Miles By Motorcycle
established 11 years ago
Gap to Seattle TripSubscribe to this blog RSS Feed
    You must be logged in and belong to this group to post to this forum.
    26 of 49
    Ian
    11 years ago
    Yeah, well the high for tomorrow is forecasted to be 72, but it "feels like" 81.  The locals find it hot.  At least you've got a water-cooled bike; makes riding in that kind of heat easier on the engine.  Might cook your knees, though.
    27 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
     
    28 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    John St John posted these on facebook so I figured I'd post them over here so when I go look for them I can find them again. It looks like there are going to be a few events we're going to have to stop in at along the way  ... three weeks is clearly not long enough.


    NC July 12-14 Klassic K Riders #347
    The perfect place to start your journey to Salem! It’s hard to believe that this year will be the Sixth Klassic K Kampout. The rally was started as the only rally to honor the Klassic K BMWs. The Sixth annual Klassic K Kampout will be held July 12–14 at the Blue Ridge Motorcycle campground.
    The 41st BMW MOA International Rally
    Salem, Oregon July 18-21 BMW MOA
    Join us all in Salem, Ore., for the 41st BMW MOA International Rally. We’ll be at the Oregon State Fairgrounds. Great riding, seminars, workshops, live music and friends – the list is endless. Visit
    www.bmwmoa.org
     and read the BMW Owners News for continual updates. 
    41st Annual Top o’ the Rockies Rally
    CO July 25-28 BMWMCC #66
    Our annual premier rally is located in the friendly and beautiful mountain town of Paonia, Colo. Situated in the center of some of the best motorcycle roads in the state and country, both paved and dirt, and a short distance to three national parks.
    29 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Tires ordered. I'll be taking the K100 in tomorrow to have the mixture adjusted.
    30 of 49
    Ian
    11 years ago
    Mixture?
    31 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Ian, so I've had this intermittent ignition problem for years on end where one of my coils would drop out, the bike would only fire on two cylinders and the tach would drop to 0. 

    Historically, this has happened at a frequency of about once every two years or so. Recently, it's happened more often. On the Blue Ridge trip with AGrip it happened daily.

    I have suspected that it might be the "output stage" otherwise known as the "ignition control module" for some time because reseating the connector, or even just pressing on it, makes the symptoms appear to vanish.

    So on Saturday as an experiment, I replaced the ignition control module with a spare I bought some years ago, lost and then refound recently.

    Strangely, the bike immediately felt completely different. It started up with more authority, idled much more smoothly and overall felt completely different. This was encouraging.

    I took it on a 200+ mile ride on Sunday and the problem I had been experiencing daily did not recur. However, the bike started running hot. Additionally, my fuel economy went through the roof. (I haven't measured the whole tank but I bet I'm getting close to 60mpg.) Also, the other riders reported that they did not see any of the characteristic black smoke out of the exhaust and did not smell any of the rich exhaust fumes my bike is known for.

    Based on all on all of this, and some discussions with the others, we suspect the old ignition control module has been intermittently faulty for some years and this replacement is now causing cylinders 1 & 2 to fire correctly causing the mixture to be leaned out. (My bike has no oxygen sensor so can't adjust itself.)

    So I'm going to take it into Bob's tomorrow to have the mixture checked/adjusted to see if my hypothesis is correct ... 
    32 of 49
    Ian
    11 years ago
    Sounds promising!How quaint to have fuel injection that isn't entirely computerized. ;)You should be in good shape for your cross-country travels.
    33 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    It's getting down to the wire. Replacing the coolant temperature sender turned out to be a huge many-hour job involving disassembling a good section of the front of the bike. All the hard parts were finished and I was re-installing the coolant drain plug, itself also a fragile sender for the temp gauge which I slipped and snapped the bloody thing. 

    Fortunately, I was able to get the part that was left in the hole out without too much difficulty. But now I'm faced with finding a replacement sender or, as a worst case fallback, a plug. The secondary sender/drain plug only feeds the temp gauge on the dash so I can run without it. The overheat warning is driven from the primary sender so it wont' be affected.

    I hate it when I make stupid mistakes like this. Tomorrow should prove to be eventful as I run around like a madman and try to get everything done.
    34 of 49
    Ian
    11 years ago
    Bummer, dude.  That's another hidden trap of older gear.  Plastic and rubber bits get more brittle and are more likely to fail during maintenance.

    Good luck with the rest of the prep.
    35 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Victory from the jaws of defeat.

    I put in a solid day of work to get everything back together again. I took it out on a test run for 30 minutes of rush hour traffic and it seems, fingers crossed, that the running hot issue has been resolved.

    Yun Lung Yang detailed the bike. It is simply amazing how good he can make machines look.

    Photo #7436
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    92 K100RS All Cleaned Up and Ready to Go

    92 K100RS All Cleaned Up and Ready to Go

    After what seemed like an epic push, I managed to get everything bolted back together. Yun applied his tremendous detailing talents to make the bike looks this good.

    It's 23:35 and it looks like everything is in order for a 6AM departure.
    36 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Day 1:
    Link #7460
    Yermo
    11 years ago

    Road Report : Gap to Seattle, Day 1 : Angry Clouds and DIsappointment

    An evolving social network for the lucky few who travel by motorcycle and those who care about them.

    http://miles-by-motorcycle.com/fv-b...
    37 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    We're using the maps for planning. I'm marking out intended targets and roll-through points with the Meeting icon and tagging them with #intention to indicate that it's an intended target.

    If you are logged in you can type the intention hashtag into the search box and get a list of all of our intended targets (or click the tag above).

    There was so much I wanted to get done on these maps.
    38 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Road Report Day 2:

    Link #7484
    Yermo
    11 years ago

    Road Report : Gap to Seattle Trip : Day 2 : The Liability of Goals

    An evolving social network for the lucky few who travel by motorcycle and those who care about them.

    http://miles-by-motorcycle.com/fv-b...
    39 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    40 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Ride Report Days 4 and 5: Getting into and Out of Dodge

    Link #7534
    Yermo
    11 years ago

    Road Report: 2013 Gap To Seattle Trip : Days 5 and 6 - Getting out of Dodge

    An evolving social network for the lucky few who travel by motorcycle and those who care about them.

    http://miles-by-motorcycle.com/fv-b...
    41 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Words do not describe. Mount Evans. It must be done.
    45 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    The whole trip on one map:
    Map #7643
    Yermo
    11 years ago

    2013 Gap To Seattle Trip Track

    It was supposed to be a trip out and back to Seattle from DC via Deal's Gap. 

    My travelling companions bike failed in the desert outside of Spokane, Washington. Through some towing mishaps, my machine was set up to fail some couple thousand miles later in the Montana desert.

    46 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Road Report: An Abrupt End

    Link #7680
    Yermo
    11 years ago

    2013 Meandering Trip Back : An Abrupt End

    An evolving social network for the lucky few who travel by motorcycle and those who care about them.

    http://miles-by-motorcycle.com/fv-b...
    47 of 49
    isurfne
    11 years ago
    http://www.affordablebeemerservices.com/bmwthoughts/

    Some very interesting and helpful insights into final drive failures. Worth the 5 minutes for sure.
    48 of 49
    rshaug
    11 years ago
    isurfne That was a really interesting article and, sadly, has some parallels in the car world as well. Mercedes fundamentally changed their approach in 1994 and suffered mightily for it. It is only recently that Mercedes has begun to have reliability and build quality approaching pre-94 levels again, though they still lag far behind others. Lexus recently suffered a similar spate of issues (self inflicted). It also reminds me of the first time I brought my BMW (car) in for service after the factory maintenance coverage expired and the charge for an OIL CHANGE was over $500. Six months later the front brakes needed pads and rotors, $2,500! When I told the dealer that these were just ridiculous he said "The new models have longer maintenance intervals, you should look at trading up". Basically their solution to a $2,500 maintenance charge was to drop $70K on a new car. I've never gone back.
    49 of 49
    Yermo
    11 years ago
    Agreed. Very interesting article. The final drive and clutch spline issues on oilheads are well known but the rest I was unaware of. I had thought the new final drives used on modern BMW's had finally fixed the failures. FWIW, I've only heard of one failure of that final drive (and I think it was actually the unit pictured in the article.)

    The comments about the Ironbutt Rally are interesting as well. I wonder if this is the reason for the ascendancy of FJR's in the rally.