bolts are torqued and seem tight against the sleeves for the brackets. I will check again if I have to dig in again for anything. Cheers!