I've been a member for awhile but haven't posted for a number of reasons some of which have been health related. Be that as it may.... I'm in my early 60's and been riding for about 40 years. I live in south Texas in the winter time and Sundance, Wy. in the summer time. I have several different bikes but was talked into buying a 1985 K100 RT sight unseen by a buddy of mine. It isn't running and will probably be a larger rebuild project than I was led to believe by my "glass is half full" friend. I've been studying the K bike and am intrigued by the engineering. This one will probably get turned into a naked standard so some stuff will probably end up in the for sale area. One question I have for you that have many miles on K bikes relates to the brakes. Is the stock setup adequate or is an upgrade called for and if so how extensive? Thanks.

I brake hard and ride fast in the twisty stuff. I have to plan ahead. I reckon the brakes are adequate for moderate riding and for which the RT was planned, but the limitations will be in the chassis/steering angle, the narrow tyres, and in the non-braced design's, mildly flexy forks and such. The later 16V models use 4 piston Brembos and larger diametre brake discs to good effect, though the master cylinder has to be swapped to a 20mm unit and the early Y-spoke wheels are of a different design so as to not accommodate the later model 3-spoke wheel's brake discs. Grab a wrecked 16V K for cheap and do a mix and match. I whacked a pair of modified Suzuki discs and 4 piston Brembos on an older Airhead which uses the same wheel design and she can do stoppies now.

Hi Dallas and welcome
I've found myself having to get used to braking hard especially twisty downhills, much more so than on my old Yamaha 1300. But once you get used to using everything to line up first, the handling is brilliant.
Hope you get her running soon
Cheers RT

Welcome aboard Dallas. Did I hear someone say stoppies!? Which model of Suzuki disc did you use TWB and what did you have to do to them?

OG

I machined 3mm off the outside edge all round to fit them into the four-pot Brembos, fabricated two 8mm aluminium spacers for either side so they'd be centred inside the calipers properly and used a larger diametre master cylinder, nearly 20mm if I remember rightly. I dunno which model Suzook since I got 'em (a set of three) from the former service manager of South Sound BMW in Tacoma. He removed them from an Airhead racing bike he'd built eons ago. They were, I recall, from an early '90s model. Yep, good stoppers!

Nice!

OG

Welcome aboard Dallas,
Looking forward to reading some of your stories of 40 years of riding.
Regards,
K-BIKE

hiya dallas ......

Hi Dallas,
Welcome to the forum, look forward to hearing about your project.

BIG D