Beware: F800gs Rims Are Junk!

[Motorfiets]

preach it brother.... don't stop now...

sorry Mike..

[Maxacceleration]

My 658 has not broke down.
It has been the KTM's & Suzooks around me.
My cast wheels have stayed round on my 658.
I really believe rim life is down to air pressure and ...wait for it.

PICKING YOUR LINE!

[Snowy]

There's a cult....oh goody...do they sell t-shirts....I wont drink the punch though. That's bad...right?

I'm just sayin that there's a lot of BMW owners out there who think of ownership as some sort of trial. They love their bike, and when you point out that every trip you've done together has resulted in roadside repairs, flat batteries, burned out charging systems etc...they laugh it off.

But take one stinking photo....oh no you didn't....it's no longer funny.

They're a weird mob.



I note, that throughout the period where I've "hated" mine and been nasty to it, it hasn't broken anything. The worse I treat it the more fun it is. Doesn't mean I hate it less. The second I let my guard down it'll shit itself for sure.

The front rim has a new buckle every single ride, but that's a given. It's soft enough that most will hammer completely out with a good soft faced pyro hammer. (that's the tie in with the thread title - see, I think of everything).

[Loutre]

Originally Posted by itsatdm

Why quit now this is fun.
What I do not understand, is why some people's purpose in life is to dissuade others from buying this bike. Telling some one your experiences is one thing, but some vague bashing, posting other peoples "Internet opinions", pulling "facts" out of the air and then accusing people who not agree with you, belonging to some BMW cult is another.

ITSATDM FOR PRESIDENT

[ebrabaek]

You guy's are truly funny......

[woody's wheel works]

Originally Posted by ebrabaek

You guy's are truly funny......

i just got finished reading this bizarre trip into the unknown,,,or is it the ozone,,,

i'm sure some day i'll ''get it'',
in the meantime,,i don't know if i should laugh or cry???
w

[Bayner]

Sometimes it's so funny I do cry a little.

[Snowy]

Hey Woody, how many times can you hammer a rim straight in the same spot?

I know that's completely subjective and speculative, but...it is the F800 forum. Subjective speculation is what we do.

I've had enough dings where you can clearly see about 50mm to 80mm of the bead. If I deflate the tyre, and sit the wheel on a large flat wooden surface (my work bench) then use the plastic faced hammer and beat the bent section down until it's more or less parallel again.

I've done this enough that there isn't a 200mm section of rim on either side that hasn't been straightened, and some sections have had 2 or 3 goes and have obviously work hardened as they get harder to straighten. It's no longer officially "round" in any real sense of the word. Octagonal is the term I use.

So what's the professional's advice? Am I dicing with death and dismemberment? Or will it crack and show obvious signs of abuse before things go bad?

I realise the width of the rim is the prime culprit in the ease in which they ding. How come I can't get Excels or others in anything wider than 1.6 inch? SM Pro do a 1.85 I think, but trying to get one locally has proved a quest like the search for the Holy Grail. People advertise that they do them, but I've commissioned 2 wheel builds, given them credit card details, and never heard from them again.

[Snowy]

Originally Posted by Maxacceleration

My 658 has not broke down.
It has been the KTM's & Suzooks around me.
My cast wheels have stayed round on my 658.
I really believe rim life is down to air pressure and ...wait for it.

PICKING YOUR LINE!

You do realise that with cast wheels, they just completely fail without showing much in the way of outward signs of damage?

I distinctly remember reading 2 cases of fatalities here over the years due to this.

Also, most wreckers wont sell cast wheels off write offs, for cars or bikes. Because they look perfect one minute, and come apart at speed the next.

If you stop posting suddenly I'll assume the worst.

[FredRydr]

Originally Posted by Snowy

I distinctly remember reading 2 cases of fatalities here over the years due to this.

So, these two dead guys managed to post on ADVrider the details of the cause of their deaths. Cool! And "distinctly remember" turns hearsay from the dead into proven fact! Way cool!! Isn't the internet amazing?

Talk about cults....

Fred

[Snowy]

Actually, the rim failures were reported as the cause of the fatality. One from hitting a large hole, and one from hitting what we used to call "silent Coppers" on an intersection.

I've seen one other completely fail after hitting a hole on the hill not far from my house. I stopped and helped organise a ride home for the guy.

Talk about dicks.

It was actually a light hearted reminder that damage to alloy rims can be invisible but deadly.

But you KNOW that isn't right don't you. Rims don't fail. You'd know. What a wanker.

[LukasM]

Snowy,

Excel certainly does make a 1.85"x21", as does DID with their excellent Dirt Star (stock on the 950 SE, these things are tough!).

But knowing the way you ride, why would you consider anything other than a 1.6"x21" A60 or Dirt Star ST-X for optimal strength? It's not like your focus is on tarmac, and they would still handle ok anyway.

[woody's wheel works]

Originally Posted by Snowy

Hey Woody, how many times can you hammer a rim straight in the same spot?

I know that's completely subjective and speculative, but...it is the F800 forum. Subjective speculation is what we do.

I've had enough dings where you can clearly see about 50mm to 80mm of the bead. If I deflate the tyre, and sit the wheel on a large flat wooden surface (my work bench) then use the plastic faced hammer and beat the bent section down until it's more or less parallel again.

I've done this enough that there isn't a 200mm section of rim on either side that hasn't been straightened, and some sections have had 2 or 3 goes and have obviously work hardened as they get harder to straighten. It's no longer officially "round" in any real sense of the word. Octagonal is the term I use.

So what's the professional's advice? Am I dicing with death and dismemberment? Or will it crack and show obvious signs of abuse before things go bad?

I realise the width of the rim is the prime culprit in the ease in which they ding. How come I can't get Excels or others in anything wider than 1.6 inch? SM Pro do a 1.85 I think, but trying to get one locally has proved a quest like the search for the Holy Grail. People advertise that they do them, but I've commissioned 2 wheel builds, given them credit card details, and never heard from them again.

Technically you should use heat and a press to straighten the rim out instead of hammering. Unless you get it really close to straight, we use the runout of +/- 0.010", then the rim will continue to be more likely to bend further in the area that is already bent. Hammering it out is really only a short term fix to get the bike home or to next destination where can be repaired or replaced. The rim is far more likely to crack when you don't straighten with proper techniques. If you continue to hammer out and bend the rim, it will eventually crack, still the wheel will not disintegrate because you have the spokes/nipples holding in place and tire around it.

An interesting thing about the stock Behr rim, is that because it is so soft, it actually has been less likely to crack when repaired then other rims, but more likely to bend again because of the attributes of the aluminum used to manufacture it.

As you mentioned there is a solution, going to a narrower and higher quality rim. If you want to be able to use your stock spokes and nipples and stock lace pattern, then the two options are the Excel 21x1.85($290) and the DID DirtStar 21x1.85($199), These rims will significantly decrease likelihood of rim bending and do little to change on-road performance.

If doing more aggressive off-road riding, and want the 21x1.60 A60 rim($199 + drilling & spokes), you would need to drill the rim or have drilled for a x3/x2 lace pattern, and increase the length and angle of spoke on one side to make it work with the stock hub. Otherwise if wanted to go with the 21x1.60($214), but did not want to swap out the spokes/nipples, or change lace pattern, we can get the double signature 7000 series Excel custom drilled and anodized in black.

Excel does not yet offer an off the shelf available to everyone 21x1.85 Euro drilled black rim because they have seen the market and specialty in dirtbike rims and there are really no dirtbikes that require a 21x1.85" rim and none that have the Euro lace pattern. We do foresee that they will have such a rim more widely available in the future, but for now we have them custom made to our specs either directly from Excel or by anodizing silver ones that we purchase. Supply and demand.

The DID Dirtstar rim, outside of the one that has been available from KTM off of the SuperEnduro has only become more widely available from DID in the past 3-4 months as they have seen an increased market for it and why available for less expensive price, although KTM still retails the same rim for $295, that DID retails for $199.

I do not know about the SM Pro rim, it certainly is not as high a quality as the Excel or DID and do make sure that it is Euro drilled if you plan on re-using stock spokes and nipples.

Hope that clarifies some things.

Thanks,
Chris
(Woody is in Moab at the GS Trophy & Adventure Rider Challenge this week, check out here: http://www.adventureriderchallenge.com/)

[Snowy]

Thank you.

I'll be looking to buy something soon. Spring has sprung.

Unfortunately for me, I started a new job that see's me rolling in cash and strapped for riding time (I know, life has a cruel ironic twist to it).

So I'll spend some money on the dirty little German whore and see if I can rekindle the relationship on short, violent, sensual liaison type forays into the bush.




I'll take protection.


I have a new satellite phone.




"Hello...BMW roadside assistance? I've broken my BMW. Where? Locstat, prepare to copy..."

[ride2little]

New setup installed...








Thanks Woody's