Fork spacer question

[georgesgiralt]

Hello !
When I bought my R65 in '84, as it had sat for two years at the dealer (it is an '82) they made an offer : Put an RT fairing on it to hel the salesperson.
So I bought it new with it's huge fairing. Last year I decided to pay attention to it's 30th birthday and remove the fairing. To make a long story short, it meant overhauling the bike quite completely.
In the fork I had a par of solid steel spacers about an inch thick above the spring, between the spring and the top plug (the one with the o-ring and the filling screw).
I was told by a local BMW specialist to remove them. He said they were here to stiffen the spring a bit to help with the fairing. So I removed them. But I keep seeing spacers in the RealOem fiche so I wonder if my bike had them from factory or not (the dealer was a very lazy one so I wonder if he go to the trouble of fitting these spacers into the fork when putting the fairing on...)
So my question is for people having an 82 R65 (even LS) bought new or with a known history : Do you have steel spacers above the springs in the fork ?
Many thanks in advance for your help !

[Barry]

I've never heard of spacers being factory fitted on the R65's.

To have them or not should be determined by measuring the sag. I don't have the exact measurements on hand at work but I think I aim for 50mm. The basic principle is to have 1/3 of the total fork travel taken up when seated on the bike.  If you have less than that with the spacers fitted I would take them out.

The other thing is that spacers will tend to make the forks top out a little more abruptly. If you have a clonk problem removing the spacers should help.

[steve hawkins]

If in doubt you could always drop the spacers and go for a new set of springs.  Standard or heavy duty.  They are not that expensive considering.

But first do what Barry said above.

Cheers

Rev Light

[georgesgiralt]

Well Thank you for the answers.
What puzzled me is that there is a number on the fiche for them (18) but not a part number.
Since I rebuild the bike, I ride without them. As you may remember the bike suffer from Metzeller tires trying to kill my heart every time I ride on a road marking or on a road defect... So I wondered what if I put them back (but my memory tells me that it was the same before... ).
The front fork does not seem to die too much when I sat my hundred kg on the seat.
Thanks for the clarification !

[Bob_Roller]

Without the spacers inastalled, do you have spring tension on the top cap/plug when you push down to get the circlip installed ?

[Barry]

Bob makes a good point. There has to be some pre-load on the spring even without the spacer otherwise the spring will rattle. Something like 25- 30mm would be normal.  If your springs have taken a set through having the spacers fitted for so long then you either need new springs or perhaps a shorter spacer that will provide some pre-load.

Either way the sag test is still definitive.