With the 650 your gonna need more than spare bearings *Ted ducks for cover from the 650 owners in denial *

Take a spare regulator/rectifier and a complete water pump assembly too. You more than likely will need them.

Bearings are widely available if you know the sizes but if they are fairly new then if you keep them greased the wheel bearings should last.. Headstock bearings are a weekspot on the bike too.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Hi Ted, how you liking it so far?

All of the things I was warned about on the f650 are fine, but I did move the regulator to the outside of the rear side cover and that probably saved that. (See Chain Gang for details) My bearings collapsed because my chain snapped and wrapped itself around the rear wheel at 60mph. Didn't do the bearings much good, didn't do me much good. (broken collar bone) The chain snapped because I ballsed up a corner and crashed the bike on some gravel in NFLD, Canada, must've weakened the chain.

Maybe running with no water in the radiator for a month has hardened the seals, as I have had absolutely no problems with the water pump. The f650 can survive as an aircooled bike as long as you don't stand in traffic with the engine running. This I know, I have done it after the fan came loose and tried to carve its way through the radiator one day.

The shock is fine, but did take quite a lot of adjustment to get it right to begin with, and I added Progressive springs to the front forks, also I try and miss as many pot holes as possible, those of you who have travelled afar will know what a mission that is!!!

Sprockets once they start wearing go very quickly, I suppose once the hardened surface is worn through the rest goes faster.

So for me a chain and sprocket set would have been all I needed if I hadn't made that first error. Everything else has been available on the road, .........except a new front fairing, replacement windshield, new indicator lenses, new rev counter and cable, oh and replacement pannier latches of course.... but you can't have everything can you?

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Stagbeetle

It is not the Journey nor yet the Destination, that is the Prize; it is the people you meet on the way.

Blog on http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/fairless/

Here we go again. I think we all know by now that you've seen quite a few banged up GS's. The thing is, untill you provide feedback on whether or not the person on that bike is savvy or skilled and did some preventative work you'll never be able to prove the bike is shit. This is now the second post I've suggested that to you. I've take nearly the whole bike apart to make adjustments and improvements and got familiar with it in the process. Including greasing SHB as mentioned earlier, but I'll still be taking spares just in case.
I would have made adjustments and improvements to any bike, as none of them are designed for round the world riding. God knows our old XT's were not full proof. I let Dave Lambeth do all the prep before, and I learned a big lesson about that. Not that he did a bad job or anything.


I'll get a new shock set up for the weight. OEM gear is not designed for the weight and is just asking for trouble. We bottomed out so many times on the XT's. Learned my lesson there too. A mate of mine broke 2 shocks on 2 seperate trips. One in a Dominator and the other on a Transalp.

I've got fork seals as well, but I'm reckoning that the failure can be avoided with fork gaiters. I've got the neoprene ones. I suppose I'll find out.

The GS have the VR down in front of the engine as well. Indeed not a bad idea. All the motor heat goes up and it's right in the wind. As this bike is so very heavily dependable on electrics it'll be a key part. I've got a sealed battery as well. I had a dried out one on the XT in the desert.

Exactly how many broken VR did you see Ted?

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These bikes were NEW and well maintained bikes.. What I said are well known problems so detailed case studys are a little irrelavent. PM me if you want specific details or people emails who had all these problems. Im not going to argue about it here. Its a different thread.

With the XT, i uprated the spring and it was flawless throughout South America. Thats all it needs really. Cheap and bouncy on the XT but its a budget bike.

VR's ????

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

PM sent. VR=voltage regulator/rectifier. Preventative measures for known failures are not part of regular maintenance and can't be judged without dissembly and detailed review.

Not sure on the proper technique but I suppose that excess of anything is no good.

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I know what a worn out chain looks like, and my chain was not worn out, it only had 5k on it, but as the old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Unfortunately I was in hospital and had no chance to view the offending article. I think I would call this a freak accident. I made the assumption that the workshop that put it back together would have checked out the wheel bearings during the process.

There is only one radiator, and the early model f650s have a temperature guage, not all bikes do, some just have a warning light. Maybe I stretched it a bit to say 'no water' so although I refilled her every morning and lunch time I was able to keep an eye on the engine temperature and checked the oil often, oil does a hell of a lot of engine cooling, and maybe the dry sump method has the advantage of the oil cooling somewhat while passing through the gearbox/filter/oilpump/frame before it returns to the header tank. Main thing was that the guage needle only moved over half way, point at which the fan cuts in. When I was stopped in traffic I switched the engine off and let the fan carry on to bring the temperature down. I am indebted to Albert of The Turtles Head in Quito for finding me a man who could weld aluminium, and made an impecible repair.

I carried two panniers, a 45litre top box, all my camping gear and a 65litre rucksack, plus me at 14st (200lbs) and am convinced that setting up the shock correctly at the very beginning was the key. How did I do that. Loaded up the bike and took a local long winding corner many times, adjusting up until the wobble just went away. Not sure if that's the 'book' way, but it seems to have worked for me.

Main problems with the regulator are overheating and overcharging. You can cure the overheating by moving the regulator out from under the seat where the heat builds up. Overcharging is due to small resistance build ups in the connectors over time. The regulator senses the battery charge via the ignition switch, so all the joins and connectors to the front of the bike and then all the way back to the battery add a little resistance at each and the regulator thinks the battery is undercharged. At tick over mine registered a charge of 15V, not good because it cooks the battery. There is a 'Chain Gang' fix that wires the regulator directly to the battery through an add-on relay. I never had time to do this though and had to replace my battery after about 6 months riding, but I was resigned to the fact that this might happen before I set out.

The thing is you can't carry everything with you, mine is a 13 year old bike, so I just had to take into account that sometimes crap happens, it's called risk management. So you do your best and keep focused and get it fixed.

I did not set out on my ride to prove that the BMWf650 was a good bike to tour on, I set out to find out who I really am, see the world, meet interesting people from a different culture to mine and have something worth remembering at the end. I've said this before elsewhere, but the bike is just a heap of metal, rubber and plastic, the rider is where the miracle lays.

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Stagbeetle

It is not the Journey nor yet the Destination, that is the Prize; it is the people you meet on the way.

Blog on http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/fairless/

Now that is what I call good feedback. Cheers for that.

I've got a Datel volt meter on mine. You reckon that would be able to detect over-resistance which would cause the VR to fail? Say if it's over 14.5v regularly it's time to clean out the connectors?

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