https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/blog.php/36103-Frozenpoodle Kiwi Biker - New Zealand motorcycle community en Sun, 03 May 2026 15:48:41 GMT vBulletin 20 https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/images/BP-Brown/misc/rss.jpg https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/blog.php/36103-Frozenpoodle https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/4070-Lessons-and-A-Milestone-Comes-into-View Tue, 22 Jul 2014 20:47:34 GMT Image: http://projectdreambeemer.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/working.jpg?w=584 Two weeks further on and finally feeling that the first milestone is just around the corner…having the bike registered and getting number plates!! :-) I’d been struggling to refit the gearbox to the bell-housing,...

Two weeks further on and finally feeling that the first milestone is just around the corner…having the bike registered and getting number plates!! :-)

I’d been struggling to refit the gearbox to the bell-housing, not being able to centre everything just right for it to slide back together. So, using the dimensions given in my Haynes manual, Mace Engineering machined a tool to help centre the clutch assembly for me. Took quite a bit to work out the best way to hold it and tighten everything up, but eventually I got it all back together, then refitted the rest of the bike.

With eager anticipation I cocked the choke lever, pulled in the clutch and hit the start button…Awesome!! The starter motor and now the engine wind over…and over…and over…and over!! Nothing! The engine just wont fire. Huge disappointment and sadly back to the drawing board.



So with the gearbox I learnt a lesson in persistence…and breathing deeply! Now here was my next lesson in fault-finding. The process of elimination and working through things in a logical order. I instantly thought I’d missed something or not put it back together right. That wee brown wire on the coils…did it really go there!?? Quick check of the wiring diagram courtesy of Haynes…yup there is a brown wire,…and that looks like the place for it…

So, what have I got?

Starter is going, in fact now that it’s clean it’s going like a champ! Engine is turning over, so cleaning the sprague clutch (starter clutch) seems to have worked. I can hear the compression from the exhaust. So…it’s either no spark or no fuel.




I can hear the fuel pump whirring away and the fuel hose has fuel in it…as I discover by splashing petrol all over myself…hmmm. So must be electrical…spark plug check. Hmmm…all the plugs have spark. Could be a bit weak, so I charge the battery overnight and get the same result. That’s the end on of the electric line except for relay or cpu so I sit down and have a wee melt-down and a think. Has to be fuel…so I follow the sequence…pump, filter, fuel hose, fuel rail, injectors…oooh I have a spare set of injectors, as you do…maybe they’re blocked!?

So I whip them in and hey bloody presto the damn thing roars into life! Woohoo moment but still I have this uneasy feeling.

The bike starts and idles beautifully the next day and then the next and so I decide to take it for another sneaky spin just to make sure it changes gear and all is actually well. So once again all dressed to kill I rock up yesterday morning, push the bike out into the drive and with a ‘something feels odd’ feeling I hit the starter button.Dressed to Kill

Wont start! F*&K!! AArGGh!! Not AGAIN!



Hang on…I think I know what it is! I never cleaned out the hoses from the first time and the injectors must be blocked again! Straight to uncle google and youtube…cleaning fuel injectors… wow! There are actually videos on this stuff and there before me is basic rig for cleaning the injectors…I can make that! So $20 later, some rubber hose, a bit of wire, connectors and a push-button switch and I’m ready. Oh and a syringe…that was the hardest to find. Every pharmacist thinks you need it for drugs but eventually I am given one for free by a vet.




So I rigged it all up and found it was pretty easy to do…well I haven’t tested them out on the bike…that’s tomorrow morning. But I no longer have that uneasy feeling…it has been replaced by a quiet confidence and a realisation that a project milestone is about to BE.



Till next time :-) ]]> Frozenpoodle https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/4070-Lessons-and-A-Milestone-Comes-into-View https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/4047-Project-Dream-Beemer-Challenges Wed, 16 Jul 2014 10:07:35 GMT God, it's the beginning of July already! Winter seems to have set in with dreary grey days on end and none of the exciting stuff like snow or electrical storms. In my last post Mike the auto-sparky had been for his second visit to rewire the bike and return it as much as possible to 'factory' wiring. The idea being to establish a known starting point and see what improvement, if any, it made to the way the bike was running. So...

Re-connecting the fan and thermo-sensor seems to have made a huge improvement! The sensor feeds temperature information into the cpu which alters the fuel mixture according to how hot or cold the engine is...why this had been by-passed I have no idea! Not having it in the loop caused the engine to run lean all the time. Now the fan kicks in when it should and the bike idles beautifully.

The other big thing that seems to have made an immediate improvement was simply putting caps on the vacuum gauge ports (I think that's what they're called) which were sucking in air.

However...

Very excited to go for another sneaky ride to test out the latest improvements. So blasted off, all dressed to thrill and made it all of two blocks before stalling it at the lights. Wrrrr..wrrhhrrrr...wwhrrr...starter motor seems to be whirring into action but engine not turning over!?? Hmmm...ggrrr!! Pushed bike home past the builders I'd triumphantly screamed past about two minutes earlier...hard to look cool pushing a 200kg+ motorcycle on the footpath.

Out comes the Haynes with which I would well and truly be lost without. ... 'fault finding'... 'starter motor'...going...yes...two possible causes...engine seized...nope, have compression and can turn over... 'starter clutch slipping'. I didn't know there was such a thing :-) Apparently a build up of sludge and 'stuff' can cause this clutch to spin without engaging the auxiliary drive and turning the engine...Look up legend and see it's a three spanner job...oooh I can do three spanner jobs...in we go!!

The manual says that cleaning the starter clutch will solve the problemo... unfortunately it means dismantling virtually the whole bike to get inside the Bellhousing to remove and clean the said piece of offending machinery. So off I go.

Actually, I have been a bit apprehensive about pulling the bike to bits... way more than anything I've tackled before but... once started I really enjoyed it!! The thing is now in a thousand bits in neat little piles of metal and rubber on the garage floor. I kept thinking the further I got into it, whether I could actually put it all together again...

Anyway, since I was going where not many had gone before and I had little desire to venture again...I decided to renew anything I found wanting. New clutch pressure plate, cam chain and tensioner, a few rubber boots, oil, and grease. Job done...or so I thought.

Great fun ordering parts online, a constant stream of parcels arriving...a bit addictive. :-)

On re-assembling I have stumbled on a bit of a challenge with the clutch. There is the clutch housing, the front pressure plate, the rear pressure plate and the friction plate which kind of 'floats'. These three, plus the spline from the gearbox and the pinion from the engine all need to line up exactly in order to fit back together. Not to mention the gearbox housing has two guide pins on the Bellhousing it needs to line up with and also the two bolt holes on the frame. I tell ya, there has been some tanties thrown and a lot of less-than-godly words spoken and still the fuckin thing won't go on!!!! The main fucker is that 'floating' bloody pressure plate...I was advised to use my "eye-ometre" by the BMW dealership mechanic...which was all good until I tried to tighten the clutch plate bolts to torque and the friction plate would move.

Haynes to the rescue...hopefully :-)

The Haynes manual give the dimensions if you want to machine a centering tool for the clutch so it stays in place while you tighten it. There is a special BMW tool for this but it is not available to the public... that would be too easy. So a-googling I go...and discover Mace Engineering..hooray!! Medium smiles all round...$179 + GST!! You're having a lend mate!...ok...I need it...everything has stopped...so it's the only way forward and will obviously be handy in the future, so Mace will hopefully have it machined and ready by the end of the week and the project will roll on!! :-)

In the meantime I have tracked down a replacement set of switchgear for the left handlebar... in Britain, which arrived yesterday! ... and, I found REALM Engineering in the UK who make ignition leads, so I've ordered a new set of three for the bike. Cost - about $100 new and delivered, which is what it costs for just one lead from BMW!! One of mine has had a bit of a rough life and may or may not be shorting...easiest way to tell is replace it. Done!

I have also found my clip-on handle bars...but that's another story :-)

The first three blod updates were posted at www.projectdreambeemer@wordpress.com if you are interested... :-)

Cheers

J ]]> Frozenpoodle https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/4047-Project-Dream-Beemer-Challenges https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/3944-Project-Dream-Beemer Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:06:07 GMT Hi, newish to this site...have started a record of the above project so here is a link

http://projectdreambeemer.wordpress.com/

I'll start posting future updates here as well :-)

Cheers

Jason ]]> Frozenpoodle https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/3944-Project-Dream-Beemer