Maintenance on the F650

While I’m waiting on the fork parts to arrive, I’m finishing up the going-over-the-whole-bike-front-to-back job. There are a couple of stripped screws, but those are easily fixed.

The OEM bash plate is basically a weed guard, because it certainly isn’t a rock guard. Even small rocks would defeat it, as would some tough weeds but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. I’ve ordered the Touratech bash plate and also the adjustable, folding shift lever and the folding brake lever. I will probably put the original levers in the spares kit.

I began taking the rear suspension apart, mainly so that I could extract the rear shock. That actually wasn’t too difficult a task, but once I got a good look around I decided the automatic oiler had to go. There is a layer of dirt and dust held together by ATF that is nasty and hard to remove. Pulling the front sprocket cover showed another problem – the front sprocket is badly hooked. I’ve ordered front and rear JT sprockets and a DID o-ring chain to fix this. I’ll hang onto the chain and the rear sprocket in case some ADVer needs it.

Cleaning the gunk off the drive side and underside of the bike is slow but is coming along. I also pulled the swingarm, checked, and relubed the swingarm bearings. I also relubed the bearings in the suspension link.

Because I don’t know how long it will take to get the shock rebuilt, I made a “replacement” shock from a piece of plywood so that the bike can be rolled around the garage in the meantime. Once the suspension is reassembled, I’m going to replace the wheel bearings front and rear. At that point I have some minor electrical work to do and figure out the luggage and the bike is TAT-ready.

BMW forks – not new ones, anyway

Well, swapping the stock forks for a set of USD forks just isn’t going to work for me. I’ve sold the parts I bought, and they’ve been shipped to South Africa. Nils, ride safely. I decided to install Racetech emulators and springs, new fluid, and button them up.

While I’m working on the forks I will also replace the stem bearings. The BMW bearings are notorious for lasting only about 20k miles and that happens to be the mileage on my bike. Now is a good time to postpone that failure.

While I was concentrating on the forks I hadn’t actually decided what to do about the rear shock. Well, now I have. I’m going to have Jay at Sasquatch Suspension rebuild, revalve, and respring the rear shock. At roughly half the cost of Ohlins or Wilbers shocks, the reviews I read are all positive and he has patiently answered my questions. I ordered the Racetech parts for the forks through him.

So I’m taking a slightly different direction, but still moving forward.