Goodday All. I have decided it is time to get off my butt and get my old brick mobile. I bought the bike three years ago as a project  but it ended up in the back of the shed covered in a blanket.When purchased it was grossly over filled with oil and blew huge clouds of oil smoke when running. I had it running for a couple of minutes with no exhaust and no4 was giving a bit of smoke . Is it possible that when stored for extended periods on the side stand with excess oil in the engine that oil could get into the muffler? I had a similar experience but to a lesser degree with a r100gs. Parked for 4 days on the side stand and it blew a heap of smoke on start up but cleared after a few minutes. I am thinking of installing a new set of rings but need guidance.

Cheers..........Wayne....aka...K-TAS

Hi Wayne welcome to our Knuthaus. The Ks are famous for the oil in the mufler trick even if only a little over full. Take it for a ride to burn the oil out then get used to parking it on the centre stand or denying that the trail of smoke was from your BMW.

I would guess that your rings are in good shape.

I just went through an exercise in replacing the valve stem oil seals.  My K100 had 110,000 miles on it and was smoking and using about a quart of oil in 500 miles.   When I opened things up, the cylinder walls still showed fresh crosshatch.  A compression test showed very good. 

Get the oil level corrected and see how much it smokes after the first couple minutes of running.  You may find that everything is ok.

Welcome K-Tas. The smoking on the sidestand thing is normal. Good Onya for getting it going. Don't be too quick to diagnose major failure with a K, it's usually something minor. Whatever it is 99.9% of the answers are here.

Glad to have you active.  Welcome.

The earlier pistons don't have the rings pinned. All piston rings must have an end gap when cold so that when they heat up these end gaps close. Because not pinned and even when they are oil can/WILL end up behind the piston and seep past the rings into the combustion chamber. This happens because the bores slope to the left and the oil left behind the piston drains downhill toward the cylinder head. Any piston near top dead centre can have a serious amount of oil on the underside. This will drain through the end gap and hey presto.....smoke. Overfill will make it much worse, so too does dropping on the side stand and then killing the engine. Kill the engine first, turn off ignition, open helmet, drop side stand and only then drop the bike over....much less smoke. I can make serious smoke of I try, but if I do that then no smoke at all.

Main thing is never judge a K by the smoke when you fire it up from cold, its only because of the engine configuration.

Hi Wayne, welcome to the group. Good luck to getting your K back on the road.