I got a bit fanatical about tightening up my bike's sloppy manners. The shakes/shimmies in medium to high speed 'sweepers' when the pavement was less than perfect unnerved me, but the final straw was years and years of trying to iron out a "clunk" in the suspension that defied all remedy.
Through MAXBMW in New Hampshire, and a very cool, very interested-in-your-problems guy there named Rusty Gill, I ordered a three piece (replaces the one piece valve barrel for the fork along with new seals and washers). It's a part that supercedes the one piece in R65s after a certain year and is referred to in some places as an "anti-dive" feature. Although neither Randy nor myself could apprehend just how it could change the damping properties since it doesn't change the oil flow one bit, it does eliminate a few possible points of rattling since it incorporates a beefy spring. The R65 fork seems to be one of the few BMW forks that does NOT incorporate a rebound spring. Just a damn little urethane bumper. Why? I don't know. To be cheap?
I installed them in the forks and just to push things a bit I put a 5/8 spacer (cut from standard gauge grey PVC conduit) above the springs and bought some Honda SS-8 10wt fork oil.
Ok. So I have my springs stiffened by 5/8 inch. I have slightly higher vis oil than the manual recommends. (the "anti-dive" assembly does not change the handling, but I'm hoping it quells some of the clunking). I also have an OEM Suzuki steering damper installed (detailed elsewhere on the forum with pics http://www.bmwr65.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1222528203/0#0).
The bars still fall against the stops on their own when the bike is on the centerstand. It's a nicely built damper. It doesn't inhibit movement unless any action attempts to move it too suddenly, like a bump in the road. There is always some concern voiced about a damper inhibiting any of a bikes "nimbleness" (as it was put here in another thread). But a well designed damper does none of that. The old fashioned friction plate damper on older BMWs with the black knob on top of the steering column gave it a bad reputation since that one did in fact make the bike less nimble. But a modern damper is designed to only inhibit the quickest of movement. It's like putting your hand in a bucket of water. For normal movements of the hand, the water has insignificant effect on your freedom. Only when you try to move very suddenly does the water dampen movement.
I also have bar end weights in the form of as much steel rod as I could cram into the ID before the bend stopped it... quite a bit really.
The 'clunk' is 95 percent eliminated. I can live with that since, most importantly, it confirms that it was in the fork and not some loose cannon under the tank, in the steering bearings, under the timing cover, in the starter, etc, etc. It really was driving me insane for many years.
And the bike handles WONDERFULLY. There's only a bit more road feel transmitted through my arms in the bumps. But the ability of the front end to maintain contact with the pavement, and maintain a line, through bumpy curves is literally smile-inducing compared to what I'd been living with.
