The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
Technical Discussion => BMW Technical Q&A, Primarily R65 => Topic started by: TXRider60 on May 22, 2010, 10:25:20 PM
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OK. Premise is that I'm not a mechanic-- and for a lot of reasons, won't become one in this lifetime. I also love my R65, and have one of the top airheads experts (Boxer Bruce) to count on for repairs and maintenance. I'm currently in a 5-week wait, however, for him to have room in his shop for Schatzi... And I'm acutely aware that the electrical failure I had in a Ft. Davis parking lot might have been a lot more serious if it had occurred a few hours earlier (like between Terlingua and Presidio).
So here are my questions for discussion:
[ ] I would guess that the most common failures on the road are [ electric.
[Q] What would the 3-4 most common failures be, part-wise?
[Idea] Has anyone ever heard of upgrading the above list of most vulnerable components with new (or in some cases, improvements on OEM) parts, and retaining the current functional* parts as spares?
* Since my R65 has a largely unknown (and potentially colorful) history, there's no way of knowing which vital parts might have a lot of hard miles on them.
Any thoughts from my friends in the world of purposeful disorganization?
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Alternator rotors and diode boards are the most common failures that I have heard about on airhead bikes .
Third and not so common, is the Hall sensor in the 'bean can' .
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In 93,000 km my R65 has always got me home under it's own steam.
It stopped once with a broken positive battery lug that I fixed on the side of the road and I have ridden it home with a broken clutch cable. The one time I dropped it and slid down the road I rode it home and the other time a lady turned in front of me and knocked me off I rode it home before going to hospital for x-rays.
I wouldn't worry about carrying spare anythings, just ride it!
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After thinking about it for an hour, if you have an OEM ignition coil, especially if it's the gray and black coil, I would make that a priority to replace .
I had my original coil go bad, replaced it with the upgraded OEM red and black coil, and it failed 8 years later, so this would be one instance that I could recommend an after market part, the Dyna 'brown' coil for electronic ignition systems .
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Ive never had a failure on the road and the only spare I carry is the original condenser so that I can convert back to a standard points setup should the ignition amplifier fail.
We tend to be suspicious of anything electronic but when I think back to my last bike I never gave the electronic ignition a thought in 14 years. Same for my car in 16 years.
Given elimination of the known weaknesses like a "crackomatic" coil if you have one there is no reason for a bike to be unreliable. BMW didn't really get anything else wrong except maybe the infamous gear selector spring and there is precious little you can do about that.