me and brooklyn rob was kicking back a couple of cold ones talking about my old guzzi, women and adv rider, not necessarily in that order when he said he would like to see his bike in advrider, other then when he crashes it trying to go over little hills......okay, it was a big hill or so i am told. so i offered to document his service and we could post that on advrider. no crashes, i hope. with the understanding that the service would take longer we agreed to do it. or should i say, i agreed to do it. so this may be boring. if you could give two shits what happens during the 12k service on a f650 move on. nothing to see here. if you want to see what a trained monkey looks like spinning wrenches, you have come to the right place! turn the page. or scroll down. every bike should get a preliminary test ride. it doesnt have to be long. this one was only three miles but i was able to confirm one complaint, that he had a small wobble/weave at around 45 mph. and; get it hot enough to observe the fan run and shut itself off. the other thing i really like to do is to check for any codes. that will have to wait till the end because i did not activate my GS911 in time and for reasons that will be revealed later i cannot spin the motor over now. but, his bike ran good, started right up and other then a little more backfiring then i would like, gave me no reason to suspect any problems. so with a piping hot bike, its time to change the oil. if you can still turn the bars move them over to expose these two guys on the left and right and loosen them but do not take them out. i cannot stomach it when i see a bike getting its oil changed cold. plus, i have never had a stuck filter or plug and i never change the oil cold. take off the signal mount, disconect it, do not let it hang. it could scratch something or damage the wires. before you pull off the panel make sure you remove the oil filler/dipstick. pull the panel up over the neck and put it somewhere safe. this exposes the oil bag. loosen the drain bolt with out removing it before you take it off its mounts. then remove the torx and two retaining clips and washers; one quick way to tell if someone has been hacking away at your bike is to look for the two black nylon washers. the clips are a PITA to put on if they are in place. very easy if not. but they have to serve a purpose right? otherwise the fuhrer would not have put them there! now pull the oil bag free of its posts and remove the drain plug and let it piss away. next comes the engine drain; you can snake wrench in there but if it gives you any trouble, pull the engine guard and skid plate and attack it with a socket. i had no problems and it came right out! yeah it makes a mess, nothing a can of brake cleaner cant handle. besides, i dont want to try to remove all that stuff after Rob was making little rocks out of big rocks with his engine guard!:huh shits all bent to hell! now to the oil filter; remove this; and this; and then the two lower bolts but just loosen the top one and break the seal. like so. after it is mostly drained, about one minute, i like to start the bike and let it run for 1 sec. you will be surprised how much more oil comes out. if you took the filter out, now would be a good time to clean your gargage wall! now, have a beer, eat lunch whatever. give the oil a chance to drain completely. remove the filter and you are ready to move on. thats all i have time for now. will post more later as the time allows. pardon my grammer and cheers.
i forgot to show Rob's drain bolt. check it for chunky bits of steel and excessive metal sludge. this one is fine. dont forget to check the case for the crush washer, the one for this plug went swimming next i want to dig the battery out and get it serviced so it can go on charge right away. to do that you now take the right side panel off and center one as well. this is another way to see if the techs that work on your scoot care about what they are doing; see this rubber gasket? it always either stays with the bike or falls off somewhere. its all in the details. remove the battery negative cable first and then get overflow tube. hopefully it was installed correctly and your bike is not wrotting away in front of your very eyes.:huh then you give it a bath. dirt conduct electricity and can add corrosion. then top it off with distilled water; then load test it; then put it to sleep for the night. i am going to go check on the little one to see how she is doing. more to come!
i look forward to following this thread. you're in good hands, brooklyn bob, and it was nice to meet you the other day. keep the report flowing.
i have 45 mins to kill before its time to get it done on R's bike. hopefully big brown will drop off the much needed parts(more on that later) so i can wrap up this project. but if something happens with the parts or something i know that R is not concerned as i promised him he could use my never abused, never down 03. no worries right? so, we have the lifeblood drained and the battery on the road to recovery. next up is getting to the valves and taking care of some stuff on the way. like the air horn/filter/box removal. first disconnect the air temp sensor; then remove these two small torx screws; then expose the air filter; after you remove the airfilter look inside the box, if you see and excessive amount of oil in there its possible that your bike was overfilled at the last oil change. if the oil service was done correctly and you checked it wrong and added oil then you over filled it. more on that later. R had very little oil in his, consistant with the fact that his last ride involved him falling alot. but not because of inexperience but because he is smoking fast in the dirt! so clean out the oil and deep six the air filter. next remove these two bolts; i did not take a picture of it for some reason but you can remove the airbox now and let it hang by the crankcase vent hose. stuff a rag down the throttle body so nothing can fall in there. my buddy likes to use his shop glove and put it over it. either way. i thought i took a pic, here it is; next, remove the electrical box cover; then the battery tray/air horn mount; next the throttle cable and valve cover vent hose; i use a pick to lever up one side of the clamp. once off, throw that shit away. they suck and never reseal the way they do new. a properly sized zip tie will work just fine thank you very much. then remove the throttle cable by turning the plastic knurled nut and then pulling towards the front of the bike to free it from the holder and then towards you to release it completely; now this is very important for later kiddies, make not of the hole the cable nipple lives in. why? because it can use both and goes in both equally well. but one of the holes only allows the throttle to open 1/4 of the way. very bad the first time you go to merge on the highway. i would never make that mistake... next pull off the heat shield, pull the throttle cable through its access hole. dont forget to feed it through during assembly. there is no bolts or screws, it is just a key hole and post; now pull off the overflow tank. since we are doing a coolant flush as part of the service its just as easy to pull it completely off and drain it. also, when you pull it out you will see ther is a post on the back side of the bag. if you look in the cavity the tank just left you will see a rubber grommit where that post goes. the tank will go in weather its in that post or not. get your bike back from a service and hear something clunking around or it just doesnt sound the same?; next, remove the coil holder; the coils, be sure twist them left and right to free them before you pull them up. pull them straight up, you do not want to snap the end of the plug in the coild or damage the coils. another thing is the electrical connectors. they are delicate, use care when removing; now use shop air to blow around the spark plugs to remove any debris. can you see the kamikaze bee at the base of the plug? how do they make that far in. these are questions that need answers.:huh also, since the valve cover is coming off next, i blow all around that area as well. btw, you did remember to cover the throttle body right.....? i am sure nothing big dropped in there. now pull the plugs; his looked good. nice and worn, good color and very little in the way of deposits. fuel injected bikes are the bomb. excuse me E, i meant to say, YO dis shit da bomb! did you know on this bike the two plugs fire independantly of each other? pu that in your pipe and smoke it! gotta go finish this technical marvel! more later and as usual please forgive my grammer and general butchery of the english language.
do you think damage is being done to the engine by letting it run to clear out the remaining dirty oil from the cavities? even if its only one sec? i really only crank it over till i hear it catch then kill it. i do it to every dry sump bike i work on. never had any problems, yet.:huh
i am as far as i can get until ups shows up. so i will try to catch up until they do. i did not get a picture of it, but, everything we did up to this point was to expose the valve cover to remove it and check the valves. i did not get a picture of the valve cover removal but it is straight forward and easy. just remove the bolts and take it out. this is what it looks like when you have done that; so then i finally was able to use this tool that i have had for awhile to remove the inspection/access cap. i want to apologize to anyone following this. it seems i did not capture all of the valve check part of this service. this is what is missing; 1)inserting the proper allen wrench in the access hole to rotate the motor to TDC 2)this can be determined by the cam lobes point away from their respective valves as picture above. 3)inserting the proper sized feeler gauge between the bucket and cam lobe. 10-15 intake and 25-30 exhaust. what happened at this point was unexpected. i beat the shit out of my mule and i did not need a valve adjustment until 36k. R's had two valves out of spec. both on the right hand side. so as you can clearly see, some shims will need swapped. now there are times when i will not do the adjustment like if it is a loose 30 very tight 35 or tight 10 loose 5 but this was not the case. so, the cams need to come out. also, i was not aware that bmw had switched to a shim under bucket valve design. this concerned me alot because i told R that i had a shit load of shims and would be able to turn him around no problem. well, i dont have of any of the little ones. so to pull the cams the first thing that needs to be done is to pull the tensioner bolt. and to pull the tensioner you need to move this out of the way; and to get to that you need to pull this out of the way; i smoother over this, its four mounting bolts and unbolting the fuel filter/reg and unscrewing the elec junction. then unbolt the banjo bolt on the bottom of the motor here; then remove this tiny torx bolt that hold the line next to the tensioner; then remove the tensioner bolt but not the tensioner; then unbolt the upper cam chain guide and the cam block bolts. when removing the cam block bolts i ease them out a 1/4 turn at a time in cross pattern until loose then remove them with a socket the rest of the way. then remove the bolts being very careful not to lose a washer, then the top cam block, the remove the chain from the sprockets, then the cams, then the lower block. you should secure the chain so it does not fall into the tunnel. if you drop it in there dont panic. use a magnet or long hook to fish it out the use a mirror to verify the correct orientation of the cam chain to engine sprocket. after you have pulled off the above components, this is what you will have; then remove the bucket. be very careful, the shim can stick to the bottom of the bucket then drop into who knows where and give you fits trying to find it. we turned on mc upside down using a winch and tow motor to get a shim to fall back out from the engine! hey it worked! once the shim is in your hand clean it with a lint free cloth. do not believe any thing posted on the shim if it is still readable. mic that SOB; the exhaust shim the intake so from here is where some people consult graphs and charts and do all sorts of math. or you can just minus or add depending on your spec the differance to existing shim to get your new shim size. so the exhaust is a 2.65 shim and its .05 to much so we need to add .005 to this shim. so we need a 2.7 shim to drop the clearance to 30 mm. get it? the intake is a 2.87 and the spec size is .05 too tight so we need minus this from 2.87 to get the clearance up to at least 10. because shims only run in increments of .05 i ordered a 2.8 and a 2.85. so now you know what i am waiting for! i am going to go check for the ups douche bag. the shims a shim and bucket; gotta go. cheers
The next guy that says "640's are too hard too service" is gonna be directed here. :eek1 Nice write up... p.s. the last time I had to "drain my bag" was when the doc left a stitch in after my vasectomy.
640's have threaded adjusters right? so it would be easier, but not by much... sorry to hear about your ball sack. its a standing policy i have not to let any one near mine with anything sharp!
well its 15 fucking 20 and no ups. R just called wanting to know what was up. looks like its up his right now for paying for overnight and not delivering, but there still is time. i have faith that MAX's will come through! in the mean time, let me try to finish this; so, the next major evolution in this job is to get the fork oil changed. i did not get a pic of the oil draining but you all know where the drain bolts are right? so i have to remove the fork tube tops. first take off his holder and switch mounting plate; then unbolt the handle bar clamps. you want to protect the gauges and handlebar from damage so cover everything with a protective cover and secure the handle bar with a bungee cord or what ever you have. then loosen both side upper pinch bolts; then remove the upper fork caps. be sure and lift the front end of the mc off the ground or it will collapse on you. not fun stuff. btw, if this is your bike and you do not care what it looks like then take them off with whatever you have. but most guys or gals, like to get their rides bike the way they came in, unmarred. you can save the finish on the caps, even if they are aluminum just by putting a rag over them before you remove them. like so; bmw reccomends 7.5 weight oil. and that works fine if your name is dani pedrosa and your bulimic. for the average american or worse, its just not enough. i used this; i guess it goes with out saying that i have already installed the drain bolts using new crush washers and all that. so with the fluid added, reinstall the caps. i start them with a very stubby wratchet. they are very fine thread and can cross very easily. when they are snug, i cover them with a rag and tighten them up. since it is exposed i decided to tighten the steering head bearings. remember the wobble at 45mph? so, using the rag technique, remove the upper bridge nut; then the adjusting allen bolt (more on that later); then you adjust the tightness by tightning or loosening the adjusting collar; a little goes a long way. i adjust them till the front wheel slowly drops to the left or right when in the air. it should need no prompting. now, bmw has a specific way to adjust these bearings. the only time i have seen it in action was at school. it is very scientific and worked well at school. away from school i could never get it right. i would be constantly adjusting and adjusting till i just did the way i have been doing it my whole life. i am not saying that the bmw way with the dial indicator and torque values cannot work, its just like trying to re-invent the wheel. the old way was easy and fast. then you tighten or re-install everything in reverse order. do not forget the upper pinch bolts. next comes the handlebars, and make sure you slather the bolts with antisieze! btw, on jap bikes there is a punch mark to specify the orientation of the clamps. bmw have no mark and they are directional. look at them, can you see the difference? they will go on wrong and then strip out as you try to tighten them up. when installing them, screw them in, all four, about halfway, then screw the two fwd ones till the clamp touches the bridge, then hand tighten the rears and torque them front to back to 18ft lbs. going to go and see if the ups guy dropped it off with out ringing the bell. cheers.
g&*#)^n f#&^!@g ups! still waiting. three oclock my ass! all right, we are patiently waiting, in the mean time. i had pointed out that his pads were low (15/25 front/rear%left) and he said "change em". well, we could go buy a bmw set for what, $50? for one set? my friends at www.beemerboneyard.com sell more then just used parts. they hooked me up with a set of these and are quality pieces at half the price. plus, i dont know if this is just coincidence but my brakes have stopped that horrible squealing! i always apply anti squeal, though with the beemers its hit or miss if it works. so, as part of the service, the bike must have a brake flush. and where is the most dirty brake fluid to be found? usually where all the work is being performed. here so i spray the shit out of it with brake clean and then blow it with shop air; then i attach a bleeder hose, but wait, i am getting ahead of myself. first things first, the reservoir needs cleaned inside and out and then filled with fresh fluid; looks better right?! then you break the bleader, attach the hose, and since we are replacing the pads, gently force the piston all the way back into its bore and watch all the shit come out of the hose; the pictures do not do it justice, it was black!:huh then you just keep the valve open and pump the pedal till it comes out clear. when pumping the pedal do not push it to the full extent of its travel. its not designed to go that far and can cause premature failure. now this is what it is supposed to look like; now to change the rear pads. pull the retaining pin; drive the pin out with a drift punch; remove the old pads and install the new ones. you should clean the slide pin and apply (sparingly) a bit of grease. also, check to see that the caliper slides freely in and out on the hangar. if it does not it needs to come off and appart. have fun. a clue that you might have this problem is when one pad is about 60% left and the other is metal to metal. i was going to show all the pictures from the front brakes and pads but they are almost exactly the same. now, before you bmw techs start hitting me over the head about the brake flush, i know, its not yet finished. you see, the abs pump has reservoirs that are only accessed when the pump is activated. so there is a menu in the GT1 diagnostic machine that activates the abs pump so that fluid has a chance to escape. i am going to have to do it the hard way, actually go out and make the abs kick in front and rear! should be fun... i am going to go check for the UPS guy. fuckin sound like a broken record. i have to drop the kids off at the pool so i will take care of that too!
Nice write up! I just went through this exercise myself before a long ride last week. The only thing I didn't do was adjust the steering.
Keith: This is one of the coolest threads ever. We rock. If you want, I could break some more shit for my 18k service. I'm sure our F650 brothers would eagerly await the next chapter of the saga. P.S.: Couldn't you rig up some of your numerous bottlecaps as valve shims? They looked about the right size to me. Rob
For future reference you don't need to remove the oil tank to drain it. Just put the bike on the sidestand and let it drain. The few extra drops you get out aren't worth the extra time. Of course you had to remove it anyway for the valve check. Also you can pull the cams without having to remove the tensioner which will prevent you from having to take the whole damn bike apart. It takes a little patience to get the move just right but nowhere near as long as what you went through removing everything.
I might also suggest zip tying the cam sprockets to the cam chain befor removing from the cams that way going to gether is much easier and timing is not an issue. Also plugs should always be checked after the valves.