Stand

[Vegasrandall]

My center stand seems to be tilting over too far.both tires are on the ground when it's on the stand and it's a chore to get it off.I've looked under the bike and at the stand And I can't see where anything is bent or distorted. Is there a fix for this or am I getting too old for center stands?

[Barry]

The stand going too far over centre is not an uncommon problem and results in the bike being much harder to get off the stand than to put it on.
  
Assuming the pivot bolts and bushes are not unduly worn the solution is to build up the ends of the stand with weld and grind back to shape. Look at where they butt up against the frame stops and you should see the wear.  Part of the problem is that the stand ends are a laminated construction - basically the stand tubes are squashed flat with a filler piece in the middle. Building up with weld makes them solid and they can be thickened up a bit too for extra strength. I did mine last year and it has made a huge difference. Sorry I didn't take any in progress pics as I was too keen to get the thing finished and re-painted. You can see in the finished job how the ends have been thickened up. If you search this and other forums you will find many others have done something similar.

Don't do what I did and put the job off for a year or two as it will only get worse as more and more stress is put on the stand ends. And while we are on the topic of don't do what I did. Unless you want to spend a few happy hours with the angle grinder don't add too much weld. Enough so that it will grind back to about 1/8" thick at the tip makes a big difference.

 

[Vegasrandall]

Mine's a 1980 and I understand they changed the design afterwards.
Whre did you put the weld to build it up?

[Semper Gumby]

+1 on th eweld..  Works great again.  These things just wear out like everything else.

[Barry]

Mine's a 1980 and I understand they changed the design afterwards.
Where did you put the weld to build it up?  

Mine is an early one too and the later stand if you can find a good one that is not worn is a better design with a pedal plate at the end to stand on.

I do have one before pic which tries to illustrate where and how much weld to add. Imagine you need to add weld to the stand end to fill in that tapered gap. About 1/8" at the top down to nothing at the bottom.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

I had to have mine done.  But I saw no deformation at the top of the stand, where it is squashed flat.  
On mine, the bottoms of the feet were flattened and worn through.
A couple of pieces of plate steel welded into place and ground with a nice radius on the leading edge got my front wheel off the ground, again.  

[Barry]

My tubes hadn't worn through yet on the feet but they were going to eventually so while welding and painting was being done thin strips of stainless steel were welded on to form a new hard wearing surface. Should easily last another 30 years now.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

But I am still on the lookout for a '81-'84 stand.

[sixfifty]

i swapped mine out a couple of years ago when it was getting harder to put the bike on the stand.  the old stand didn't look that bad until i compared it to the new one.  







night and day improvement in ease of use.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

Wow, sixfifty - that is beautiful!

I can't find the part # on the fiche.

How much?  (yes Randall, I know...)

[sixfifty]

i don't remember exactly how much, but it seems like it was less than $200. i got a bunch of other stuff at the same time.

ordered it from bmw of grand rapids (http://www.bmwmcgr.com/)

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

46 52 9 056 257

$150 from Chicago BMW w/their 20% discount.

[Ed Miller]

Is that the updated part like the '82 up R65s used?  I would hate to spend good money just to get the same stand I have.  If it is the update I wonder what other parts might be needed.

[Ben_Carufel]

Looking at the pictures SixFifty posted, neither his old or new stands seem to have the tang welded to them which comes up around the exhaust pipe to give you something to push down on to get the stand to the ground...

Is that something that only the early R65's had? My '79 has it.

[Barry]

Is that something that only the early R65's had? My '79 has it.

The early stand like mine and yours is different having the tang but no footplate or provision for the rubber bump stop. Those with the later stand will tell you it's superior in operation as you can press down on that foot plate with some force ... but I'm not jealous ... honest.