Any of the well known brands in the right viscosity range and then stay with it. Castrol, Valvoline Shell or Mobil I use Shell HX5 mainly because I get it at Mates Rates and I can get it almost anywhere to top up if I need to.
Don't use the cheap oils from the supermarkets they are cheap for a good reason.
Main thing is stay with the same brand.
From what I can see of that damage the whole sump will probably have to come off.
If Blue Eyes is insured then put a claim in against his insurance and they will have to fix the bike they can't write it off. I say that because the damage to your bike would write it off if the insurance can. His insurance can't write your bike off because you don't have a contract with them.  AFAIK it is the same in UK as in Oz.  Stand your ground with the buggers they will try to bluff you.

Becky wrote:I know, keep getting that lecture off dad, but its a bank holiday in blackpool, a & e will be packed!

Dads are a bit like that........So has he met blue black eyes yet?

My son lectures me, I visit my brother and he lectures me. Blooming check me out when I meet them. I go to blood clinic and go funny after giving blood. Medic comes over and wants to take me out. I looked him in the eye and told him my blood pressure and heart rate. He takes out his stuff to check and looks in amazement as it confirmed what I told him. K was parked outside and I told him its like an old bike, know it inside out.

But Dad's know best!!

We have decided against using the insurance, make it more expensive for the both of us in the long run, dad was convinced they would write mine off and i could buy it back but they re not worth much anyway, especially if they take mileage into account. what viscosity is best to use? hes never had supermarket oil.

Ha ha he did meet him before it happened and noted the very worn tread on the back of the 250 (which did look a bit of a wreak, hadnt seen it before and if i had would have told him not to bring!). Then he crashes into me and dad has got very pissed off and is blaming the lack of tread, which probably didnt help....but hes bring his dad too so we can let the dads fight it out

It all in the riders handbook, temperature has a big bearing on what you use. I would say 10w 40 would be on the mark for you.

RicK G wrote:Any of the well known brands in the right viscosity range and then stay with it. Castrol, Valvoline Shell or Mobil I use Shell HX5 mainly because I get it at Mates Rates and I can get it almost anywhere to top up if I need to.
Don't use the cheap oils from the supermarkets they are cheap for a good reason.
Main thing is stay with the same brand.
From what I can see of that damage the whole sump will probably have to come off.
If Blue Eyes is insured then put a claim in against his insurance and they will have to fix the bike they can't write it off. I say that because the damage to your bike would write it off if the insurance can. His insurance can't write your bike off because you don't have a contract with them.  AFAIK it is the same in UK as in Oz.  Stand your ground with the buggers they will try to bluff you.

Becky aint gonna go with that one I guess.

I did see the link for the LT fairing in Oxford and its a good buy. Got all the bits you need and you have the ones its missing.

But very definitely you need to decide what happens on the sump issue. The damage is in an awkward place so you need a closer look. Not many K engines get taken apart for repairs, they generally go on forever and if its significant damage that wont repair from outside you would probably be better sourcing another engine and replacing rear seal etc before fitting it. Imagine how long Bikey would go after that?

The lack of tread would have very little bearing on it as about 10% of the braking is done on the back wheel in an emergency stop.  It's easy to blame someone, but the people who usually allocate blame were not there when the decisions had to be made and that is all any of us can do is make decisions that seem right at the time.

Becky wrote:We have decided against using the insurance, make it more expensive for the both of us in the long run, dad was convinced they would write mine off and i could buy it back but they re not worth much anyway, especially if they take mileage into account. what viscosity is best to use? hes never had supermarket oil.

I had the same issue with the RT. In fairness the assessor told me the break even figure between repair and write off so we worked with that and it was fine. It works out ok if you source the parts of eBay and Motorworks etc.

10W40 is good and I admit to having used Halfords. But I can get Total from my car main dealer [Peugeot] for less money so generally use that.

How much for a new engine though? There was the one in the bike i got the shaft in which had only done 9000 miles...but had been stood for 15 years outside. reckon its worth a go at the right price?

Exactly, i keep beating myself and thinking i should have tried to swerve the bloody sheep. Sheep are softer than walls!

Rear wont make much difference. If it was that bad it probably stopped him going faster...!!!

Important everyone is ok.....dads included.

will see how it goes anyway, fingers crossed. Can see me getting a lot of grief for staying with him off my Dad but he always hates my boyfriends! And i must really like blue eyes cos made sure he was ok before picking bikey up! anyone else who had hurt bikey i would have murdered....

Get one that has been running recently, an engine that has been standing outside is likely to be a bag of trouble in the long run. If you find one with less than 50K on it all should be OK.

Becky wrote:Exactly, i keep beating myself and thinking i should have tried to swerve the bloody sheep. Sheep are softer than walls!

I hit a Labrador one night on the Honda 500-4. I wasn't hanging around. Right hand crash bar bent right back. But if you hit something like that with front wheel you come off.

Don't go there about the swerve either. I had to do one on Saturday night less than a mile after Comberjohn and myself parted company after a very pleasant evening. Taxi came to a side T junction and pulled out on me after he had stopped. I never figured a K to swerve so well but it took a lot of road room to correct it and 10 new underpants. Narrow road would not have had the road room. Still shaken from it and only getting a police car on the guy for doing it has kept me calm. Night time, a lit street, dipped headlight, hi viz, reflector strips, you name it.

Don't sweat it If your parents don't like your boy or girl friend then they are doing their job of trying to protect you.  My mum stared daggers at my wife when they first met but ended up best friends.

Becky wrote:will see how it goes anyway, fingers crossed. Can see me getting a lot of grief for staying with him off my Dad but he always hates my boyfriends! And i must really like blue eyes cos made sure he was ok before picking bikey up! anyone else who had hurt bikey i would have murdered....

Staying with him is your call alone. Not up to a Dad to interfere. Ever. Sure Dad mad about you, but you have to let your kids grow up and make their own decisions and respect them.

Once upon a time I was debating something with my eldest daughter. She interpreted it differently. I always remember her words 'Today is not a good day to argue with me Dad'. It wasn't a case of asking if tomorrow would be ok, the way it was said implied there would never be a tomorrow. Not bad for 14!!! She is 28 now and am happy so say does her own thing. When she met her boyfriend I asked about him. 'He's like you Dad' was all I got, but it was enough to tell me I didn't need to worry about her.

Wonder now how blue eyes is going to make up for this........

Wonder might we see Becky on a K1100??

Ha ha just glad we are both ok. Hes going to fix bikey up and we will see from there. Can see dad making things difficult for us (him not welcome at ours etc) which could be a pain with the distance especially when it gets into winter and camping is off the cards. If its meant to be we will find a way though. My dad cant really be reasoned with  And Bikey will live again, im determined!

Oh and blue eyes told me he loved me for the first time when the recovery truck turned up  bless him!

Becky wrote:We have decided against using the insurance, make it more expensive for the both of us in the long run, dad was convinced they would write mine off and i could buy it back but they re not worth much anyway, especially if they take mileage into account. what viscosity is best to use? hes never had supermarket oil.

I think you are right that the insurers would go for a write off - especially with the apparent engine damage on top of all the plastic.

Following my wreck last November, the third party's insurers priced up the damage (really limited to the front forks, fairings, screen right hand crash bar, panniers and top box) assessed the repair costs as over £2,500 - bear in mind a lot of the cost would be in labour. The market value of a good condition LT of a similar age is about £1500, but having only paid £740 for the bike just over a year previously I think the write off value of £1100 was reasonable (I was fully expecting the assessor to come up with some ridiculously low figure and was ready for a fight!). The assessor offered me the salvage on the bike for £100 - meaning I got to keep it as a donor bike and still pocket £1000 (my new bike "Heidi" cost me £900 on ebay, so I was not out of pocket). The tyres alone were worth £100.

Just a word of caution about not claiming on your insurance - you still both have a responsibility to report any accidents to them (regardless of whether you claim or not) or they could void your insurance and that could land you in a whole heap of trouble (especially in this day and age of automatic number plate recognition - you could easily get pulled over by the police and end up with a fixed penalty notice and points on you licence). My accident went against the third party as as such was recorded on my bike insurance as a "No fault claim" - but I also had to inform my car insurers of the accident (even though it was nothing whatsoever to do with the my car). It did not affect my premium on either the bike or the car when it came to renewal time. In your case, you were clearly not at fault - but just tell your insurers that it was settled privately.

The downside of these forums is that you don't need to be registered  to access them, so the fact that you've had an accident (you showed a clear pic of you number plate too) is in the public domain and therefore your insurers could easily know too.
If you are not actually making a claim against either insurance company then it should not affect your premiums.

As for engine oils....exactly what Rick said. Pick a brand and stick with it - due to various additives, not all brands of oils are exactly the same and may not mix effectively which may cause problems when you top up in-between oil changes. Buying ultra high performance modern engine oils is not necessary (therefore a waste of money) but the other end of the scale with supermarket own brands is a false economy - the oil is there to reduce engine wear under some quite extreme operating conditions. Saving a few quid against potentially shorter engine life and big expense just doesn't make sense to me. I use a Castrol 10W 40 which seems to work for me in the UK.

That valuation is not as bad as i thought it would be actually. Just informed my insurance company, they were fine with it. If it was anyone else who had done it it wold be through the insurance, knowing him complicates things and hes really not keen on doing that. Dont know what to do

Becky wrote:Ha ha just glad we are both ok. Hes going to fix bikey up and we will see from there. Can see dad making things difficult for us (him not welcome at ours etc) which could be a pain with the distance especially when it gets into winter and camping is off the cards. If its meant to be we will find a way though. My dad cant really be reasoned with  And Bikey will live again, im determined!

If old blue eyes is fixing up Bikey and sorts it out then its about treating you fairly and your Dad should be happy. it may not be what he would do, but that's your choice, not his.

I have the view that kids make the decisions as one has taught them, parents live with them and in my book no matter what happens any of the offspring must always feel welcome at home. The only thing asked of boyfriends/girl friends is just courtesy and respect for others and respect [not agreement] for others opinions.

After seeing what Paul got for his it might be the better way to go. Really dont know what to do now

You and blue eyes could get one of these K100s:





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krauser_Domani

erm no, just no. Combines the annoyingness of getting rained on with the fact  you cant filter! And ive seen him riding no way id be getting in the side car!

think if they took the mileage into account i wouldnt get anything much for him anyway

Don't worry about your Dad. We dads are a pretty tough lot and very protective of our little girls. At the end of the day though, no matter what we think, our girls (and sons) have to live their own lives and make their own decisions which will include mistakes now and again too. I guess your Dad is just reacting to the fact that he could have lost you - it is natural to blame Blue Eyes, but does he blame the sheep and the farmer too? Every accident is a combination of numerous different factors coming together in a unique way - changing a single factor could have changed the outcome completely - for better or for considerably worse.

Talk to you Dad - he is angry because he cares deeply for you. It sounds like ol' Blue Eyes is being responsible by getting Bikey repaired for you and lending you his K while he does (check the tyres!!!!), so your Dad will come round once he has had a chance to calm down and appreciate the situation.

As for the "love you" bit - shock has a very funny effect on the male psyche in a near death experience! You'll know that he does when Bikey comes back better than ever!

Mine was very similar, for both LT and the RT.

But bear in mind ol blue eyes may pay a few £ on his insurance after. Weigh that one up.

A respray of a full fairing and mirrors is going to run to maybe £400-500 and that won't include that labour getting it back on. Or the cost of buying it and having it delivered. You may need a screen. Then add a wheel, crankcase side cover, gasket, associated oil and coolant. You don't mention dents in the petrol tank?

Dosnt look like Bikey is going today, they loaded up blue eyes k and the trailer has broke.... we really are doomed at the moment. I think he was pretty shocked at seeing me fall to the ground.

Becky wrote:erm no, just no. Combines the annoyingness of getting rained on with the fact  you cant filter! And ive seen him riding no way id be getting in the side car!

Maybe, but as long as he keeps it pointing the right way he wont be hitting you from behind........

Ha ha true. Proper depressed now, bike trailer has broke so he cant come up today and im left without transport....

Becky wrote:After seeing what Paul got for his it might be the better way to go. Really dont know what to do now

Sorry - didn't mean to confuse. 

Best bet is report the accident to your insurers and say you are assessing the cost of the repairs. If the cost of all the bits and engine repairs starts getting silly, then it is time to decide whether it is worth repairing and/or claiming. The big problem with old bikes (and cars) is the cost of the bits versus the real (not emotional) value of the bike (or car). I know your emotional attachment to Bikey is high and that he will also be repairable - you just need to work with Ol' Blue Eyes to assess what the cost will be and then decide what it is best to do.

The fairing is going to be most of the cost, if the engine is ok. If the engine is ok then its worth saving. Just wish he would answer his blood phone! and please can you post the light to me? looks like Bikey isnt going to blue eyes now.

Look at this.....am very tempted!!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1991-BMW-K100-LT-RED-/331278751092?pt=UK_Motorcycles&hash=item4d21c09574

Becky wrote:The fairing is going to be most of the cost, if the engine is ok. If the engine is ok then its worth saving. Just wish he would answer his blood phone! and please can you post the light to me? looks like Bikey isnt going to blue eyes now.

OK, thought that might be the case - and I had already PM'd you with that suggestion! Can you PM me your address again - I had a look back through my inbox but obviously deleted the previous message with your address on. I can get it in the post tomorrow, or I can hang fire and wait for you to decide if you still need it before posting - it's up to you, it is boxed and ready to go (pending address)

Mine will be fine, even if bikey does manage to make it down to blue eyes i can always take it with me when i go to pick him up and get it fitted before i head back.

Hi Becky. Sad to hear about Bikey. Hope he pulls through okay.

With my (limited) experience with the oil sight glass, I would say that you have slightly over filled which seems to be a very common problem. The specs say 3.5 lit  (without new filter) but mine takes a smidge under 3.0 lit.

The guy I bought my girl off told me he had always just put the specified amount in but had never seen the oil level in the sight glass. I spoke to a retired BMW mechanic a while back and he told me that he has never come across a sight glass that was too opaque to get a level.

He told me to pour in around 2.5 lit and then add bit by bit till you see the level. Give the window a little polish and get Bikey in good light. It may be hard to see but I reckon you will get a level. My first oil change I found that the sump was over filled by 700ml. 

I use Penrite MC4ST 10W40 (synthetic blend) but next time I do the oil filter I'll just use someting a bit cheaper.

Cheers

It happened right here, it looks like this:



It looks great, right? You can see there are no cars for a long way in front. Unfortunately you can't tell if there is a lamb standing around on the other side of that hump, which there was..

As the spannery one here (and the one who went into the back of her) I feel responsible for at least getting Becky back on the road, even if Bikey isn't as pretty as he was before. We have a plan that he will be seen by a mechanic who will hopefully confirm what a lot of people here think and what I thought at the time - that the oil is weeping from the seal under the crank cover. If that is as fixable as it seems then the front wheel will be replaced and we'll go from there.

My CB250 didn't do too well either:



It needs a new mudguard, new forks, new headlight and probably a new bracket that the headlight and clocks all mount to, but these are actually things that were really rough anyway. Becky's K is a lot harder/fiddlier to fix though, and she has no back up transport which makes me feel even worse. I can't even sort her out with using mine because the trailer started to have the wheels break away from the box section, such is the weight of a K!

Becky didn't immediately dismiss the idea of an 1100LT though so this might get interesting..

Snod,

If the oil weep is from the side cover then you are made as they say and Bikey will ride again fairly quickly. Its just there are three parts that meet near that joint and there are two joints. The second one is not as easy to see. Before doing anything try and suss that one out as all the other stuff is easy. Wheel, rear light, rear mudguard, fairing pieces, screen are all easy and quick. The trick would be to get the fairing in the same colour and avoid painting and I would have an eye out for a parts bike or project bike. There are a few out there. The engine cover is only £33 from Motorworks, silver or black.

My LT sits in my shed, along with a replacement fairing in the same colour and all parts needed to get it mobile. I have debated if its worthwhile but decided it is. It is much same as Bikey, ABS etc etc and has over 100,000 miles. But when I weighed up doing a quick repair as in getting parts in a hurry my mind was set on get another bike instead and fix the LT in my own time this winter.

Corkboy lives near me and he bought a K1100 earlier in the year, in fact Ringfad went and looked and bought it for him and stored it for while until Corkboy could collect it. He was thrilled with it and he was moving from a K100RS. He went two up to France on Saturday.

It could have been rather nasty, you look like you had a lucky escape. Hope you guys make it over here in September, would be great and right now probably what you need.

We were definitely lucky! Dropped Bikey off this morning with my mechanic (who knows me as Becky with the BMW) who keeps telling me he only does Japanese bikes but never says no to fixing him, think he sees him as a challenge. He was also rather impressed we managed to locate and fit a new shaft and final drive in less than 24 hours. He had a quick look over him when i dropped him off and seems to think along the same lines as you, that its just the gasket thats gone. He will ring me with the diagnosis later today.....will keep you posted!

Becky wrote:We were definitely lucky! Dropped Bikey off this morning with my mechanic (who knows me as Becky with the BMW) who keeps telling me he only does Japanese bikes but never says no to fixing him, think he sees him as a challenge. He was also rather impressed we managed to locate and fit a new shaft and final drive in less than 24 hours. He had a quick look over him when i dropped him off and seems to think along the same lines as you, that its just the gasket thats gone. He will ring me with the diagnosis later today.....will keep you posted!

That's the way with arts for the K. Like when I got a call about a K75 here that needed an alternator. From phone call to one in the hand was 5 hours.....

So I really hope that its just the side cover gasket in which case you are motoring darn quick. Even if you need the side cover its only £33 from Motorworks and an easy fit!!

Make a call to Motorworks and Motobins and a few more and see if you can get the fairing panels in the right colour.

AFAIK Motobins now only sell new parts, so Motorbins or James Sherlock may be the way to go.

Mike

wooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love my mechanic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just the gasket!!!!!!!!!!! bikey lives again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More like blue eyed boy is back in the good books.

You must have had a leprechaun looking out for you to maKe sure you come over here in September.

Anyway if just the gasket then you two are laughing. Bikey will be going out at the weekend?

Maybe a change in philosophy is now needed since blue eyes has declared his feelings. Maybe if its not too much of a culture shock for you it might be better for all if he is looking at you in HIS rear view mirror and not the other way round..........

Ha ha! To be fair i usually follow, its just cos we were doing my roads! And yeah, atleast my bike stops  Have told him that the brakes on the 250s are useless! work cost me £70 which i dont think is too bad as he did the oil while he was at it.  And maybe a man does need to nearly kill his woman occasionally to realise his true feelings

Glad to see it working out ok. It could so easily have been a bit different.

He deserves a lamb stew for dinner!!!

Ha ha  just waiting for the light now and then im back on the road (need the rim too) hes due new tyres anyway. Then its all the cosmetic stuff

Thats where the expense will lie but to be honest its not essential!

My baby is home!!! Yay!!!!! just waiting on the light and rim now and then we are free

Becky wrote:My baby is home!!! Yay!!!!! just waiting on the light and rim now and then we are free

The light is in the hands of the Royal Mail....I got my daughter to take it to the post office this morning while I was at work - all being well with the first class postage, it could/should be with you tomorrow.

Good news about the engine.

Yay thank you! hopefully be out on him this weekend and go and see snod for his birthday