Hi All
Just became the proud owner of a K100RS 1987 Pearlescent White. 
I am located just north of Worthing on the south coast. 
Looking forward to reading all your K100 news.
Best regards
Mark

Hi Mark,

Welcome from the little island off the west coast. You will enjoy the K and don't be afraid to ask questions, everyone is very helpful.

Maybe we will see you travel over this way some time.....

Welkome from OZ! I had a dear friend who hailed from Petworth in your neck of the woods and I'll be visiting family in Basingstoke next month.

They're a great bunch on here, you will enjoy it.

Cheers

Hi Mark
Welcome from Perth Western Australia

Another Ozzie welKome from Far North Coast NSW.
Enjoy the K.

Thanks guys for your warm welcomes much appreciated. Going to take the bike for a major checkover at BMW for the one and only time as its been stored for some years and I don't think it was recommissioned properly. Runs fine once warm but the rear light warning comes on for about the first 10 miles then goes out.. one to investigate.
Will keep you infomed as to outcomes and put up some pics once its clean...

Please Mark - don't take it to BMW. 
Twould be cheaper and more cost effective to pay my airfare from Australia and we would both learn more in the process!

Please please....

Hi Mark,

Very new here myself - but have already received a lot of help and support from members on here.

I know it's not quite in Worthing, but there's an independent guy who specialises in BMW GS and Ks in london:

http://www.gsshop.biz

He has a great reputation and I'm planning on taking my K100RT to him once i've finished importing it for a thorough check-up much as you are planning.

No connection with him personally (I've briefly met him at bike rallies, but no more than that) but he is well respected on the ukGSer forum

Now it's Mark and Sparkplug I want to try and convince!

I've just done a swing arm overhaul / drive shaft replacement on a '96 R100GS in my rubbish tip of a garage with the German owner. The experience has made me reflect again on the subject of my interaction with the professionals. I would say that in terms of the quality of advice received, my assessment is that it's been fairly balanced between good and bad. In regard to the times I have resorted to them to do work for me, I have always ended up regretting my decision to do so. 
When it comes to assessing my feelings about the times I have opted to do a new job myself, I have no regrets except for the time I diagnosed a loose Catylitic brick in the converter which was blocking the exhaust of my daughters car and I decided to do a cut and shut job to remove then culprit. 
Back to the GS - I would not have dared attempt the job without the experience gained from, and the back up of, guys on this forum (thanks Rick for the oft used tip about removing swing arm bearings). The owner was half way through a round Australia trip - two up - with more luggage than I've ever seen on a bike. So not so surprising that his drive shaft had managed to strip the rubber vibration damper!
Has anyone even heard of this happening before?

Ha ha - I'm quite happy to work on a bike, but there's nothing like experience to know what it is that you are looking out for and what the common faults are.

After 10 years with the GS I know my way around most of the common issues but Ks are brand new to me so I don't mind paying a trusted professional to have a look over and save me from expensive mistakes.

I've already paid the price with a centre stand on the K which was the original hollow tube one which had slowly been corroding as it stood for the last two years. After driving back from Italy with it on the stand in the back of a van the vibrations obviously finished it off.

First time I put it back on the stand it snapped in two and went over. Fortunately (I think) it was by a petrol pump so it didn't go all the way over, but it meant a new mirror and it's damaged the fairing.

Stand now replaced with a solid one from a later 1100 - but this was entirely avoidable damage.

I'm not a great mechanic and the K looks a bit too complaicatd for me and my ill equipped garage. Like Sparkplug I would rather have a professional look over it just for my reassurance.. If I don't take it to BMW i'd probably go to these guys http://www.japandgerman.co.uk/
they have looked after mine and my partnrs bikes in the past and are good guys. However they are 2 hours away and BMW is 20 minutes down the road... We shall see..
Thanks for the advice tho..
Regards
Mark

I'm with Rawdonball on this one, but it's your money and you have got to have confidence in the bikes mechanical condition. 

I was new to K100's a couple of years back, but so far, have done all jobs myself to keep 'em running. Most things are not that complicated

The best way to get real confidence is to do as many jobs as you can yourself and the info and help on this forum is here to help you build your capabilities and skills (a Haynes and/or Clymer manual are useful additional references to have to help you - both can be got through eBay etc. for a reasonable price).

Of course, you do need decent quality tools (although you only need a fairly basic range of screw drivers, sockets and allen keys - but a good quality torque wrench is essential). My experience, over the years of home DIY, car maintenance and, more recently, bike maintenance is to invest some of the money you are saving by doing it yourself in buying the proper tools that allow you to do the job properly. The bonus is that you get to keep the tools for ever and over time can build up a pretty impressive tool kit. Spend to save!

My opinion/experience of car mechanics (I haven't had to use a bike mechanic yet) is sadly pretty low - you end up paying for their mistakes. I'm sure there are some good guys out there though! I certainly wouldn't go near a BMW dealer with an open cheque book unless I was ready to haemorrhage serious cash...

Anyway, welcome!

Born Again Eccentric wrote:...
My opinion/experience of car mechanics (I haven't had to use a bike mechanic yet) is sadly pretty low - you end up paying for their mistakes. I'm sure there are some good guys out there though! I certainly wouldn't go near a BMW dealer with an open cheque book unless I was ready to haemorrhage serious cash...
...

Ditto that. You'd be hard pressed to find a BMW workshop with a mechanic trained on Ks and with workshop time constraints, they are just using 'best guess' methods. You'll find lots of evidence of owners wasting money and having to fix mistakes made in the workshop. With a few simple tools and the forum members as your brains trust you won't go wrong. The bike is really quite simple, nothing complicated. Maybe just a few tiny quirks which you'll come to know.

If you want to give your machine the once over for a clean bill of health you need to read...
You just bought a used K100, so what now?
This and other helpfull info can be found on the Portal tab. There's even more documentation buried in the vault but you'll need to pm crazyfrog to get the password.

The best investment I made with regard to tools was a good set of metric hex sockets.

As far as your brake warning light not extinguishing. If this is the red light in the instruments with the triangular icon, then this will come on with the ignition and go out when you use the front and rear brake levers. If the warning light fails to go out or comes on after this, your tail or brake bulb has blown. This is controlled by the Bulb Monitoring Unit (BMU) located in the electrical box under the tank.

My thanks to the 'BAE' for putting the case so well...

I would agree that a quality torque wrench is a worthwhile investment but it is only essential if one is using a range of socket sizes with a single Tee bar or ratchet. One can often get away with doing the calculation and applying the right force for the given lever arm with a spring balance (the kind of thing you see people using to weigh fish they've caught).
My rule of thumb is to ensure that I do not use more leverage on a socket than that which is obtainable with the equivalent size of combination spanner (open spanner one end and ring spanner when reversed end for end - I have a set of Stahlwille that I inherited from my father (a forester...) that cover the range 6mm to 22mm)

One of the biggest disadvantages of working on your own K (apart from making an expensive mess-up, although these are the ones from which we learn the most!) is the fact that it drastically reduces ones resistance to the highly infectious K-pox. The most noticeable symptom being a shed full of k bikes. I find that after I have performed a couple of biggish tasks on a bike or car, I start to get so attached to the vehicle that I cannot contemplate parting with it (I keep a 'K100 naked' on the East coast of Australia in case my wife decides to torch the 6 K bikes plus a DR650 which are hidden in and around the junk tip that is my garage in Western Australia)

In regard to safety on the bikes - I would say that Olaf's advise about tiers should be at the top of the list for both your machines. Some people say one should not use tiers that are more than 6 years old however good they look - personally I thought this was 'over the top' but I had a recent bad experience in regard to 14 year old tiers on my heavily loaded L series Subaru wagon. We had driven all day at 105km/hr with no sign of deterioration or over heating - my friend then pushed the speed up to 117km/hr and within an hour had a blow out on the right rear and the other rear tier was found to have worn rapidly right down to the steel braiding. The combination of speed, load and aged tiers can be deadly reference heat generation and the attendant consequences!!!!

In welcoming new members someone usually mentions the article available on this forum entitled 'so you are the new owner of a k bike' - or something like that. Have you seen this Mark (and Sparkplug). Lots of forum members (including self) would be happy to work through this with you - we would all add our own pet problems of course. Nigel will tell you about checking your battery / charging voltage - important because starter relay contacts are prone to welding closed when motor is cranked with low battery output. This is a nasty experience because there is nothing one can do to stop the battery flattening itself through the starter motor besides trying to knock the right hand side of the relay box hard enough to shock the relay into disengagement - or tearing a lead off the battery (some guys with foresight keep the right size tool handy to assist with this). The many guys that have had center stands fail (where they salt roads in winter mainly) will tell you of their experience though often after it has been encountered - you know this now Mark because Sparkplug has learned the hard way. I am not convinced the professional would have provided timely warning???

My brother lives in Cornwall and has a good sized shed (and facilities for visitors - he also has a wife who would have to be handled carefully) - this might be a good option if you have limited space and we decide to plan on sharing some K time?

Thanks again guys for all your input.. will now settle down to some serious reading..
Rgds
Mark