Airhead "Tips and Tricks"

If you are going into a water crossing, a problem is that you are almost always going down hill when you hit the water. The initial splash goes right into the air intake snorkles and soaks your air filter leaving you in a bad way (if you have a paper air filter it can collapse which is why dirt bike guys don't use them).

Take two half liter water bottles and cut the tops off of them and put them over the snorkes. The carbs get plenty of air, but that first big splash doesn't drown the bike.

For those that use the double reserve trick, try this instead.

1) Run with only one petcock "ON"
2) When that one sputters, turn the other petcock to "ON" (1st reserve)
3) At the next sputter, turn the FIRST petcock to "Res" ( 2nd reserve)
4) Lastly, you turn the SECOND petcock to "Res" (3rd reserve)

Now, you must know, & THIS IS IMPORTANT, 3rd reserve isn't going to get you real far. About the best I ever did with my '75 R75 with a small tank, was about 10-12 miles. Much more than that, & you'll be draining pre-mix from the trials bike you're pulling on the trailer. (I'm not kidding.) DAMHIK.

Anyway, it's a great way to maximize your range, without wondering if you're about to run dry.

Jetting considerations aside, our motorpool gets oil analysis on every oil change. Someone once had the bright idea of saving money on air filters by going to the serviceable K&N's, the next cycle of oil analysis showed that silicates (grindy sandy bits) had skyrocketed. They went back to stock filters.

I apologize if this is a repeat in the forum (I couldn't get through allllll the appreciated tips), but for those who have not seen this link, it's a great resource for airheads www.boxerworks.com. I hope it is OK to post other sites here? Cheers.

Good deal, Grant. Matt is a nice guy.. I got a used left side handlebar clutch perch from him when I couldnt find one through other channels. He even sent me the little triangular bit that keep the thing from breaking in the first place.

I fill that nipple with Mobil 1 waterproof grease and wipe off the excess after pressing it into place. The grease preserves the rubber and keeps unwanted chesmo out of the tranny.

Heh heh, he said nipple!!

PhacK

You Sled Dogs suck.

WE NEVER SAID THAT WE DIDN'T SUCK!!!

PhacK

If you have an electric tach and it stops working, check your fuses first!!!

My tach on my PD just decided to stop working. After I ripped the dash apart and found nothing, I whipped out my trusty Simpson meter and found no voltage at the tach. Bike still ran so the coil and ignition was getting juice.

Replaced the second fuse, the 7.5 amp one and bingo, tach all better.

cool! - but that always begs the question to me of why it blew in the first place

Something may have caused it to blow - but standard practice is to replace the fuse. If it then blows again, then find what's causing it. Fuses, like light bulbs, don't last forever and it's a good chance IT was the failure.

It was the failure. When I put the battery box and fuse holder all back together after reinstalling my tranny, I had an issue with my power plug. So I took out the fuses to check them out. I must have had a bad 7.5 amp spare fuse in the rack and put that one back in instead of the good on.

When everything was buttoned up and I started the bike, that's when I noticed the tach was out. So of course since the bike was just in peices I started to back trace my steps but forgot about the fuse box issue.

I mean if the bike was running and everything else that I had check at that point worked, it was a little bit of head scratching.

Having spent 25 years in the phone company working in the field taught my a little about electrical trouble shooting. Took out the old trusty Simpson analog meter, you know the one with the big dial and hugh needle the has 10,000 numbers under it, yea I know how to read that thing.

I found out that I was getting a signal but no power to the tach, then I remembered about the fuse issue. I started to replace the 3 fuses in the holder and tach came back.

That 1.00 fuse saved me $267.oo for a new tach.

I spent yesterday finding out how to and not to pull the front end down pn ,y R100LT. I had th replace both fork seals. First thing you do not need to spend $80 on a huge shifter to undo the top fork nuts. I bought one thinking I had to undo those nuts. Could not get them to move at all.

Found out you undo the fork sliders from the bottom via a hex bolt that is exposed after the axle is taken out. Drained the oil out of the forks. Then the sliders slip off. Which is how I was told it was done on another forum but didn't do this to start with.

Old seals came out real easy. New ones after a wee bit of time in the freezer were coaxed into place with a hammer and a small block of wood. I have 2 blocks of wood that I could not do with out. They are used for everything from holding wheels in place on the bike while taking the axle out to being used to knock things into place.

The handlebars had to be dropped out of the way to allow access to the hex bolt at the top of the forks. This then allows you pour the fork oil in.

Cleaned the fork legs up. Started to put it all back together. Got to refilling the forks and as I did this I noticed that oil was appearing on the concrete floor. The drain bolts had been already been put back in. The left one was leaking. Took the bolt out and found that some of the thread had been damaged. Found another bolt and not no drip.

Once everything was back together and I took the bike off the main stand straight away I noticed a difference. The front end felt so much firmer and didn’t droop so much with the weight of the fairing. Sitting on the bike the front end also feels much better.

The old oil that came out of a grey colour. The new oil that went in was a reddish clear in colour.

I filled the LT up today with Unleaded. But it has 10% Ethanol in it. Is this ok to run in my BM?

Let me understand this ('cause I run dual K&N filter pods on my '82 R100)...Are you directly attributing an increase in silicates to the K&N?

Any other variables you might consider besides the K&N, such as riding in dusty environments, dirt riding, longer change frequency??? Anything else?

I'm curious because although I may concede the square OEM filter may seal better than the K&N and that's just a guess, I really cannot imagine a filter POD, appropriately treated with the oil impregnating sequence could deliver any measurable increase in silicates even on just ONE change! I cannot imagine ANY increase using the pods...it really does not compute:huh

Before anyone should be willing to diss a product like the K&N's (at least the pods) I'd say lets here more experiences...I really can't buy that story at this point!

Anybody????

Beemerdude

Anybody got a trick for mounting a speedmeter /tach housing on a 77 R100S where the plastic on the housing is breaking around the 3 mounting bolts?

here you go (but the charts are gone):

http://forums.nicoclub.com/zerothread?id=180100&postid=1864002

I do all my maintenance with the tool kit I carry on the bike. I have a fairly complete shop, but now I'm sure I have the tools to handle any task that arises on a trip, short of needing to order major new parts to install. Any time I ran across some tool I didn't have, I added it. Everything still fits in a small tool box -about 4" X 5" X 12"

The rear brake on the bike has been bugging me. No matter how much I adjusted it I could not get it to grab and well brake. So this morning at 7am I took the back wheel off and see of the brake shoes needed replacing. I was shocked by what I found. See photo below. As you will see one of the shoes had slipped off the pin. The parts of the shoes that are opened by the brake cam are not even make proper contact with the cam. No wonder they were not grabbing. I did some research on the net and found that what was fitted was a set of shoes for an earlier model R100.



I had to get the right brake shoes. I spent some hours trying to get the brake cam to open the shoes enough. But nothing I did made this happen. Thinking I had the shoes back in that I could ride the bike I rode ½ kilometre and heard this horrible grinding noise from the back wheel. Turned around and went home. I had fitted the tension springs the wrong way around and they were rubbing on the wheel which made the horrible grinding noise. Fixed this and re-fitted the back wheel again.

I went to Motohansa at Rydalmere to get the correct shoes. They of course had them. So off home I go and again not that far from home the back wheel is making some really bad screeching noises. When I took the rear wheel off again one of the shoes had slipped off the pin again.

I fitted the correct shoes and what a difference. I now have a back brake. I assume the previous owner didn’t know he/she had the wrong shoes fitted. All I can do is shake my head at this and am glad I did take the back wheel off this morning.