1 Digging into Krazy Kat Mon Jan 14, 2013 1:46 am
tio Jaimito
Silver member
My mentor and motomech friend, Mike and I tore into the k100RS this weekend. This is what we found.
The bike runs great, Compression was 138, 137, 138, 139. Number two plug was hot and white colored with Zero to very low resistance. The plug wires had normal resistance readings back to the Alternator. (NGK7). We figured it was a bad plug? We let the oil heat up a little and we drained and flushed the case, let the oil sit for a few hours, then carefully poured it out until we found GOLD very fine bronze silt (not much) . And a few pieces of silver colored non magnetic metal that were alarmingly large. Say .5mm in Dia. maybe 7 pieces. Mike was worried about the crank bearings.
Here is the background of the blue RS. It was owned for 25 years from a gentleman who died. And I am guessing that it wasn't serviced nor ridden in the later part of his life. His Heir and son-in-law just took it in and got it running and rode her hard for two years. Mileage is 13,000. It looks pretty clean,but it must have tipped over at one point because mirror was missing, vent fins on knee fairing was slightly cracked scratch on tank under fairing on same side, side of tail light cracked, top case was missing mounting plate and road rash gouge on port side aft top corner...all on same Port side. Son-n-law changed diff oil and bought a new battery. Sold it to me. We found some strange things:
1. brake fluid on top of the aft diaphram of the resevoir. Checked diaphram for holes there were none. We think Son-n-law didn't know how to add fluid. We are flushing out the front and back brakes with new fluid.
2. Bike came with two sets of panniers. One set that was on the bike had rectangular flat key covers and uses the flat old key. The Son-n-law did not know there were keys for this . The other set was in less oxidized condition and had round cylinder latches that matched the ignition key, but there was a light scuff on the Port pannier and there was aforementioned top case damage (thanks to TWB for sending me the key and to another forum member for locating the mounting bracket for the topcase). Son-in-law (SIL) did not know that the keys were for the ignition. SIL also gave me two sets of brake pads. One new and one set almost new. Very strange. By the condition of the panniers and his lack of knowledge, I would say that this minor fall happened long before Son-in-law owned it.
3. When idling the amperage was low. 11.6 amp at idle at 3000rpm it was 13.5 It seems strange that the alternator would be bad, I told Mike to make sure all connections were clean and dielectricly lubed(don't use dielectric lube, except as noted on subsequent posts, thanks for the correction) Does this sound like a likely culprit? The motor and bike is very clean.
4. The motor oil was very dirty. with these metal filings and pieces as described above. Does this sound possible? What could it be. Our course of action is to change oil and filter, with Castrol Synthetic and BMW filter and do another change in three months, and check what we find. This has me a little concerned. When we get her cleaned up and run her we will review oil again soon.
5. We did have oil leaking out of the oil filter cover cap.
6. Front fork seals are leaking slightly. Rebuilding and will get Gators.
I will post the bad pics of the oil if I can find out how to download photos onto this forum. Do I push "host images" icon? Must I download another file to be able to browse images from my PC? Sorry for the dumb questions.
thank you all in advance.
The bike runs great, Compression was 138, 137, 138, 139. Number two plug was hot and white colored with Zero to very low resistance. The plug wires had normal resistance readings back to the Alternator. (NGK7). We figured it was a bad plug? We let the oil heat up a little and we drained and flushed the case, let the oil sit for a few hours, then carefully poured it out until we found GOLD very fine bronze silt (not much) . And a few pieces of silver colored non magnetic metal that were alarmingly large. Say .5mm in Dia. maybe 7 pieces. Mike was worried about the crank bearings.
Here is the background of the blue RS. It was owned for 25 years from a gentleman who died. And I am guessing that it wasn't serviced nor ridden in the later part of his life. His Heir and son-in-law just took it in and got it running and rode her hard for two years. Mileage is 13,000. It looks pretty clean,but it must have tipped over at one point because mirror was missing, vent fins on knee fairing was slightly cracked scratch on tank under fairing on same side, side of tail light cracked, top case was missing mounting plate and road rash gouge on port side aft top corner...all on same Port side. Son-n-law changed diff oil and bought a new battery. Sold it to me. We found some strange things:
1. brake fluid on top of the aft diaphram of the resevoir. Checked diaphram for holes there were none. We think Son-n-law didn't know how to add fluid. We are flushing out the front and back brakes with new fluid.
2. Bike came with two sets of panniers. One set that was on the bike had rectangular flat key covers and uses the flat old key. The Son-n-law did not know there were keys for this . The other set was in less oxidized condition and had round cylinder latches that matched the ignition key, but there was a light scuff on the Port pannier and there was aforementioned top case damage (thanks to TWB for sending me the key and to another forum member for locating the mounting bracket for the topcase). Son-in-law (SIL) did not know that the keys were for the ignition. SIL also gave me two sets of brake pads. One new and one set almost new. Very strange. By the condition of the panniers and his lack of knowledge, I would say that this minor fall happened long before Son-in-law owned it.
3. When idling the amperage was low. 11.6 amp at idle at 3000rpm it was 13.5 It seems strange that the alternator would be bad, I told Mike to make sure all connections were clean and
4. The motor oil was very dirty. with these metal filings and pieces as described above. Does this sound possible? What could it be. Our course of action is to change oil and filter, with Castrol Synthetic and BMW filter and do another change in three months, and check what we find. This has me a little concerned. When we get her cleaned up and run her we will review oil again soon.
5. We did have oil leaking out of the oil filter cover cap.
6. Front fork seals are leaking slightly. Rebuilding and will get Gators.
I will post the bad pics of the oil if I can find out how to download photos onto this forum. Do I push "host images" icon? Must I download another file to be able to browse images from my PC? Sorry for the dumb questions.
thank you all in advance.
Last edited by tio Jaimito on Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:03 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : don't want to give out wrong info.)