O2 sensor.

[epilido]

I have a 2002 with 10000 miles on the clock. has been pinging under load in all gears since very early on. As soon as I started banging on it it started pinging. Talked with mully at chopperfest and he suggested checking the O2 sensor for silicone contamination.

Does any one know the duration of the sensor? Can the sensor tell one cilinder from the other? The reason I mention this is I have a 2 bro's y pipe exaust and noticed that the sensor is about 4 inches up the left side exaust. It may never see the rt exaust and all mixture changes would only be valid for the left side. Oh yeah most of the pinging occures in the rt jug....Hmmmm.

Hey steve Knapp your thoughts saw a few posts of yours on the bmwrt site about O2 sensors....

Also is there any way to test the sensor.....???

[City Slicker]

There are other threads discussing the pinging problem, but I found that adjusting the valve clearances helped reduce the problem. Fingers crossed anyway.

I am nearly through with the first service I have done on the bike since I stopped going to a BMW dealer. Very interesting getting the feeler gagues around some of the clearances. Setting the rocker endfloat and valves precisely made a huge difference to the rattly adjustment that they made. And it appears not to be pinging at the moment.

Now I'm getting into the nuts and bolts of the bike, it is seeming more logical that the pinging in only one cylinder (the right hand side) is as a result of bad air/fuel balance between the 2 cyls. I noted that this cyl runs hotter by the appearance of the header pipe from that pot that would indicate that. If the valves are set differently this will affect the a/f mix.

Why does the pinging not appear in the left pot? Answer, the throttle position sensor is on that side, and it will be getting exactly the mix that the FI system is calculating. The rh pot only gets the correct mix only if the throttle body balance is bang on AND inlet valve clearances are identical between the two pots. Now seeing as the balance goes off quite quickly (my estimate is about 2,000 miles) it is likely to be a combination of valve ajustment and TB balance.

I have been wondering why the right pot is tending to run leaner rather than richer when it does go off and my only theory is that the cable stretches or expands when hot and because the cables might not be the same length they lengthen differently; the left pot's lengthens less.

It's coincidental that the pinging appears when the engine is hot, so that cavity above the gearbox that the right cable runs through gets very warm. I know it's possible for there to be other explanations, but I'd be interested to hear an older and wiser person tell me this was not relevant....

[City Slicker]

Closeup of the Bowden Cable Divider...