This is a collection of experience and incidents such as I can remember some of my misspent youth and thrash through my later years.
The beatings will continue until moral improves.
Nine years of riding, repairing and maintaining a used motorcycle – Or, which part of this bike will wear out next? My Life With a 2004 BMW 1150 GS Adventure
2007 would see aftermarket parts failing along with a few other items.
The Touratech valve cover protection cracked at bends, exactly where one would expect.
But, first, I needed a clutch. I was working twelve hour days five days a week and eight hour days on the weekends. I did not have time to deal with the clutch. The dealer service department assured me they could install the clutch in a Saturday if I dropped the bike off on Friday before 5. That’s what I did, then the problems began.
First I drove from work to home then back halfway to work to the dealer to pick the bike up, only to find it wasn’t complete. Then the calls began where I’d call and the service writer would tell me they were waiting on parts or the manager want available to talk and this went on for three weeks and finally the story unfolded.
They had done the work then while test riding the rear brake caliper which did not have the bolts torqued into place had fallen into the wheel trapping it between the swinging arm and wheel. This destroyed the wheel and caliper along with the brake lines and damaged the swinging arm.
This is how I got the bike back. Along with all that the exhaust end can was loose in the mount and on the pipe, the transmission bolts were not torqued on the right side and the bike barely ran. At this point I’d replaced the catalytic converter/collector under the transmission with a “Y-Pipe” and had a aftermarket ignition box doodad attached that helped with the throttle surge that hade developed around 50,000. miles. The bike ran very strong. Lots of torque.
Anyway I get the bike back and it clattered and barely ran to get it back home. On my way home, the brakes went into residual mode at a stoplight when a car pulled into my lane, causing me to emergency brake. The lever going all the way to the bar. I had to steer between cars to keep from hitting the car that pulled in front of me. I limped the bike the remaining three miles to the house and knew the ABS needed looking after.
That is when I discovered the damage. to the swinging arm and the different wheel. Definitely not a wheel with the pile of miles on it that mine had and a darker shade of purple. A phone call and sheepishly I was told most of the story. Finding out they had disconnected the ignition box. What they had disconnected was my heated gear connector. The little ignition box was supposed to do something I forget what. It got taken off and sent away. An experiment a friend and I decided to investigate what the magic box did. Turns out neither of us could tell or measure any difference from it being there or not.
I addressed the ABS issue first and found damaged seals at the filler plugs.
Then I found damaged electrical connector, mashed wiring and a torn off ground wire under the throttle body.
The last thing I found was a compressed pushrod. I’d never heard of such a failure but this was the source of the loud tapping and poor performance.
One other part I found bad that was definitely wear related during this whole incident was one stick coil. I’d had one of these fail before back in 2006. When I discovered what was wrong I was on work travel, on the motorcycle in Everett, Washington. I bought two stick coils from the dealer near there. I had that second coil on hand so an easy fix.
Now, the only other part of all that, that was wear and age related was the need for the clutch. Everything else was the result of a ham-fisted service department. I never returned to that dealer.
The Touratech valve cover guards were an ongoing problem. Basically designed to fail at all sharp bends.
The bike hits 100,000 miles 08/18/2007
2008, would have me polishing the browning of the fly screen back to clear, renewing the workout grips from the heating elements, replacing a leaking transmission output seal and finally replacing the front brake rotors that had worn down below the minimum. 100,000 miles takes a toll.
Upper photo of the brown-tinted oxidized screen, lower photo after polishing.
Then the grips, A fellow member on Advrider.com had done a great write-up for this task. I followed along with my own little takes here and there.
Cutting the old grips off.
Preparing to install replacement grips, using two throttle-side Non-heated grips.
High tech adhesive.
And all done.
Yes, these grips are from later model motorcycle as the earlier versions were no longer available in-stock at my local dealer.
Then the ominous drip appeared under the output area of the transmission at the driveshaft. Removing. the swinging arm and driveshaft, revealed the problem looking down the swinging arm.
Then at the output seal. This seal had leaked under warranty and been “fixed” at a dealer. It had continued to drip slightly. The white sealant of some sort is visible peeling out of where it had been placed.
Yes, this is the leak. Running the transmission in gear a few minutes verified this was the problem.
The new seal carefully installed then checked by running the transmission in gear again verifies the seal is in fact functioning properly.
This seal never leaked again.
Finally the front brake rotors wore below the limit of 4.5mm. I replaced the OEM with Braking brand wave rotors.
Then to spruce up the bike I polished the headers since they were looking grim.
Odometer reading 09/14/2008
For 2009 the first part to give up was the starter dramatically trying to burn the motorcycle down when the field magnets adhesive failed letting them crash into the armature, locking the starter which tried to light up the power cable. This got the bike towed home on the back of a flatbed. While I waited on the rescue truck, I called dealers and found a starter in-stock. That was expensive.
The clutch pushrod seal began leaking so that was replaced.
The Valve cover powder coated paint had begun cracking and blistering. I was determined to remove the powder coat and just rattle can paint them with high temperature black.
I’d lined up a media blasting place to remove the coating, but when I ready to get it done, they were out of business. The other two places I checked with didn’t want to do the work. I tired some other methods but none of it worked. so, I was looking at other options. The lower spark plug wires failed, so those too were replaced too. The valve covers were there to bother me for quite some time to come.
A failed attempt.
2009 Mileage, November 29th, 2009, 151,732 miles:
Continued in Part III.
Along The Way 