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Author Topic: I thought I should stop procrastinating  (Read 9013 times)

Offline Tony Smith

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I thought I should stop procrastinating
« on: September 08, 2013, 03:15:02 AM »
Ah electrics, don't you just love them. Disconnected the coil and hooked up a 5amp 12 volt power supply and "proved' most of the circuits, which gave me some incentive to start re-fitting electrical bits.  
 
Please note that I am in awe of the quality restoration work being done by some here - My 65 just has to work, don't really care about looks.

That's my excuse....

1978 R100RS| 1981 R100RS (JPS) | 1984 R65 | 1992 KLE500 | 2002 R1150GSA |

quixotic

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2013, 04:08:03 PM »
Looks like a fun project...but please re-size and rotate the next bundle of photos.

Offline Tony Smith

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2013, 09:58:56 PM »
Quote
Looks like a fun project...but please re-size and rotate the next bundle of photos.


Oops....Sorry will do.

in the meantime I'll stick to what I know. Here is a link to the project
http://tinyurl.com/kvfjfum
1978 R100RS| 1981 R100RS (JPS) | 1984 R65 | 1992 KLE500 | 2002 R1150GSA |

Offline Dave 2

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2013, 07:27:15 AM »
Just as long as it is safe and reliable, it's your ride, enjoy [smiley=bmw_smiley.gif] D2

quixotic

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2013, 08:34:48 AM »
That piston has seen better days.  How did that happen?

Offline montmil

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2013, 10:18:45 AM »
Quote
Looks like a fun project...but please re-size and rotate the next bundle of photos.

Excellent idea for your initially posted pics, too.

Thanks, Quixotic  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
Monte Miller
Denton, TEXAS
1978 BMW R100S
1981 BMW R65
1983 BMW R65
1995 Triumph Trophy
1986 VW Cabriolet

Offline Tony Smith

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2013, 03:17:59 PM »
Quote
That piston has seen better days.  How did that happen?

In early 1994 and at 9 years of age and around 60,000km and having never had the heads off, the original owner (who was as deaf as a post) was riding home when it "lost power". He rode it home (a further 15km) and then discovered the awful truth. Needless to say the head and barrel were also thoroughly destroyed

1978 R100RS| 1981 R100RS (JPS) | 1984 R65 | 1992 KLE500 | 2002 R1150GSA |

Offline Tony Smith

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #7 on: May 18, 2014, 07:34:48 PM »
Well, this last weekend I thought I should stop procrastinating and do some work on the R65. After all I hand out advice with gay abandon to others so I thought it might be time to practice what I preach.
 
First item on the agenda was to pull the pots off, the right one I pulled off 20 years ago and removed the piston (photos of a well destroyed piston have featured here previously) and conrod (to check for being bent). The left side has never been off.
 
To be honest I have been dreading looking inside as I could not remember doing anything in particular to preserve the engine as 20 years ago I regarded it as "buggered" and had no plans to ever put it back together.
 
To my very great relief I was more conscientious 20 years ago than I remembered, not only was the crank journal covered in a thick smear of grease I had put a pot of "conformal" vapor barrier inside the now empty pot. The conformal has done its job well, not only was the crank in perfect condition and after removing the grease and applying assembly lubrication I put the conrod back on, there was no corrosion on the exposed cam lobes, the cam followers all came out easily (and were assembly lubed and replaced, even the rocker gear worked smoothly and has no corrosion on them. RESULT!
 
Then came my first annoyance. I grabbed the head I bought from an eBay shyster and looked at it for the first time. This head was sold to me as a 1982 r65 cylinder head, As soon as I turned it over to look at the valves I realized that it is a R45 head.

BTW, if anyone here has need of a RHS  R45 head with 32/34 valves it is yours for the price of postage.
 
In the medium term I have a set of 1980 small valve 34/38 heads for which I also have brand new valves. These will be going on to the 1979 cylinders and pistons I also already have.
 
In the longer term, if I keep the R65, when it needs a refresh I will buy a RHS late model head 40/36 and a RHS Nickasil pot and (hopefully) one good std weight piston and give the old girl a bit of a performance lift.
 
I guess that in the short term I may also going to need to buy needles and jets to downgrade the carbs, although as there was only 5hp difference between the small valve and big valve heads I may not need to.

I also finished the electrics, all that I need do now is fit a JPT plug to the ATU to replace the one I broke 20 years ago (failed to observe the wire bale and forced it apart) and it will be ready to run as soon as the heads come back from the machine shop.

Brake wise I am initially fitting a single Brembo caliper, I have as a longer term project acquired a pair of Brembo 4-pot calipers from an R1100 and I will eventually fit those once I decide of I am going to mill the calipers, the forks or both to regain the correct spacing.

Target is to have the thing running and registered by the end  of June as I am getting sick of not having something to ride capable of highway speeds.
1978 R100RS| 1981 R100RS (JPS) | 1984 R65 | 1992 KLE500 | 2002 R1150GSA |

Offline Tony Smith

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #8 on: June 16, 2014, 05:33:46 PM »
A quick update....

The small valve heads and the iron barrels went to the local machine shop two weeks ago with instructions to k-line all guides, fit the new exhaust valves I supplied and do a 3 angle re-seat on the valves, and finally to vapor blast everything to clean it up.
 
I got a phone call from them mid last week to say that one iof the inlet guides was loose, I said to drive it out, knurl the guide bore and then drive it back in, the proprietor, who I've known for years, said that was a bit rough even for me and didn't want to do that. OK, I said, fit a guide from something automotive, to which he replied that the R65 has a valve guide size not remotely like anything he had in stock, or which he could order in at short notice.

On to Motobins.

At first I wasn't too unhappy when I saw that their "pattern" valve guides were only GBP 7.00 each. Then I saw that the "pattern" guides only come in standard size and that to get an O/S guide I was goign to be buying genuine and at GPB19.50, that hurt. Over $40 Australian Pacific Pesos plus a further $15 for priority mail.

Ouch!

Hopefully they will be here tomorrow and I can finish engine re-assembly this weekend and see if it runs.....
1978 R100RS| 1981 R100RS (JPS) | 1984 R65 | 1992 KLE500 | 2002 R1150GSA |

Offline Luca

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #9 on: June 17, 2014, 08:54:34 PM »
At least it's only one seat.  Probably money well spent as the valves/seats are the weakest part of the engine.

Best of luck getting her to fire up this weekend!
'82 R65LS
'01 K1200RS

Offline Tony Smith

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #10 on: June 18, 2014, 03:42:48 PM »
Thanks for that. No chance of it running this weekend, the guide has not arrived yet. But my three have! I ended up going with Pirelli "city demons" for two reasons.

Firstly I could actually buy a front and rear in Australia without having to wait for a ship to arrive (although I did have to buy from different shops).

Secondly I recently spent a weekend on a Royal Enfield GT shod with those three and was impressed with them.

I really wanted Conti-Go's but the next to arrive shipment is pre-sold and I would have to wait until September. The problem is, as I am sure many here know, that time has passed the R65 by and it now bears a "rare" tyre size..

Still I am on the downhill run now, I have everything I need to put it back on the road. I really wish I had made some better decisions earlier on as now as soon as the KLE is run king I will need to do a frame-off tear-down to fix the cosmetics.
1978 R100RS| 1981 R100RS (JPS) | 1984 R65 | 1992 KLE500 | 2002 R1150GSA |

Offline montmil

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #11 on: June 18, 2014, 07:23:23 PM »
What were your impressions of the RE GT? Rather sporty looking it is.
Monte Miller
Denton, TEXAS
1978 BMW R100S
1981 BMW R65
1983 BMW R65
1995 Triumph Trophy
1986 VW Cabriolet

Offline Tony Smith

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #12 on: June 18, 2014, 08:56:08 PM »
Quote
What were your impressions of the RE GT? Rather sporty looking it is.

To put it bluntly, I am in love.....

The GT is never going to set the world on fire power wise, in fact I suspect my 30 year old Yamaha XT350 would effortlessly show it a clean set of heels in a straight line.
 
BUT. It has "enough" power to cruise comfortably at legal speeds (about 70 of your miles per hour on the open highway), has excellent brakes and pin sharp handling.
 
Ah, the handling....I am nearly 60 and I gave up trying too hard years ago. I went south to visit my terminally ill mother and my sister organized the GT fro me so that the two of us could go for a ride, something we used to do a bit of 30 years ago when we lived in the same town.

Mostly around the Blackall ranges north of Brisbane, lovely territory for riding an accurately handling bike.
 
Now I cannot claim to keep up with my sister on her Ducati 916 (she has "You just got passed by a girl - get over it!" emblazoned on the back of her leathers), but we were moving at a sufficient clip so that we came across several squadrons of weekend warriors, Lawyers, Accountants and the like out on their Litre plus Japanese sports bikes and I was truly astonished how easily the GT rounded a lot of them up, particularly going down hills.
 
The only problems I have with the GT are:-

  • The tank is much smaller than it looks and there is only around 200km (about 120 miles) in it
    • There is a stupid electrical cutout on the side stand so that the engine will not start if the stand is down and if you put the stand down with the engine running - it stops.
      • Every time you park anywhere, you have to beat the gawkers off (actually it is incredible how much attention it got).

      Would I own one? In a heartbeat.

      In fact next year once I've done the scrap heap challenge  (sort of an Iron Butt rally but limited by the honour system to bikes that cost less than $AU1,000 to buy and prepare for the rally) next year on the KLE 500 I bought recently I will probably buy a GT after selling the KLE.

      Some observations based on money that the owner of the bike I borrowed had spent fairly wisely.
       
      There is an alternate "sport" exhaust system, which has a nice "English" bark to it - worth every cent of the $250 cost as it sounds so much better than the stock item. (and who cares if it really improves performance or not!).
       
      The dual seat is a $280 cost in addition to the single "cafe racer" seat supplied. The dual seat is long, wide and comfortable, the cafe racer seat is not, in fact I went around the block on it and asked the owner if I could swap them back.

      That's it, all in all a really enjoyable motorcycle.
1978 R100RS| 1981 R100RS (JPS) | 1984 R65 | 1992 KLE500 | 2002 R1150GSA |

Offline montmil

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #13 on: June 19, 2014, 07:27:15 AM »
Thanks, Tony.  Your short review is better than some I've read in "real" motorcycle pubs. [smiley=beer.gif]


Update: OK, since it was Tony that segued into Royal Enfield within his own thread, I really not hijacking his thread. This email newsletter item about the new RE GT, from Motorcycle Classics magazine, just now popped into my mailbox:

http://www.motorcycleclassics.com/continental-gt.aspx?newsletter=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=MCC%20eNews&utm_campaign=06.19.14%20MCC%20Shop%20Talk#axzz355cU73wi
« Last Edit: June 19, 2014, 08:06:46 AM by montmil »
Monte Miller
Denton, TEXAS
1978 BMW R100S
1981 BMW R65
1983 BMW R65
1995 Triumph Trophy
1986 VW Cabriolet

Offline Tony Smith

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Re: I thought I should stop procrastinating
« Reply #14 on: June 25, 2014, 06:35:35 PM »
Just to return this to something vaguely about R65s.
 
The engineering shop has just rung and my heads and barrels will be ready for collection at 5:00 today Yay!
 
Guess what I am doing this weekend?

The old girl will fire up for the first time in 20 years this weekend.
1978 R100RS| 1981 R100RS (JPS) | 1984 R65 | 1992 KLE500 | 2002 R1150GSA |