I used to be a Rat Bike...

[ged in oz]

And even if you think it now looks like "any other" R65, just remember it's still the bastard  stepchild of the BMW world, so we're all still a little special.    

"Except for R65" ........  that means Exceptional, right?

Thanks fellas. And thanks for all of the help and advice along the way too!

You know BPT, I think that these bikes have obviously been long underrated and I don’t really know why that is except for the fact that they’re not 800cc or 1000cc. I’ve had lots of big, fast sports bikes over the years and the reality is that these days, you just don’t get to use that sort of potential without risking a very long stretch without a licence and hefty fines to boot. I don’t know about you guys over there, but Australian roads are just sooooo over policed, it’s completely ridiculous so I’m quite happy puttering around on a midsize bike these days and I’m enjoying a lot of aspects about this little bike.

Exceptional indeed!

Tony, I’ve got at least 2 RS fairings hanging in the shed now, (plus various spare sections), as well as the 2 RT fairings, so I’m sure we can work something out. I haven’t really gotten around to having a good look at them all yet, but I’m pretty sure that both of the RS’s are useable. They’re not going anywhere so lemme know when your ready.

[ged in oz]

So, on and on it goes...

Now that I have the rear end reconfigured, I need more carry room, of course. I picked up some panniers a couple of months ago and when I asked the question of how the hell they fit on this forum I was of course informed that they were meant for the mono shock model. Bugga. They seemed like such nice bags. Of we’ll, not to be defeated I tracked down some images of what the correct frames should look like and eventually set about fabricating my own. Sounds easy doesn’t it?

Well, it kinda was but it never seems like that when your in the middle of it... I used 10mm round bar instead of 12mm tube, (which would be better and I might get around to doing it one day - see below) and I bent them up and fabbed up the brackets etc and got it all to work well enough and it all came out ok and has been working just fine.

Of course, a couple of days after I got all of that sorted, I picked up (yet another) RT fairing, this time off a monoshock R80RT, (I bought it for the pair of clocks which were still fitted) but it also came with a set of the monoshock pannier frames! They won’t fit the short rear end of the twinshock R65, but I wish I had had them for measurements and comparison when I was fabbing up my brackets! I can see me butchering them up one day and changing the bottom mounting point, to make a hybrid frame one day when I get around to it. My frame is working just fine for the time being so I’m not rushing, even though I do have issues opening the seat up fully. I can get to the battery but I don’t really need the storage space with all the room in the panniers.

Otherwise, we’ve plugged away heaps of klms over the past couple of weeks and everything has been hunky dory until yesterday when I got a hideous rear end wobble while going through a sweeper at about 120klm/hr! Hmm, that was fun. I had greased and checked the swingarm bearings initially before I put it back on the road and they didn’t need adjustment but I rechecked them this morning and there was a small but detectable deflection so I modified a socket to fit that bloody bearing orifice and reset the preload and torqued it all up and then spent the afternoon pushing it through 120klm/hr sweepers! Ha.

Actually, you can see from some of the photos below that I have been spending plenty of time on dirt roads out amongst the forests which surround where I live, (long story). I probably should have bought a bloody G/S! In fact, to tell the truth I did see an early R80GS a week or so before I bought this bike because it occurred to me that it would suit my purposes but I hadn’t realised that in the interim the GS had sparked a whole revolution and an entire genre in its image and that early GS’s have become a collectors item and are completely unaffordable. Whatever. The R65 is a really solid performer on dirt and it handles it all fantastically. Mind you, I did find it’s limits today on the track in that last photo, (thanks to the local 4WD club who do that stuff to forest trails!) and I had to turn around.... which was problematic with the 2ft ruts they’d created! I eventually had to do a burnout style turnaround to get it facing the other way, but we made it out! Great bike.

[ged in oz]

More

[ged in oz]

Well, it’s been a few months so probably time for an update and I’m about to embark on the next phase of work, so I should record for posterity where I’m at before that gets underway.

These threads tend to be a nice historical diary of how these things progress and I was talking to a bloke today about another of my bikes, and I shared with him a 10 year old restoration thread I did on that bike!

So anyway, the repaired speedo is reading 69920 and I reset it to 65000 when I repaired the odometer and did the last major service, so that means it’s due again. It was well worth repairing that odo and the repair (outlined in another thread here) has held up just fine. The only leak in the resealed instrument has been through the rubber gromet on the reset button on the front glass face and although MotoBins stock it, I baulked at the 7 quid price! I’ll just have to save up for it (and get my head around it!) I guess....

The 5000klm we’ve ticked off in the meantime have been fantastic. Wonderfully reliable and solid as a rock. It hasn’t let me down once and I’ve taken it to some pretty remote and out of the way places too and that reliability is a real necessity in those situations.

Some of the issues it has had though are now on the agenda for rectification.

I’ve adjusted the swingarm bearings on it twice now and I still have a really disconcerting rear end wallow on occasions when the speeds get up. Like over 120klm/hr. Not pretty.... The only remedy is I think, to completely strip out the rear end, replace the swingarm bearings, inspect everything else and reassemble, so the requisite bits are on the way over from MotoBins.

It’s a good time to do all that, because I’m going to have the gearbox and final drive out as well!

When I first drained and replaced the gearbox oil in this bike, it was way over full with milky hideous looking oil.... It’s taken me a while to realise that this is as a result of the sloppy old rubber seal on the speedo cable that allows water to enter the gearbox every time it rains. Again, not pretty....

For the past couple of months I’ve had this kind of rumbling bearing noise, that’s only really noticeable at lower speeds and it seems to be louder some days than others and it’s really difficult to pinpoint exactly where it’s coming from! I suspect that it is the output bearing on that gearbox. I was watching a Chris Harris video on YouTube recently and he talked exactly about this issue. Chris’ videos may be profane!, but he certainly knows his stuff.

I managed to pick up a second hand gearbox a couple of months ago off eBay for a few hundred bux, so I’ll install that as part of the current upgrades and that should give me a chance to have a look at the existing box and diagnose the issue properly. The clutch splines are well and truely due for inspection and lube also, so high time for both jobs.

While I’m in there doing that!, I might as well also deal with the leaky, thread bugged final drive in my bike! I think 3 of the 5 fillers/drain/breather threads on my FD are buggered and they all leak. Besides being unroadworthy, oil leaks have the habit of eventually catching you out and leaving you stranded, so in the interests of reliability it’s time to do that as well.

So, I managed to pick up a spare low miles FD which a former LS owner had picked up from overseas as a spare for his bike, but never fitted. It looks pretty nice, so hopefully that should solve some more problems.

While I’m dealing with all that lot, I’ll also do all the regular oil change, valve clearance, carb tune, timing etc etc as well as fitting a bunch of other bits and pieces that I’ve collected over the past few months and not yet attended to, like front wheel bearings, exhaust clamps for the balance pipe and new bearing and pivot pin for the centrestand. That centrestand has also been a right pain in the butt the whole time with a modified “tang” for lowering it that manages to ground out really early on left hand bends... Actually, it’s a dangerous pain in the butt!

I’ll also take the time to look at the front end and maybe change fork oil for 7.5wt to see if that makes things better. I suspect the issue I’m really chasing is to do with the swingarm bearings, but I’m fitting fork gaiters to it, so I may as well take the opportunity to change oils and see how it feels.

Anyway, another War and Peace length post, so I’ll add some photos and update again in a couple of weeks once I get all of that sorted!

[Tony Smith]

Considering where that bike started from you have done a truly magnificent job.

Take a bow Sir!


And yes I will be chasing you for a fairing, just as soon as I complete my dance with the Spainish fan dancer (which i expect to successfully complete by about April next year).

In the meantime, I hope to be well enough to take the R860 for a run the weekend after next.

[wilcom]

Considering where that bike started from you have done a truly magnificent job.

Take a bow Sir!

Great job, (Me: standing in the front row applauding )

[ged in oz]

Thank you very much gentlemen! I’m sure none of us do this stuff for accolades or affirmation, but I do (very humbly) appreciate those comments from such esteemed company! Cheers.

Tony, good to hear the trajectory is up mate! You’ve been worryingly quiet lately so I’m glad to hear that things are progressing positively.

Your fairing lies in wait for you and I’ve kept one of the huuuge boxes that one of them shipped in especially. In the meantime keep your eyes open for the main fairing bracket, (which is different to the RT bracket) the 2 lower small brackets and a set of mirrors. There is a lot of seperate parts to these bloody fairings!

Photo from earlier today.

[dav]

Just read through your build and i have to say well done on the transformation, looks fantastic [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[ged in oz]

Just read through your build and i have to say well done on the transformation, looks fantastic [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

Cheers Dav. It’s been a journey that’s for sure and I doubt that it’s over yet. I’m really enjoying the R65, they’re a great little bike.

I’d better get around to updating all the latest upgrades soon. Things have all been a bit haywire here lately due to bushfires and evacuation even! but slowly life is returning to normal so I’d better update progress.

[ged in oz]

Well, so much for the November update.... Gee, time gets away doesn’t it. Anyways, I’d better fill in a few more blanks I suppose.

The good news is that she is still chugging merrily away and the odo is now up around 74000K’s, so nearly ready for its next 5000K service - when I rebuilt my speedo, I reset it at 65K, so that future service points would be at an easy to remember 70K, 75K, 80K etc etc

At the last service point I did a fairly major strip down and attended to a whole host of bits and pieces that had been bugging me endlessly and other stuff that I just hadn’t gotten around to attending to.

I mentioned in my last post that I had picked up a replacement final drive to replace my leaky old unit. In chatting to seller, I mentioned that I’d had a lifetime of Ducati’s, but now that I’m an old guy, I was getting out of them and getting into Airheads instead. It turns out that he’d had years of Airheads and was getting into old Ducati’s... One thing led to another and before you know it, my beautiful little old ‘83 Pantah was being loaded up and shipped off to Canberra! I’d accumulated quite a swag of desirable spares and sundries for the little Ducati over the years which I was happy to include in the sale, so the purchaser was happy to ship off to me a swag of R65 parts that he had left over as well, so as a result of that I ended up with an extra gearbox, (needs some work - don’t they all) another bean can, a great centre stand and whole array of other small but useful items as well!

Anyway, back to the last service.... While I had the rear end out of it, I replaced the swing arm bearings, (which were pretty knackered) and took the opportunity to repaint the swingarm. I only had a gloss enamel on the shelf, so it’s too shiny and I kind of wished I’d waited until I’d got to town to get some satin black, but progress is progress.

I also did the rear wheel bearings which were well buggered and had a lot of play and were probably part of my bearing noise issues as well. 

I fitted up the replacement FD and that all went swimmingly and I also greased the clutch splines and  fitted up the second gearbox that I mentioned in the last post that I’d picked up from eBay a few months earlier. That didn’t go quite so swimmingly! It all went together well enough and shifted fine and had no weird noises, but it just lost its drive every now and again! What the .....?! A very strange thing indeed. I’d be plodding and suddenly drive would momentarily cease and the revs would jump, then it’d be fine again. I persevered for a couple of days trying to diagnose it and I posted a query on here and MrC suggested that just about the only thing it could be was the tapered fit of the output flange slipping. Not pretty. So, I swapped it back to the original, (noisy) gearbox. At least I know where the original noise is coming from now, because it’s back!

I had replaced the driveshaft boot and clamps as well as the flange bolts when I swapped the box out but I didn’t have any new stretch bolts to go back in when swapped it back and I had to order up new bolts from MotoBins, which I replaced again recently. I was speaking to an R80 owner recently who told me that he had not replaced those stretch bolts and they eventually let go causing lots of damage to the gearbox end housing.... very expensive mistake.

I also replaced the dodgy centre stand with its silly tang which had been trying its hardest to throw me off through every left hand bend also.

There’s more to this really long post, so I’ll split it up into a second instalment....

[ged in oz]

Continued from last post:

She’s mostly been running fine every since but I recently spent a couple of days doing all the little things that needed doing still. I fitted up the fork gaiters, fitted new vacuum screws and diaphragm screws on the carbs and replaced the return springs, fitted the extra exhaust clamps that I’d bought months ago, fitted a battery strap, replaced the alternator brushes and did the bean can o ring that I had neglected to do when I did the timing chain.... I also had to replace the gear change shaft seal and the neutral switch which managed to get damaged in all the gearbox swap excitement.

I also did an interim adjustment on the left hand side valve gear which was getting a little noisy, well before it’s 5000K scheduled service. This has got me a little worried.

The exhaust valve clearance on that head has been consistently out, but it gets wider rather than closing up. If the valve were recessing, the clearance would be closing up rather than opening up? I quickly ripped the head off it last week just to check that the valve wasn’t recessing and it looked ok, but i really do need to figure in new valves and guides on these heads before too long.

That won’t fix the widening valve clearance though.... The only thing I can figure that issue down to, would be a valve follower wearing and opening out the valve clearance. Maybe a push rod wearing? Dunno. But it needs further investigation so I guess I should pull both of those heads, put them in for new valves and KLine the guides and while I’m in there, investigate the followers and I guess if I go to all of that trouble I’d better do the pushrod seals, maybe a set of piston rings too.

Anyway, its just on 12 months since I started this little odyssey and it’s been quite a journey. She’s put out some serious mileage through the year though and they’ve been entirely enjoyable and reliable miles. I’m really enjoying the process so I guess I’m committed to continuing the process and getting her fitter and healthier. I’ll update it as I go. Cheers.

[Tony Smith]

Your fairing lies in wait for you and I’ve kept one of the huuuge boxes that one of them shipped in especially.

Hi, if you still have the fairing can we progress this deal please? I reckon I can lay my hands on the bracketry and I've promised teh "used to be R65" that it will get some cosmetic attention this year.

So....PM me with the cash amount required and how you would like it paid (assuming that 1 year later you still have the fairign of course).

[ged in oz]

Your fairing lies in wait for you and I’ve kept one of the huuuge boxes that one of them shipped in especially.

So....PM me with the cash amount required and how you would like it paid (assuming that 1 year later you still have the fairign of course).

Hi Tony. Yep, still have it. In fact I bumped my head on it the other day! I’ll drag it out and I’ll PM you once I’ve had a look at what’s there.

[ged in oz]

I haven’t updated this since earlier this year, so it must be time I guess!
I put it through the annual roadworthy inspection in April and other than fitting a new rear tyre and contact cleaning the points in the bloody horn!, it was all pretty straight forward.
I’d given it a good degrease and clean, but it had a slight weep from the pushrod seals since I bought it, and I know the job needed doing. So, if your going to do that job, I thought I may as well attend to other issues while I’m in there.... So, as well as the pushrod seals, I also ordered from MotoBins a whole reseal kit including the base o rings, head gaskets, rocker cover gaskets etc I also ordered up new piston rings seeing as I was in there, and well, you may as well do the big end bearings as well. Quite a list.
MB have always been really fast shipments previously, but this was about May I think, right in the middle of the UK shutdown with very little air freight running and it took a whole month for the bits to arrive! Luckily, it wasn’t that urgent and it just meant being patient and everything eventually arrived.
Once I started stripping it down though, I pulled the gearbox and found that the rear main seal had gone (despite the PO having done it a couple of years previous) and the bell housing was covered in muck. So, I order the new main seal and oil pump o ring etc out of Munich Motorcycles here in Perth WA. 3 day wait was all.
So that was pretty much a complete engine strip, bar the main bearings.
Everything went pretty well really. Pretty straight forward stuff. The only issue I discovered was some galling on 2 of the rocker arm pads. I haven’t replaced these as yet, but they certainly need doing.
Oil pump internals were fine, clutch in good condition - not too contaminated by oil, I’d obviously caught it in time - main bearing journals all good and i leak tested the heads and valves and they were excellent as well.
While it was all apart, I soda blasted the heads and barrels and degreased and cleaned everything else, including blasting out the oil galleries in the block that deliver oil up to the heads.
I needed to make up a few special tools along the way for clutch holding and for centring and rear main seal installation etc, but nothing too difficult.
Everything went back together really nicely and it’s running very sweetly. It’s the middle of winter here and it’s been unseasonably rainy as well, so I haven’t clocked up too many K’s over the past 6 weeks and I haven’t even reached 500klm for its first oil change.
I’m keeping my eye open for a solution for the worn rocker arms. I could just import a pair off eBay, but it is an inlet on one side and an exhaust in the other side, so I’d need 2 whole sets to make it work. I believe some cylinder head repairers have tools to dress the rockers, but I haven’t found anyone locally who can do that for me yet.
Anyway, I’ll keep working on a solution before I put too many more K’s on it.

[ged in oz]

So....PM me with the cash amount required and how you would like it paid (assuming that 1 year later you still have the fairign of course).

Hiya Tony, I have sent you a PM, but I don’t know if it would have sent you a notification? Anyway, all the details are in there. Cheers.