R65 project in Bulgaria

[Tony Smith]

By the amount of carbon that has gone past those rings, they were well past their use-by date.
 
I would vary carefully check the dimensions of the piston (and the little end bearing) before re-using them.
 
Please put something between the rod and the engine block - 1/3rd of an old mouse mat works a treat.

[starman85]

All the engine parts are being shipped today from Germany (including 2 sets of piston rings). I ordered two regardless that the right side seems to have no such problems (it hasn't been opened yet but the pressure readings for that cylinder were about OK). This week the engine block hopefully will go for painting/blasting so we can put everything together when the parts arrive.

The rod was well lined up just after the photo was taken  8-)

About measuring the piston - what should I look for? I measured it to match the 82 mm that it is supposed to be?

[montmil]

Check in with the Snowbum's BMW website. There is a lengthy section on all things BMW pistons including much data to lengthy to post here. http://bmwmotorcycletech.info/technical-articles-list.htm

Do not, under any circumstances, use glass bead, sand or similar materials to blast the BMW crankcase, heads, etc. Aqua blasting is acceptable.

[starman85]

A little update - engine parts have finally arrived. That German fellow did a fantastic job refurbishing the heads and carbs! They are like new (if not better).

Last week I also ordered most of the exterior items (mufflers, exhaust wrap, mirrors, blinkers...) and hopefully they will be here sometime next week. Still have to get tyres, speedo and a few other bits and pieces but I will get them after we start final assembly and see if we are not missing something important. Seat will be ordered at a local workshop. Disassembly is a bit slow but now with the parts availbale I will try to hasten things up.

The company I got the bike from offerd me free parts to compensate for the difference between advertised and actual power of the bike - I got some filters, exhaust nuts and other goodies. Apparently there are still businesses that care about customer satisfaction.

[montmil]

Making progress and that's a good thing. Keep those updates flowing. [smiley=beer.gif]

[starman85]

The naked bike got even more naked - today we pulled out almost everything. The tyres and fork assembly go out in the coming week. We could have pulled them out but some fellow borrowed the engine hitch and forgot to bring it back in the workshop... Upon removing the top engine cover we found a neat surprise - the engine starter looks like it has been replaced with a brand new unit recently. The rotor took some creativity to get out but there were not any troubles disassembling the bike - everything is easy to do. I hope it stays this way when we start putting things back together  

With the bike disassembled the front and top engine covers go to the paintshop along with the rims and the fork. In the meanwhile we will clean the crankcase so it matches the new carbs and heads. After cleaning we will start putting things back together and I hope in early April the bike should be ready.

Some questions and opinions on the following matters will be appreciated:

The Acewell speedo unit I think to get has temperature readout on the display. What do you think is the best way to measure the oil temperature? Here's what the Acewell supplied sensor looks like - http://www.acewell.de/detail/index/sArticle/50/sCategory/16 . Maybe we can drill a hole in the crankcase and use the Acewell sensor? Or we can machine a little adapter and attach it just before the planned oil cooler - it seems a little less aggressive this way.

Other thing I'm considering to do is lower the bike in front by about 1.5 inches. It will require a new top fork clamp which can be relatively easily made. Main reason to do it is just for the looks. Do you think this will bring any troubles?

The new steering will be much lower the the original one - do you think that new clutch and throttle cables will be needed or we can use the original ones and just hide the unneeded length somewhere under the tank?

[starman85]

I'm installing the oil cooler set on the bike and the supplied center pipe for the filter is about flush with the outside engine wall (the flat face where the cover is bolted). I opted for the GS style cover that has no thermostat but a bypass hole. The center (cooled) hole gets about 3 mm inside the outside engine wall so the pipe gets about 3 mm inside the cover. How far inside a GS style cover the pipe needs to go in in order the system to operate right? Are the 3 mm enough or too much.

And one more thing. The oil filter canister (mine is with the round lip) is about 3.5 mm inside of the flat outer face which according to Snowbum's site is too much. The bike was running fine with just one metal shim and with the paper gasket installed. Do I have to put an additional shim and/or not to use the paper gasket for the cover?