This is  the saga of my 1986 K100 restoration. Be warned that I take a lot of pictures. Really a lot of pictures.

I have an 85 GPZ600R (ninja in the states) that I re-built and I liked the idea of another project. I wanted an R90 to cafe racer but stumbled across an unhappy looking K100.
It had been sat for a while and was in a pretty sorry state, so I bought it. Because I'm an idiot.








So I began to strip the bike down. It had been taken off the road after many miles and no care taken because the cllutch release had seized. Easy job, cosmetic tidy up and I have a big bus to trundle about on.





I should have looked at the level of corrosion and run away. Sensible people do things like that. Or the state of the engine.


When I took off the exhaust to get access to the clutch release on the back of the gearbox the front exhaust ports crumbled away, it had been previously crashed and the head was buggered. Not a happy day. Sensible people would have stopped now.

So I got hold of another head.
And some forks because the ones it came with were pitted under the seals, so when I took them off they started to leak. And a shock that worked. And a seat that wasn't rusted through. Lots of stainless bolts though, because lots were too nasty to re-fit.

Got the frame powdercoated though


Quite a big jump here, obviously too busy fitting bits to photo. managed to paint the cases in an enamel that's about as tough as wet paper, they looked nice for about a week.


Moved house, big gap in bike stuff.
Then I left the bike on the ramp while I went offshore for two weeks. When I came home it had jumped off and fecked the side panel. Oil and battery acid everywhere.

Hence a new streamlined look!


Most recently the clocks have been moved lower down, they'll eventually be replaced with a smaller digital unit. Lots of messing about trying to find air leaks involved stripping it down again and replacing any rubber parts that were left the first time round.
Oil leaks solved with helicoils and swearing. Radiator leaks solved with another radiator.

Finally got the throttles balanced thanks to a thread on here and it's running sweet! I'll give it another going over to try to ensure that it's all OK before taking it for the MOT. I'll ride it for a while before getting it painted but I quite like the blue. I've had four other bikes in the time it's taken to get to this stage so no need to hurry now!
It may be getting chopped and having clip on bars fitted next. No idea how long that'll take though.

Hey SAB (speedaddictedberk is too long to type...), my clocks are sticking up too high on my stripped down RT. The bars I'm going to change as well.

Can you supply a more detailed account on lowering your clocks please?

Thanks.

Or Bert2 for short :p

Good job on not being sensible enough to stop. You did a great renovation until phantom fingers fell the bike =)

blaKey wrote:Hey SAB (speedaddictedberk is too long to type...), my clocks are sticking up too high on my stripped down RT. The bars I'm going to change as well.

Can you supply a more detailed account on lowering your clocks please?

Thanks.

Well, I'm a pragmatic kind of fella...

So I cut sections of aluminium box at an angle, and bolted them between the upper and lower trees (there are handy threaded holes in just the right place!). Then drill the box section in the place for the standard RT clock bracket. This was never meant to be permanent, but it works just fine.






It did mean trimming the back of the headlight because the strips block it slightly. Again this probably isn't the last headlight I'll be fitting so I''m not concerned.

I'd like to get smaller clocks, probably Daytona digital. Then fit clip on bars to allow me to put the ignition into the existing fork hole, although the current low rise Renthal bars give a comfortable riding position so I'm not sure yet. I may just have to find somewhere else for the ignition and leave the bars as is.

Got it!

Great work, thanks.

Well that was short lived. Ran out of petrol just after I got the throttles balanced in the garage, got some fuel today and it's running on three after taking ages to start.
Time to pull the plugs again!

Its gonna be fun Berko, fun

Right, this is annoying!

The plugs were fouled, so a clean up and a blowtorch later off it goes again. But it' still bloody hard to start.

So back on the carb balancer and the furthest rear cylinder is mis-firing every few seconds with a pop through the exhaust, I pulled that plug after wiggling all the plug wires while it was running and it's very sooty indeed.

I tried removing the the line to the fuel regulator and it had no effect on the running. Could this be the issue? If it's just delivering full unregulated pressure would it over fuel and run rich?

Another FPR ordered today, hopefully it'll sort the fueling.

Speedaddictedberk wrote:Right, this is annoying!

The plugs were fouled, so a clean up and a blowtorch later off it goes again. But it' still bloody hard to start.

So back on the carb balancer and the furthest rear cylinder is mis-firing every few seconds with a pop through the exhaust, I pulled that plug after wiggling all the plug wires while it was running and it's very sooty indeed.

I tried removing the the line to the fuel regulator and it had no effect on the running. Could this be the issue? If it's just delivering full unregulated pressure would it over fuel and run rich?

If the regulator has a shagged diaphragm it will leak fuel into the #4 cylinder.

RicK G wrote:

Speedaddictedberk wrote:Right, this is annoying!

The plugs were fouled, so a clean up and a blowtorch later off it goes again. But it' still bloody hard to start.

So back on the carb balancer and the furthest rear cylinder is mis-firing every few seconds with a pop through the exhaust, I pulled that plug after wiggling all the plug wires while it was running and it's very sooty indeed.

I tried removing the the line to the fuel regulator and it had no effect on the running. Could this be the issue? If it's just delivering full unregulated pressure would it over fuel and run rich?

If the regulator has a shagged diaphragm it will leak fuel into the #4 cylinder.

Well hopefully that's it, I'll find out tomorrow when the working regulator gets here.

If this cures the running problems I can actually have my first proper shot of it!

So the front brake lines, are they normally attached to the front mudguard somewhere? Mine had ni fixings in this area but I've noticed that other seem to. Then again mine had no fixings on the bottom of the battery tray because the rubber had rotted away...

Speedaddictedberk wrote:
So the front brake lines, are they normally attached to the front mudguard somewhere? Mine had ni fixings in this area but I've noticed that other seem to. Then again mine had no fixings on the bottom of the battery tray because the rubber had rotted away...

It depends on the model, single brake line with a balance pipe, one into two lines (one to each calliper) ABS or not.

It also depends on what type of forks the bike has. The two-part mudguard usually has the brake hose going through one or both sides of the rear half near the brace.

Mine has dual lines coming from the hard line through the headstock, and a one piece mudguard. I'm not sure if there would be any movement but I may brace them with some P clips or similar to avoid stress cracking on the hard section of the brake lines.

Or just tie wrap them to the forks.

Where the rubber line meets the steel line there should be a rubber grommet with a heavy wire clip that attaches to the rear mudguard bolt

Clips and associated rubber gromit things bought. I must be one of Motorworks better customers!

Well that's a working FPR fitted and it's running loads better.

It is still misfiring slightly on the rear cylinder though it's no-where near as bad as previously. The popping from the exhaust is gone but there is a drop in revs and a corresponding quiet thunk through the bike every few seconds.

It seems to run better off idle, above 2k rpm it clears.


The filters, plugs and leads have been previously replaced, I'll check the gaps etc again once it's cooled. If the coils are failing I'd assume it would be a 2 cylinder problem?


EDIT - It's only doing this when it's hot, about 10 mins of idle and it starts to miss. It's still a pain to start as well.

Swapped the leads between 1 and 4 on the coil, no change it's still missing on 4. So I'm thinking that the coil is ruled out?
Pulled the plug on 4 and the spark looks ok but slightly more yellow than on 2, I managed to shock myself doing this as I didn't expect the thing to start and fumbled the pliers.

The plugs are still looking sooty, but obviously the bike hasn't been run properly.

Could this just be a duff lead? They were replaced a while ago and they're the proper expensive ones. I made sure all the ferrules are tight and the leads don't wobble on the plugs.

IT LIVES!!!!!!  

After another few hours of head scratching I started swapping leads etc to see if I could make the misfire move.

Finally swapped the plugs and that was it!
New NGK plug in number 4 was not working properly, swapped for a classic bosch that was still in the toolbox from the stripdown (only had one, I must have known!) and it's running nice.
Revs cleanly, and pulls well as a little run to the end of the road has confirmed.  

If the weather holds I may try for an MOT next week. Its a stupid time of the year to be doing such things but I don't care. I better go over it pretty thoughraly first to make sure everything is tight though. It's been in bits for a looong time.



Moral of the story - New parts may also be broken, don't trust them.

Not necessarily a bad new part as it did foul earlier on and that can kill a plug real quick.

Good detective work on the duff plug! Nice to hear that the bike is running as good as it looks!

Can I ask how much powder coating the frame cost? That's one of the many tasks coming my way shortly.

Powder coat was around £150 I think, but it was about 5 years ago!
I find it to be by far the best finish, if you just want to paint its worth getting the frame blasted as this will remove all traces if corrosion, stopping it coming back through the new coating.
The other thing to keep in mind is to get them to mask the frame number otherwise it gets hidden by the powder coat. Masking any threads helps greatly too.

Thanks for the info, SAB. All grist to the mill!

I love BMW, I have a 28 year old bike in the garage and I've pulled off the rocker cover and crank cover to re-paint them and stop some oil weeping issues.
I noticed a couple of cracks in the gasket material so ordered new ones. They'll be here in two days and cost £6.49 each.

That's great service compared to Kawasaki for instance who said - 'You need what? No we don't make them anymore'.

In the unlikely event that I feel the need to rescue another dog from scrapping it'll be another BMW, just for parts availability!

Now onto looking for cafe racer seats...

Well I can't get the beast through and MOT before heading back offshore next week so today I moved the ignition from the large and badly fecked rubber RT pad on the yokes to a smaller bracket on the Right side of the frame. Those small mounting points with the captive nuts on the front frame tubes came in handy.

I'm going to go with the Vonzeti flat track seat unit http://vonzeti.com/index.php/product/flat-tracker-xl-t100/, as well as the rather handy mounting plate that they do http://vonzeti.com/index.php/product/bmw-k-series-seat-mounting-kit/
It's not cheap but does save a heap of fabrication for the cafe racering of the bike.

I'm also going for a small digital daytona speedo to thin down the front end. The Clocks on the bike were replaced by (an obviously insane) previous owner and have a total of 1600 miles on them, yes that's one thousand six hundred miles.
Any clues as to how much they would be worth? I'll sell them once it's up and through the MOT.

MOT booked for the day after I get home from offshore, seat unit, bars and clocks bought.

More to do!

Well I've ridden it for the first time in 7 years, I put petrol in it at a petrol station for the first time and I've ridden 22 miles with an MOT in the middle.

It is now road legal! The only thing picked up on was the fact that some muppet (me) had put the front tyre on the wrong way round. 20mins later after the nice garage leant me a trolley and some allen keys and I took off the wheel in the car park.

I did have one worrying moment when I hit a bump then lost power at 60 mph. A quick wiggle of the ECU cable fixed the problem though so it was tie wrapped on. Another problem solved.

I'm quite impressed with how it rides. A lovely smooth engine and nice handling. Narrow tyres give a very different feeling to the 190 rear on the VFR1200.

Took the beast home, stripped off the front end, clip-ons and fork boots fitted, new clocks waiting for wiring up.

Great news, SAB! Congratulations on getting the bike through its MOT and back on the road after all this time. My own K100RT has been off the road for 7 years too.

Nightmare about the tyre and ECU cable, but at least you recognised the problems and were handy enough to sort them out on the journey.

I hope now you get the weather to enjoy the bike in your free time back onshore - if last summer/autumn was anything to go by, you'd better break out the leggings lol!

Well I won't be out on it much this trip, I'm only home for 4 days before going to Thailand for two weeks, then straight back offshore!
The place I used to get bikes mot'd was good, the guy was half deaf and quite easy going. Sadly he's retired now.
The place I went to had me worried because they were really thorough! Glad it passed.
Finding the ECU plug problem was a case of replaying what had happened in my mind, bump then loss of power and thinking what could be loose. No idea what I'd have done if it was something else.

http://flic.kr/p/niBFvM
http://flic.kr/p/ngz1Mj

That's the bars fitted, I'll be stripping the paint on the tank and semi polishing the surface.
The cafe seat should be home before I am so I'll get it fitted next month.

Well this is as finished as it's getting for the immediate future!

More to do, as always but for now I'm just going to ride it.
And complain about sore wrists.

Very interesting set of photo's there, if you want to have a look at my K100RS anytime let me know.

It would be interesting to see another one, if you fancy some similar shots of your bike I can take the camera along too.

Took the bike out for a run the day before coming back offshore. I decided that it was a nice day and ice cream was required, so popped out to Braemar (50 miles of sweeping twisties away).
I think some core strength exercises may be required... If I go over 60 the whole time it's not bad at all!
On the way back I started holding onto gears longer, it appears that I've mid calibrated the digital rev counter so have been short shifting a fair bit so far. She goes well for an old dog!

Speedaddictedberk wrote:Well this is as finished as it's getting for the immediate future!

More to do, as always but for now I'm just going to ride it.
And complain about sore wrists.

Good evening SAB, I am trying to track down a low profile rear seat like yours, could you please advise?
regards

Nice restoration. Reminds me a little of the lines of a Norton Manx. I like how you handled the front end. Very minimalist

Kaptain Holister wrote:Nice restoration. Reminds me a little of the lines of a Norton Manx. I like how you handled the front end. Very minimalist

Yeah I get that Manx vibe too. Looks great, but bloody uncomfortable  If I was a rich man there would most certainly be a Manx Norton in shed. Between the Black Shadow and the Brough Superior. I would have to move the 916 and a few Bimotas to get to it though. 


Stands out from the pack a bit more then some of the other conversions Ive seen.