Old school rides: Let's see 'em!

[Hawk Medicine]

Originally Posted by bpeckm

You might try, before tearing into it, hooking up a mechanical oil pressure gauge (easy to do where the oil pressure switch goes), and confirm the sort of oil pressures that are being developed at idle. It is possible that your sender is defective, but I would not count on it.

If the engine is blowing brand new rod bearings, the oil sender isnt bad. The sender simply turns the oil light off and on.

Did this engine ever have a BMW oil cooler installed? If so, you'll need to swap the filter housing. If it never has an oil cooler, move on.

If you had the rubber ring on the oil filter shaft, you might have been running with no/low oil pressure and that fracked your bearings. now you have another tear down in your future.

Me? I wouldnt bother with oil pressure guages or running the bike more because you already know that you have an oil pressure problem. The engine is simple by design, so you should be able to figuir this out.

If you have no obvious oil leaks, the first place I'd look at would be the oil pump. Check the rotor and housing for proper clearance. If the clearences have opened up, (Somewhat common in these instances.) thats the problem. If you confirm a bad oil pump, you'll need to measure the rotor and the housing. The housing can be sleeved if necessary. The rotor can be replaced. If the pump checks out, move on.

Once youve checked oil pressure and delivery to your satisfaction, mic both the main bearing journals and the rod journals, and install whatever new bearings you need with proper break-in lube and new bolts. Install the top end and then turn the engine over a bunch, confirming oil pressure before you run the engine.

ALso check the pick-up for leakage. It's suprising how often eratic or low oil pressure is traced to a fracked PU. If you remove the PU, replace the bolts using red locktight. Accept no substitutes.

Did you turn the engine over before you bolted in the rods? My wrench taught me to add oil to the sump and turn the engine over with the starter to confirm that oil was running through all oil passages. Did you do that? If not, remove the top end and perform that check before going further. Blown bearings might also be caused by junk in the oil passages. Eaten bearings get expensive. (You did mic the journals, right?)

I gotta take my bike over to my pro wrench for a 500 mi check-up on the R-90 SPL this afternoon, so I'll give him a quiz.

Airhead #85

[Hawk Medicine]

Originally Posted by zcfrederick

Just picked up the corbin r100rs solo seat last week. I like the look of it. I'm thinking of either getting it painted red to match the tank, or picking up an r100 style tank and painting it black. Not sure yet. Any suggestions would be welcome. Right now I think the seat is a little big in proportion to the smaller gas tank.

Thats a very nice (And very expensive!) seat you have there but I dont think that it melds well with the /6 Sport tank. The solo seat is very angular and I think that it looks best when mated with the RS fairing. YMMV....

If it was my descision to make and I was sold on the faired solo seat, I'd swap over to an R-100 tank, since thats what the seat was designed to go with and they look great together.

OTOH... Probably the best and most usefull change that you could possibly make would be to add another front disk brake.

When I built my Cafe bike, I remembered the words on my teacher/BMW expert/friend Del Ward of Virginia Beach, VA ,when he said: " Go ahead and modify the bike all you want but don't change it's character. It's a nice bike and it deserves to be what it is."

Thats why, despite the fact that I have a complete set of R-100 tin on the shelf, I left my hot rod looking like this:

Before:



After:



PS:

This Winter, I'll have the /6 sport tank painted and striped to match and I'll be able to sport two different looks for the bike.

Airhead #85

[Stagehand]

Originally Posted by cafebmw

Any suggestions are welcome. Right now I have a pretty green paper weight.

This might be kinda off track, but check the oil passages in the front bearing carrier. Maybe the bearing spun because the key got knocked out or something, and blocked the oil passages.

[roadholder]

Originally Posted by OldSchoolMike

In 1970 or so a friend of mine took delivery of his new BMW at the factory in Germany. In those days, there was a significant discount in price.

The R69S (with sidecar) in the photo background was also picked up new at the factory in 1965. The best part of that story was hearing about the factory tour and the guy walking along the production line filling worker's beer steins!

I suspect today's health & safety types would have a heart attack seeing that!

[zcfrederick]

Originally Posted by mymindsok

Thats a very nice (And very expensive!) seat you have there but I dont think that it melds well with the /6 Sport tank. The solo seat is very angular and I think that it looks best when mated with the RS fairing. YMMV....

If it was my descision to make and I was sold on the faired solo seat, I'd swap over to an R-100 tank, since thats what the seat was designed to go with and they look great together.

OTOH... Probably the best and most usefull change that you could possibly make would be to add another front disk brake.

So, for anyone out there who knows, if I go with the R100 type tank, will that fit on my frame over top the master cylinder?

Rode the bike to work today with the RS seat. Its harder than the stock r90/6 seat, but in my opinion, more comfortable.

Otherwise, might sell the RS solo seat, and pick up something from:
http://www.airtech-streamlining.com/bmw/bmwboxer.htm

[Wirespokes]

Originally Posted by zcfrederick

So, for anyone out there who knows, if I go with the R100 type tank, will that fit on my frame over top the master cylinder?

Rode the bike to work today with the RS seat. Its harder than the stock r90/6 seat, but in my opinion, more comfortable.

Otherwise, might sell the RS solo seat, and pick up something from:
http://www.airtech-streamlining.com/bmw/bmwboxer.htm

I don't know how you got the solo seat to fit since there should have been several inches between the tank and the front of the seat. Normally, the /7 and S seats only work with /7 and S tanks.

There are many pictures of the custom bump style seats on the cafe airhead thread to get an idea of what they look like. It then would be up to you to decide how soft or hard you'd want it when it gets upholstered.

If you decide to sell the solo seat I'd be interested.

[zcfrederick]

Originally Posted by Wirespokes

I don't know how you got the solo seat to fit since there should have been several inches between the tank and the front of the seat. Normally, the /7 and S seats only work with /7 and S tanks.

There are many pictures of the custom bump style seats on the cafe airhead thread to get an idea of what they look like. It then would be up to you to decide how soft or hard you'd want it when it gets upholstered.

If you decide to sell the solo seat I'd be interested.

I made some brackets that fit on the bottom of seat. Using the stock bolts coming out of the bottom of the seat pan, basically they set the "J" hooked hinges back a little less than 2 inches to make up for the gap that was there.

Realizing if I go with the R100 tank, I can unbolt the brackets I added and put the seat where it is supposed to go.

Extra gas the R100 tank can hold would be a benefit.

[zcfrederick]

Originally Posted by Wirespokes

I don't know how you got the solo seat to fit since there should have been several inches between the tank and the front of the seat. Normally, the /7 and S seats only work with /7 and S tanks.

There are many pictures of the custom bump style seats on the cafe airhead thread to get an idea of what they look like. It then would be up to you to decide how soft or hard you'd want it when it gets upholstered.

If you decide to sell the solo seat I'd be interested.

Also wondering, what seat is this?
Doesn't have the sharp lines of the RS seat...

[Wirespokes]

The /7 tank will mount to your bike just fine. No problems with the master cylinder at all.

That's the standard S seat with custom upholstery making it a solo seat.

[Schmors]

My first bike, got her about a month ago. She's pretty cool

[ADVTuga]

Originally Posted by cafebmw

Not quite complete, but here is my cafe bmw project.....now if I can just find my oil pressure issue.

Men ! That´s a very cool bike !

[noelm]

42wla-wld

[Da Bear]

My couch. 1982 Honda GL500I Silverwing.
44,000 miles,and still going strong.
Next big trip, Portland To San Diego Via Oklahoma City next May........

[plugeye]

Originally Posted by noelm

42wla-wld

NOW your talkin. love those 45s, especially the solos

[johnclary]

Hey there folks, been lurking around for a little bit. Enjoying the depth of info here -- almost overwhelming in fact. The eye candy is great as well.

I've had this Triumph for a while and have been slowly nicking off the bits it doesn't need. I bought the Meridan shop manual for it so I could sync the amal mkIIs, but I'm a visual learner and it's a little slim on diagrams. Is there anyone in or around Denver/Boulder who wants to mentor me?