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

I just completed the 24,000 mile major service on my R. I did everything listed in the 12,000 mile and 2 year maintenance schedules.

Some notes:

I replaced the alternator belt. The old belt looks good, but I figured I would run the new one and carry the old one as a spare. To access the belt I removed and drained the oil cooler. After sitting for 24 hours with the oil drain plug removed and the oil filter removed there was still about 6-8 ounces of oil in the cooler. More than I expected.

This was the 4th time I checked the valves; they were dead on. I loosened and then reset them all out of sheer boredom. I also checked the throttle body synch for the 4th time and it remained perfect. I didn't screw with that.

I've heard about others having quick wearing rear brake pads. I had one pad that was about 20% worn and the other pad was about 70% worn. I replaced them so I would'nt have to worry about them for another year or so. Front pads all looked like they were about 30% worn.

I lubed the driveshaft spline for the first time. It was nearly devoid of any visiable grease. Used a mixture of moly and Wurth 3000 greases. I also added a bit of 75W 90 moly to the final drive. (20 ml of the 180 ml total)

My canister fell off during the service; not sure how that happened. I'll replace it.... someday.

Three of the four spark plugs were perfect in color; a nice light brown color and still looking very serviceable. One plug, lower plug clutch side, looked as if it were running rich. I have not checked to see if the stick coil on that plug is okay, but the bike idles and runs smoothly. I would guess that a non-firing plug would cause some rough running and perhaps affect the throttle body synch results. I may just leave it alone and check the plug a hundred miles or so. Others' thoughts on this, please.

I've been experimenting with front tire air pressure to see if I can reduce the fairly sever cupping I've been having. I've been running 40 PSI in the front with about 5,000 miles on it; zero signs of cupping. I may get 10,000 miles on this front tire instead of the 5-6,000 miles I've been getting

Why'd you remove the oil cooler?

Well, to get to the alternator belt one needs to remove the front engine cover. Two of the fasteners that hold the cover on to the engine are behind the oil cooler. Once I had the cooler loosened I decided to remove it to determine how much oil was remaining in there. It also appeared to be that trying to replace the belt with the cooler just leaned forward might be more trouble than it's worth. Probably added 10 minutes to the job by completely pulling it off the bike. For the more anal amongst us, pulling and draining the cooler will mean the oil in the bike is just a bit cleaner and it is easier to access places on the engine for cleaning. While I admit to having a bit of an anal strain running through me, I will not be pulling the cooler for every oil change.

MTBeemer wrote: Once I had the cooler loosened I decided to remove it to determine how much oil was remaining in there. .

He did say he was bored and I guess it's starting to get cold in Montana, I totally understand.
Plus all of us that wonder about stuff like that now know how much oil stays in there.

Kevin, is that a camhead?

I admire your attitide...... leave no bolt unturned!

Regards, Paul

08 Hexhead.

It would be cheaper than my 24,000 service earlier this year. The yearly MOT (annual roadworthy test) and service cost £495 ($800 ?)
I'm a rubbish mechanic As Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood) said,"A man's got to know his limitations."
I must get around to cleaning the bike soon, it's been a while!

Phil

If I had to pay for service, I could not own the bike.

David

Bump. Any ideas on why one plug ran rich?

Kevin, I would suggest that you switch the rich plug with the normal one from the other side. Then ride for a while and see if the rich issue follows the plug, or stays with the left side. If it stays left, that stick coil would be a good prospect. If the main plugs are both good, then it would seam that the fuel system is not to blame. Let us know what you find.

Kevin,

I think Bob's idea has merit... and is a cheap way to start. Unfortunately - the secondary coils aren't the same so you can't just swap them from side to side. And unfortunately the engine diagnostics doesn't include an error code for misfires, so you can't narrow it down that way (as you can on a car with OBD-II diagnostics.) The factory way to determine if a coil is at fault is swapping with a known good one. The other test is to unplug one coil from the primary harness (the wiring going to the plug) at a time, start the bike and see if it runs the same or worse. If all plugs except one make a difference - the one that isn't making a difference isn't firing the same. Unfortunately this test isn't always accurate since some ignition problems will only appear under high load conditions (accelerating at high RPM.)

It also could have been a defective plug that caused it to appear rich. My secondary plugs always look a tiny bit richer then the primary plugs - but side to side - the plugs are identical. I may have had an intermittent or weak primary coil.. I had an intermittent rough idle condition that seems to have gone away by swapping in a new coil (I have a set of spares I snagged on ebay a long time ago for little money).. but the plugs never showed a problem. I suspect if it was a fuel injection issue, both plugs on that side would look identical (both appearing rich.)

Thanks for the advice folks. Since I already have the new plugs installed and the bike seems to be running well, I think I'll run things as they are for a 100 miles or so then pull the plugs to see what I have. If I have issues then I'll try your diagnostic techniques.

My lower plugs look like they run richer. I "rotated" them with the uppers at the last service. I think my bike runs pretty rich anyhow, the back top of the muffler is black.

If ONE plug is bad, I would suspect the coil.

David

I inspected my plugs yesterday.
The lower on the left looked a little rich also, but I just sort of rubbed it with a rag and the normal color was underneath.

I wonder if since that is the most dependent plug when the bike is on its sidestand, if vapors for residual gas or oil just settle there during the time it takes to be cool enough to check it, giving a false impression of rich?